Hiring plan example for startups: a filled-in 12-month plan, annotated

This is a filled-in hiring plan for an invented seed-stage startup, written the way a founder would hand it to a board or a first recruiter. It covers eight hires over twelve months, ties each one to a company milestone, checks the total against runway, sets an interview loop per role family, and shows how the plan changed at month four. Notes after each section explain the choices. For a blank version to copy, use the hiring plan template.

What is a hiring plan, in a startup

A hiring plan lists which roles you will fill, by when, at what cost, through which sourcing and interview steps, and who owns each one. In a large company it follows a headcount budget that finance has already approved (see the headcount planning template). In a startup the two are usually the same document, and the constraint is not a department budget but runway: every hire shortens it. So a startup plan adds two things a corporate plan often skips: the milestone each hire serves, and a trigger that tells you when to open, pause or cut a role.

The company in this example

The plan itself

HIRING PLAN — Ledgerlight, next 12 months (Oct to Sep)
Owner: CEO (Ana)   Recruiting: CEO + contract recruiter from month 2
Approver: board, reviewed monthly     Last updated: Oct 1

1. MILESTONES THIS PLAN SERVES
M1  Integrations with the two largest accounting ledgers live   by Feb
M2  60 paying firms, founder-led sales                          by May
M3  Self-serve signup converting without a call                 by Aug
M4  150 paying firms                                            by Sep+

2. ROLES
#  Role                          Level   Setup     Milestone  Open    Start by  Trigger to open
1  Senior backend engineer       Senior  Remote US M1         Oct     Jan 5     Now
2  Product designer (convert     Mid     Remote US M3         Oct     Dec 1     Contractor's
   contractor to employee)                                                     term ends Nov 30
3  Account executive             Mid     Hybrid    M2         Nov     Feb 2     Now
4  Customer success lead         Senior  Hybrid    M2         Jan     Apr 1     30 paying firms
5  Frontend engineer             Mid     Remote US M3         Feb     May 4     M1 shipped
6  Growth marketer               Mid     Remote US M3         Mar     Jun 1     M2 on track
7  Engineer (backend or full)    Mid     Remote US M4         May     Aug 3     M2 hit
8  Second account executive      Mid     Hybrid    M4         Jun     Sep 1     AE 1 at quota
                                                                               2 months running

3. COST (annual base, loaded at 1.25x for payroll tax, benefits, equipment)
#  Base range            Loaded est.   Months paid in plan   Cost in plan
1  $175–195k             ~$231k        9                     ~$173k
2  $125–140k             ~$166k        10                    ~$138k
3  $85–95k + commission  ~$113k + comm 8                     ~$75k + comm
4  $115–130k             ~$153k        6                     ~$77k
5  $140–155k             ~$184k        5                     ~$77k
6  $110–125k             ~$147k        4                     ~$49k
7  $140–155k             ~$184k        2                     ~$31k
8  $85–95k + commission  ~$113k + comm 1                     ~$9k + comm
Recruiting spend: contract recruiter $6k/month x 8 months = $48k; job
boards and tools $10k. Total new cost in 12 months: ~$687k + commission.

4. RUNWAY CHECK
Burn today $95k/month. Burn in month 12 with all hires: ~$210k/month
including commission.
Cash at month 12 (plan): ~$1.3M, about 6 months of month-12 burn.
Rule: if M2 slips past July, roles 7 and 8 do not open.

5. SOURCING
Engineering: founders' networks and referrals first; targeted outreach
  to engineers at ledger and payroll companies; no agency.
AE and CS: referrals from our accounting-firm customers; outreach to
  people selling to accountants today.
Growth: referrals from other seed founders; portfolio job board.

6. INTERVIEW LOOPS (see section below)

7. OWNERS AND CADENCE
Weekly 20-minute hiring check: CEO, CTO, recruiter.
Monthly: plan vs actual in the board update.

Notes on the choices

• Every role names a milestone. When the board asks why a growth marketer is on the plan before 150 customers, the answer is M3: self-serve conversion will not happen without someone owning it.
• Later roles open on triggers, not dates. Roles 4 to 8 open when evidence arrives (30 paying firms, AE at quota). That keeps the plan honest when sales run slower than hoped.
• The loading factor is an assumption, written down. 1.25x is this company's estimate for employer payroll taxes, a basic health plan and a laptop. Yours will differ; the point is that the multiplier is visible and can be challenged.
• Months paid in plan, not annual salary. A hire starting in August costs two months inside this plan year. Adding annual salaries overstates first-year cost and understates the next year's.
• The runway rule is explicit. Nobody has to argue in July about whether to open role 7; the rule was agreed in October.

Interview loops by role family

A five-person company cannot run five-stage loops for eight roles. The plan sets one loop per role family, with a named owner for each stage, and keeps founders in every final round.

Each stage has a one-page scorecard written before the first candidate, and feedback is due the same day. Role 2 is a conversion of a current contractor, so it skips the loop and goes through a structured review of the last three months of work and a founder conversation instead.

Interviewer capacity

At peak (February and March) the plan has three roles open at once. The CTO's time is the constraint: 6 screens and 3 design interviews a week is about 6 hours. The plan blocks Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for interviews and names the senior backend engineer, once hired, as the second design interviewer from March. Without that, every engineering loop waits on one person's calendar.

The revision at month four

By the end of January the plan met reality. The version sent to the board in February read like this:

This is the part most startup plans skip. The first plan is a guess about what the company will need; its value is that it states the guess clearly enough to be revised on evidence.

Adapting the example to your startup

1. Start from milestones, not roles. Write the three or four things the company must prove before the next raise. Then list the work each one needs that the current team cannot do.
2. Decide employee, contractor or neither. Recurring core work is usually a hire; specialist or bounded work may be a contractor; some work should simply wait.
3. Price it in months paid. Use base, a written loading factor, and the number of months inside the plan year. The recruiting budget template covers the cost of finding each person.
4. Run the runway check. Compare month-12 burn and cash with what the board expects at the next raise. Add rules that close roles if a milestone slips.
5. Set one loop per role family and name who runs each stage.
6. Put a monthly revision on the calendar before the plan is approved.

If the first role on your plan is also your first employee, the paperwork and setup steps are in how to hire your first employee.

What makes a startup hiring plan fail