'The Founding Five' is a new blog series highlighting the first five hires founders have made after securing funding. As a firm that focuses solely on leading pre-seed and seed stage deals, we meet with teams in the earliest stages of their journey—many of whom haven’t yet expanded beyond the founding leadership. I often hear that the majority of initial hires are technical but in practice this varies depending on the company’s domain, the expertise of the founders, stage of growth, and go-to-market strategy.
In this series, we’ll explore the world of pre-seed and seed-stage hiring, looking closely at who the first five hires were, the sequence in which they were brought on board, and the key takeaways from each founder’s experience.
For the first installment on this series, we sat down with David Lynch, the Co-Founder & CEO of Klir, the operating system for water that digitally transforms compliance programs and operational data. Klir empowers water utilities with proactive insights, driving timely, preventative, and data-driven decisions through its unified platform.
Prior to founding Klir, David worked with the Irish Environmental Protection Agency to develop license and permitting workflow management systems, as well as the development of their technical architecture. He represented Ireland in European Commission working groups and in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, demonstrating progressive approaches to WFD implementation.
Who were your first 5 hires and can you describe their roles?
The first five roles were really dedicated to product and engineering. We hired a Product Manager, two Developers, a Quality Tester, and a Customer Success manager. This was primarily driven by the complex nature of delivering this type of software to water utilities.
Were any of these hires different to what you had initially forecasted on your hiring plan when raising capital? If so, what influenced the change of mind?
We originally planned to hire a lot more salespeople early on. But after going through Y Combinator, we quickly realized how crucial it was for the founders to be the first ones selling instead of bringing in a professional sales team right away. Our initial forecast was influenced by some early advisors/investors at the pre-seed stage, who really pushed us to hire experienced sales pros. Looking back, though, what worked best for us was experimenting with third-party contract resources instead of full-time hires. If we’d gone with a full sales team before perfecting our founder-led sales process, it would’ve been a costly mistake in both time and money. No one can sell the first customers except the founders.
How did you find and recruit them?
We were in a unique position because my co-founder and I had already run a successful services business before starting Klir. So, we had access to some great resources and a strong network from our experience in tech and consulting. The challenge, though, was that most of the people in our network had experience within big organizations, not startups. As we moved into the seed and Series A stages, we realized it was crucial to hire people with an entrepreneurial mindset— which can be with or without startup experience.
At what point in your pre-seed/seed journey did you bring them onboard?
We brought on our first five team members at the pre-seed stage and didn't grow beyond 15 employees until we reached our Series A round.
How did you approach onboarding and training with limited resources?
Our onboarding process was a lot more informal compared to what you’d see in a bigger company. But for the first five hires, we made sure the training was solid. They worked closely with myself and my co-founder and members of our previous consulting team to get hands-on experience with the water industry and software delivery. We were lucky to have customers and the infrastructure from our previous business to provide practical, real-world training – an advantage that many startups don’t typically have.
Upon reflection, is there any criteria initially overlooked when making these hires?
We made the mistake of focusing too much on specific skills rather than overall capability. Drawing from our experiences at professional organizations like Accenture, we tried to replicate the hiring processes of large companies. If I were to do it again, I would place much more emphasis on clearly defining the outcomes we want to achieve with each new hire and outlining what success looks like at the three-month, six-month, and one-year marks. This would serve as a framework to evaluate candidates based on their drive, willingness to learn, and overall attitude, rather than just their technical skills.
If anyone didn’t work out, can you share why, specifically what went wrong?
I’m a big believer that there are no inherently "bad" hires—just people who are the wrong fit for a particular stage of a company. Founders often fall into the trap of hiring for where they envision the company in the future, rather than where it is now. For example, someone who might excel at leading a sales organization at $100 million ARR is likely not the right person to take you to the Series A. It's crucial to hire for your current context luckily which we did and address future needs when the time comes, rather than trying to solve them too early.
For those that worked, keeping in mind the original hiring profile, what went right?
The people who really thrived were deeply committed to the company’s vision and mission. They had an entrepreneurial mindset, were great at problem-solving, and were open to new ideas. We set clear expectations but also gave them the autonomy to innovate, which is what made those hires so successful. Many of those early team members are still with us today. The few who moved on recognized that their passion is for the early-stage hustle—scaling just wasn’t their thing.
Anything that we missed that you want to share regarding learnings with early stage hiring?
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that after raising early-stage funding, success comes from expanding the team. But it’s important to remember that a startup’s biggest advantage is its agility and laser-sharp alignment. That’s why startups win—because a small, focused team can often outperform a company of thousands if they’re zeroed in on the right things, like delivering customer value and constantly experimenting and iterating.
If you liked “The Founding Five: David Lynch of Klir” and want to read more content from the Bowery Capital Team, check out other relevant posts from the Bowery Capital Blog.
