The first five hires inside any MENA-based startup either compound the founder’s leverage or break the company. There’s an order, contracts matter more than people realise, and three roles should never be hired too early. From building five companies, here’s the playbook I run on now.

Hire #1 — The Operator

Not your second engineer. Not a VP of Sales. The first hire is the operator who can run the day-to-day so the founder can spend time on customers, fundraising and product. In MENA specifically, this person is also your cultural translator — handles vendors, government paperwork, the bureaucratic weight that drowns founders.

What to look for: a senior assistant or chief of staff with 5+ years of regional ops experience. Pay them well. The leverage is enormous.

Hire #2 — The first technical lead

Or first creative lead, depending on your business. The person who can take half of the founder’s craft work and run with it. Hiring this person without the operator first is the most common founder mistake — you build the team before building the conditions for the team to thrive.

Hire #3 — Customer-facing leader

Sales, customer success, account management. Whatever flavour fits your business. The point is: customer relationships need a senior owner who isn’t the founder. Founders who keep customer ownership past hire #5 cap the company at their own bandwidth.

Hire #4 — Finance & compliance

Especially in KSA and the UAE, compliance is a real surface — ZATCA filings, GOSI, Saudisation, VAT, wage protection. A part-time CFO or senior accountant from local big-four background pays for themselves in the first three months. Doing your own compliance past series A is malpractice.

Hire #5 — The first specialist in your weakest function

Look at your scorecards. Where are you the bottleneck? Is it brand? Engineering velocity? Marketing? Hire there. The fifth hire fixes whichever wheel is wobbling worst.

The three roles you DO NOT hire too early

  1. VP of Sales (or VP of anything). Senior executives without a real org underneath them break things and get bored. Hire VPs once you have 8+ direct reports for them.
  2. HR / People person. Necessary at 30+ headcount; expensive overhead at 5.
  3. External agency for marketing. They’ll burn cash without context. Build the marketing function in-house first.

The MENA-specific contract clauses

Every offer letter and contract should include:

  • Clear notice periods (30 days minimum, 60 for senior roles)
  • Non-compete and non-solicit clauses (legally enforceable in KSA)
  • Probation period (90 days standard)
  • Saudisation status if applicable (and the cost of getting it wrong)
  • Equity / vesting language if equity is being offered

Don’t copy-paste US contracts. Get a local employment lawyer. Local incorporation matters here.

The pay reality

Senior talent in KSA in 2026 is genuinely expensive. Don’t underprice — you’ll attract the wrong tier. Pay slightly above market with strong equity. The cost difference between a B+ and an A hire is enormous; the salary difference between them is small.

The cultural fit non-negotiable

Hire people who fit the working pace and values you actually run on. Sunday-Thursday week, Arabic and English meetings interchangeably, Riyadh / Dubai hybrid travel — these aren’t perks; they’re operating realities. People who can’t run on this rhythm leak hours and energy.

The principle

The first five hires are a thesis statement about what kind of company you’re building. Don’t hire to fill seats; hire to build the foundation. Get the order wrong and you spend year two undoing year one.

Working through your first hires? Send me your org chart.