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Your First Hire: The Decision That Determines Your Company's Ceiling with Kabir Shahani

Your First Hire: The Decision That Determines Your Company's Ceiling

You're drowning in growth. Every decision lands on your desk. You know you need help, but the thought of handing off terrifies you.

Some founders hire and scale beautifully. Others hire and stall. The difference isn't luck—it's who you bring in first and how you set them up.

What You'll Learn
  • What actually breaks at your stage—and who solves for it--Most founders misdiagnose the problem. We'll walk through the pattern: what slows you down first, why experience ≠ fit, and the questions that separate real bottlenecks from false ones.
  • How to spot adaptability over credentials--The person who crushed it at a $500M company might be lost at $5M. You'll learn what actually predicts success in chaos—and how to evaluate judgment, not just résumé.
  • Why hiring your clone fails--Your instinct is to find someone just like you. That's usually where founders go wrong. We'll discuss how to hire your complement.
  • Real war stories: what happened when it worked (and when it didn't)

The decisions you make before day one determine whether they accelerate or stall. We'll cover compensation, decision rights, and what you hand off completely.


Speaker

Speaker avatar

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Kabir Shahani
Advisor, Investor, Entrepreneur.
Kabir Shahani is a seasoned technology entrepreneur and investor with a track record of building transformative software companies. He founded and served as CEO of Amperity, a leading enterprise customer data platform that helps brands unify and activate their customer data. Under his leadership, Amperity grew to serve more than 400 major brands and is valued at more than $1B. Prior to Amperity, Kabir founded Appature, a marketing automation company that sold to a publicly held holding company, where he went on to lead their $300M+ revenue software business. He's raised more than $250M+ in capital and served on several company boards.

Today, Kabir dedicates his time to supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs through Amp It Up Ventures, which incubates new companies and supports high-growth software businesses. Through Amp It Up Ventures, Kabir serves as Co-Founder and active participant in innovative AI-driven companies. He currently serves as Executive Chair at Avante, a Generative AI software platform that helps organizations better understand and optimize employee benefits, and at Adora, a Generative AI software platform that creates advertisements for companies within seconds, significantly reducing the time and cost typically associated with ad creation and placement.

06

Feb

Fri

in-person

  • WHERE

    Seattle

  • WHEN

    12:00 AM - 3:00 AM

  • SPEAKER

    Kabir Shahani

You must be Pre-Qualified to Register

Apply Now

01

all founders,
not just ceo
People inclined to be Founders are a rare breed, and are hard to spot in society. We welcome ALL Founders, regardless of role, and generate proprietary profiles for every member so you can easily find your next team member or co-Founder.

02

current founders
Regardless of where you are on your journey, Founders share a unique set of challenges. Hiring, leadership, managing investors, developing products, handling customer issues, external communications, etc. This community exists to amplify your success.

03

TRANSITIONING FOUNDERS
So you’ve founded at least one company, and now you’re looking to refine your next great idea or find the perfect co-founder. Share and learn from a wide array of talented Founders in your area.

04

CURIOUS FOUNDERS
Congratulations! You’ve found success as a Founder and are now getting curious about doing it again. Now you need to find the right idea and co-founder to excite you. Share your wisdom and passion while forming new bonds within the startup ecosystem in your area.

To Pre-Qualify for participation, please fill out an application

Apply Now