Should I hire my first employee?

Most owners ask this question too late. By the time it feels urgent, you are already turning down work, answering email at midnight, and doing jobs you could pay someone else to do for far less than your own hour is worth.

Here is a plain way to decide.

1. Start with the price of your own hour

Take what you want to earn in a year and divide it by the hours you actually work. If you want to earn $200,000 and you work 2,500 hours, your hour is worth $80.

Now list the jobs you did last week. Mark every one you could pay someone $25 to $35 an hour to do. Each of those hours costs you the difference. That gap is the first sign you are ready.

2. Know the real cost, not just the wage

The paycheck is not the whole cost. Across private employers in the United States, wages and salaries are about 70% of what an employee costs, and benefits (paid leave, insurance, retirement, and required payroll taxes) are the other 30%. In June 2026 that averaged $32.82 an hour in wages and $14.07 an hour in benefits, for $46.89 an hour in total.

Your numbers will differ, but a simple rule holds: plan for the total, not the wage.

3. Ask what the hire buys back

A first hire pays off in one of two ways:

• More revenue. The person does work you can sell, or frees you to sell more.
• More of your time. The person takes work off your plate so you can spend it on the jobs only you can do.

Write down which one it is, and how you will know in 90 days. "I will spend 10 more hours a week on sales calls" is something you can check. "Things will feel calmer" is not.

4. Check that you can carry it for six months

New hires take time to get up to speed. Before you hire, check that the business can cover the total cost for at least six months even if the extra revenue is slow to arrive. If it cannot, a part-time role or a contractor for a set project may be the better first step. (Whether someone counts as a contractor or an employee is set by law, not by what you call them, so check with your accountant.)

5. Know the paperwork

Hiring an employee in the United States comes with a short list of first steps. The IRS lists Form I-9 to confirm the person can work in the U.S., a signed Form W-4 for tax withholding, and the employee's name and Social Security number for their W-2. Federal law also requires employers to report each new hire to their state, and each state has its own rules on top. A payroll service can handle most of this for you.

The short answer

Hire when the work you should not be doing costs you more than the total cost of the person doing it, when you can name what they will buy back, and when you can carry the cost for six months. If two of those three are true, you are close.