What startups gain—and lose—by hiring proactively

Startups don’t have time. Not for long hiring cycles. Not for brand awareness campaigns. And definitely not for waiting around on job boards hoping that the right candidate sees their posting. So when inbound dries up, when funding windows tighten, or when a critical team member leaves mid-sprint, most early-stage founders do what feels necessary: they go hunting.

The playbook has become familiar across founder circles—identify promising candidates on LinkedIn, craft a short pitch, and reach out directly. The language is humble and high-stakes all at once: “We’re building something meaningful.” “You’re exactly who we need.” “Let’s chat?”

This isn’t a vanity move. It’s a survival tactic. It’s also backed by data. New research from Wharton management professor Danny Kim shows that startups that use proactive outreach—what the study calls “firm-driven search”—are significantly more likely to make hires. The more outreach messages a startup sends, the more likely it is to move someone through the funnel and into the seat. For scrappy, underfunded, or low-visibility companies, that kind of edge matters. It can be the difference between making the next milestone or missing payroll.

But what the same study reveals—what many founders only see too late—is that this edge comes with a dangerous tradeoff. Employees hired through firm-driven search are 77% more likely to quit early. The same move that boosts your visibility also increases your vulnerability.

I’ve lived this. And if you’ve built anything without a safety net, you probably have too. The moment you move from reactive to proactive hiring, you change the entire chemistry of your team-building process. You’re no longer sorting from a pool of self-selecting candidates. You’re now introducing people into your orbit who didn’t choose your company until you gave them a reason to. That doesn’t make them disloyal. It makes them less anchored.

When we hired our second PM, it was through one of those cold outreach flurries. She had strong execution chops, relevant industry experience, and had just wrapped up a contract role at a growth-stage fintech. On paper, it made sense. We met twice. Shared some laughs. Talked roadmap. She joined within the week.

By week four, something was off. She wasn’t jumping into design syncs. Deadlines slid. She seemed distracted. When I asked how she was finding the work, she paused and said: “I’m still trying to figure out if this is what I actually want to be doing.”

That sentence stayed with me. Because it wasn’t a reflection of her performance. It was a mirror held up to our hiring process. She hadn’t spent enough time figuring out what she wanted. And we hadn’t made her.

In Kim’s study, the behavioral explanation for this early churn was rooted in exactly that: candidates hired through proactive outreach often short-circuit their own search process. They feel flattered, validated, seen. That sense of momentum—the “this just happened!” effect—pushes them to say yes before they’ve sat with the harder questions. Do I actually want to be in a startup right now? Am I aligned with this mission? Can I handle the ambiguity?

Because the company made the first move, it creates an implicit halo effect. It feels like selection, not just outreach. And when someone says “We see you,” the temptation is to respond with “Okay, maybe I should be here.”

The result? Misalignment masquerading as excitement. And misalignment always comes with a clock.

To be fair, it’s not like startups are blind to this. Most founders I know who rely on outbound hiring are already aware that churn might follow. But they rationalize it—rightly, sometimes—by pointing out the alternative. Being understaffed is worse. The team needs breathing room. The product needs shipping. The fundraising deck needs traction. So even if a proactively-hired candidate doesn’t stick long term, having them in the seat for a few cycles might be worth it.

There’s a brutal kind of logic to this. But here’s where I push back: what happens to team morale when that new hire exits in three months? What happens to your systems, your rituals, your knowledge base? What happens when your early team starts assuming that no one’s staying? What happens when you stop believing that people want to be here—and start acting like everyone’s just passing through?

This isn’t just about hiring. It’s about trust. And startups run on trust more than they do on capital.

What Kim’s research forces us to confront is that recruiting is not neutral. It shapes not only who joins, but how they show up. When a candidate finds your company through their own curiosity, or aligns with the mission before you ever email them, they’re operating from a place of choice. They’ve evaluated. They’ve compared. They’ve said yes to you—not just the opportunity to be chosen.

That decision-making journey matters. It becomes part of their internal narrative when things get hard. “I wanted this” hits differently than “They picked me.”

So what do we do, as founders, knowing this?

Do we abandon outbound hiring? No. That’s not the lesson here. The reality is that most early-stage startups don’t have the brand cachet, content engine, or funding runway to sit back and wait. In some seasons, proactive hiring isn’t a tactic—it’s triage.

But what we can do is rebuild the process around more honest friction.

At my last company, we eventually adjusted how we handled candidates who came through direct outreach. We slowed the process down, not sped it up. We added a “search reactivation” call. We encouraged them to take a week to talk to other companies. We reframed the offer as an invitation, not a closing pitch.

It felt counterintuitive. We worried about losing people. But the ones who came back—who said, “I’ve compared, and I still want to be here”—stayed. Not forever. But long enough to matter.

We also started tracking retention by hiring source. Over time, the data confirmed what the Wharton paper suggested. Our hires from firm-driven search had shorter tenures. But when we added those friction layers—space for reflection, comparative clarity, mutual alignment—their average tenure went up. Not to match inbound applicants, but enough to reduce the churn whiplash that kills startup rhythm.

It wasn’t a perfect fix. But it gave us back some control. There’s a bigger lesson here, though, beyond just tactics. And it’s this: urgency is not an excuse for misdesign.

Just because you can hire fast doesn’t mean you should skip the emotional and cognitive work that leads to durable commitment. Just because a candidate says yes doesn’t mean they’ve processed what that yes means. And just because someone seems excited doesn’t mean they’re ready.

As founders, we’re trained to optimize every system—sales, ops, fundraising. But we often forget that hiring is an emotional transaction. It’s about identity. Belonging. Stakes. When you interfere with someone’s job search trajectory by jumping in early, you introduce a new variable into their life. That’s a responsibility. Not just a conversion metric.

The hardest part, though, is that the effects of this don’t show up in dashboards. You only see them when the energy drops in standups. When projects get handed off too quickly. When exit interviews include the phrase “I’m not sure I was ever the right fit.” And if you’re not watching closely, you’ll misdiagnose it. You’ll blame the role. Or the person. Or the market.

But really? It started with you. With your message. With your hurry.The truth is, startups are allowed to be hungry. But we don’t get to be careless. If you’re a founder reading this in the middle of a hiring sprint, and outreach feels like your only option, here’s what I’ll leave you with:

Don’t confuse availability with alignment. Don’t let flattery override discernment. And don’t mistake fast offers for strong decisions.

The person you just messaged might be brilliant. But if they haven’t asked themselves, “Do I want to build this?”—you owe it to both of you to slow down until they do. Because in the end, you’re not just hiring for a role. You’re building a company. And the only hires worth making are the ones who believe that’s what they’re doing too.