EDTH x Kooku — First Hires: Do's & Don'ts
Your first hires make or break your company. Join Kooku's Principal Consultant Martin Firlus for a practical advices on Every founder hits the same wall: you need to build a team, but hiring eats time you don't have, and one wrong hire at this stage is expensive and may slow you painfully down.
In this focused EDTH session, Kooku's Principal Consultant Martin Firlus distills 14 years and 1,200+ hires into what actually works for early-stage teams — and what just produces unnecessary headaches.
You'll leave with clear answers on:
• When to hire full-time vs. contractors — and what it means for cash runway
• The 3 KPIs that keep first hires on track (Quality of Hire, Time-to-Hire, your own precious time invest per hiring )
• How to attract strong talent with limited budget — through mission, equity, and a culture people want to join
• The do's and don'ts of your first hires
Practical, honest, no fluff. Bring your questions.
Speaker
Martin Firlus — Martin builds recruiting that delivers today and holds up tomorrow. Across 14 years and 1,200+ hires — from start-ups to enterprise — he specialises in recruiting role domains founders hire first: tech and sales/growth. His focus: pragmatic & scalable hiring systems— turning recruiting from a bottleneck into a growth lever.
Michael Budzowski — Director Strategic Sales & Partnerships @ Kooku. Michael connects founders and scaling teams with the recruiting support they need, building partnerships that turn hiring pain into measurable results.
—
Not yet part of the EDTH community?
1) Sign up to become a member here: https://community.eurodefense.tech/
2) Get free access to all EDTH Community events for one year, including hackathon demo days, webinars, networking sessions, and our flagship New Defense Summit