Episode 850 | How Not to Screw Up When Hiring Your first Developer and More Listener Questions (with Derrick Reimer)

How do you onboard a hire onto a codebase you built alone? In this episode, Derrick Reimer joins Rob to tackle four listener questions. They cover hiring and onboarding your first developer as a bootstrapped founder, then move into the temptation to build features just because AI makes them cheap to ship, getting past social anxiety as a founder, and whether it's worth trademarking your product name. Topics we cover: (3:59) – How do you hire your first developer?   (5:14) – Qualities to look for in a first developer hire (13:37) – Onboarding a new hire into your codebase with AI (16:49) – Reducing hiring risk: pairing, reliability, recruiters (22:50) – The temptation to build features just because AI makes it cheap (30:43) – Getting over social anxiety as a founder (35:25) – Is trademarking your product name worth it? Links from the show: TinySummit | December 5–7, 2026 · JW Marriott, Cancun MicroConf US | April 18–20, 2027 · Austin, TX Partnerships: [email protected] Idea to Traction: Stop Building SaaS Nobody Wants (book wait list) Rob Walling Newsletter Remote First Recruiting  SavvyCal Derrick Reimer | LinkedIn If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you'd like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We'd love to hear from you! Subscribe & Review: iTunes | Spotify