How to hire a founder and chief executive officer

How to hire a founder and chief executive officer, step by step

Here's a step-by-step founder and chief executive officer hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a founder and chief executive officer job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new founder and chief executive officer
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a founder and chief executive officer do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a founder and chief executive officer, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A founder and chief executive officer's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, founder and chief executive officers from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list presents founder and chief executive officer salaries for various positions.

   Type of Founder And Chief Executive Officer	Description	Hourly rate
   Founder And Chief Executive Officer	Top executives devise strategies and policies to ensure that an organization meets its goals. They plan, direct, and coordinate operational activities of companies and organizations.	$51-132
   Entrepreneur	An entrepreneur is a business owner who regularly creates new ventures and sells them with the end goal of turning them into profit. To start up a new business, entrepreneurs must create business plans and acquire resources and financing while hiring talented individuals... Show more	$20-56
   Vice President, Business Development	A vice president of business development is a professional who leads in the execution of business plans and provides new business strategies for an organization. Vice presidents of business development closely work with a team of salespeople, management, and lower-level employees to secure contracts with new customers and manage ongoing agreements... Show more	$50-125

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Web Design
   • Financial Statements
   • Business Strategy
   • R
   • Business Plan
   • Product Development
   • Start-Up
   • Business Development
   • SEO
   • Facebook
   • Market Research
   • Human Resources
   • Real Estate
   • ROI

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage company expense and payroll accounts, purchase and deliver materials to job-sites, and business administrative services simultaneously.
   • Experience writing SQL queries, store procedures, views, and reports.
   • Founder of LLC youth recreation and sports development organization that provides recreation and sports training and opportunities.
   • Introduce the new UNIX windows interfaces and report generator at various conventions and meetings around the country.
   • Configure and install protocols on server side and client side using SQL server client and server configuration tools.
   • Founded, start up and successfully operate SPEI, LLC, an engineering, quality assurance and risk management consulting firm.

   More founder and chief executive officer duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your founder and chief executive officer job description is one of the best ways to attract top talent. A founder and chief executive officer can vary based on:

   • Location. For example, founder and chief executive officers' average salary in mississippi is 54% less than in new jersey.
   • Seniority. Entry-level founder and chief executive officers 61% less than senior-level founder and chief executive officers.
   • Certifications. A founder and chief executive officer with certifications usually earns a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for an established firm or a new start-up company can make a big difference in a founder and chief executive officer's salary.

   Average founder and chief executive officer salary

   $171,886yearly

   $82.64 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level founder and chief executive officer salary

   $107,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 26, 2025

   Average founder and chief executive officer salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	New York	$218,731	$105
   2	California	$190,354	$92
   3	California	$190,317	$92
   4	California	$190,311	$92
   5	California	$190,273	$91
   6	California	$189,633	$91
   7	Massachusetts	$188,342	$91
   8	Illinois	$168,296	$81
   9	Oklahoma	$96,326	$46

   Average founder and chief executive officer salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	UpGuard	$195,315	$93.90
   2	Career Company in Silicon Valley	$187,180	$89.99	9
   3	Village Green	$40,781	$19.61

4. Writing a founder and chief executive officer job description

   A good founder and chief executive officer job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a founder and chief executive officer job description:

   Founder and chief executive officer job description example

   Who We Are:
   AI Fund is a venture studio that systematically creates and launches new companies that bridge the gap between AI technology and applications to push humanity forward. We harness artificial intelligence to create innovative solutions for the big challenges of today. With the collective aspirations of our co-founders, we build companies from inception to market launch. We innovate, ideate, and validate to address some of the most pressing issues in human capital, healthcare, wellness, and other traditional industries.
   
   Founded in 2017 by Dr. Andrew Ng, the $176 million-dollar funded venture studio is backed by top-tier VC firms and investors, along with the AI Fund teams' combined experiences as AI pioneers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and operators.
   
   About Zest:
   Zest is an AI Fund company that includes innovators from diverse backgrounds who strive to make a meaningful impact on a health concern that affects 2/3rds of the US population.
   
   Zest's mission is to improve the lives of users by guiding them through incremental lifestyle changes that build healthier habits resulting in natural and sustained weight loss. This is accomplished through evidence-based education, cognitive-behavioral interventions, and building healthier habits through daily guidance and progress tracking. The approach has been shown to shift the user's mindset, making willpower unnecessary for behavioral change.
   
   Zest partners with other health, wellness, and related providers (ex: insurance companies) to distribute their mobile health solutions at scale.
   What You Will be Doing:Business Strategy and Planning. You will help shape Zest's overall company strategy. This includes positioning, go-to-market, and monetization strategies for consumer-facing digital products distributed through business partners (B2B2C). You will identify Zest's core strengths and weaknesses and develop a business model that enables Zest to sustain a competitive advantage. This includes segmenting customers into highly targetable markets and developing a sustainable expansion strategy for growth.Executive leadership. You should be able to manage and grow a small startup team to scale. You should have prior experience managing and mentoring teams in both vertical and horizontal company structures. You will also help Zest put in place sound management systems and processes to ensure smooth operations of the organization. Marketing and Customer Acquisition. You should have a deep understanding of consumer psychology, preferably with experience in health and wellness segments. You should be able to build and retain massive online audiences through B2B2C partner relationships, as well as through earned, paid, and social media channels. You should be data-driven and be able to drive execution to hit challenging KPIs that accelerate user growth.
   Must Haves:Demonstrated success in an early-stage venture, either as founder, employee, or advisor.Passionate about health, wellness, and an interest in holistic weight management.Executive management experience growing small teams in uncertain, fast-moving environments.B2C and/or B2B2C marketing experience, B2B partner building, and multi-channel user acquisition.Proven ability to drive business strategy, make difficult trade-offs, and focus limited company resources on the most important issues.Experience raising funds through reputable venture capitalists.
   Nice to Haves:Experience in mobile and online services with user-centered design. Ideally with an engineering/technical background.Experience founding, funding, and growing successful startups.Background in psychology, health, fitness, or another health-related field.
   Characteristics:Accountability: An obligation to accept responsibility and account for one's actions with the highest regard for integrity. Leadership: Establishes a vision and inspires and motivates the team to achieve that vision. Grit: Pushes through challenges to reach successful outcomes and performs well under pressure.Scrappy: Takes initiative to get things done with limited resources and in an ambiguous environment or situation.Ownership orientation: Results-driven by nature with the demonstrated orientation of ownership over all aspects of the company.Diversity and Inclusion: At Zest, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants. Zest believes that diversity and inclusion among our employees are critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.
   At AI Fund, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation, and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. AI Fund believes that diversity and inclusion among our employees is critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop, and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.

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5. Post your job

   To find founder and chief executive officers for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:

   • Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
   • Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any founder and chief executive officers they would recommend.
   • Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level founder and chief executive officers with the right educational background.
   • Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your founder and chief executive officer job on Zippia to find and recruit founder and chief executive officer candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting founder and chief executive officers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   Remember to include a few questions that allow candidates to expand on their strengths in their own words. Asking about their unique skills might reveal things you'd miss otherwise. At this point, good candidates can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new founder and chief executive officer

   Once you've decided on a perfect founder and chief executive officer candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   It's also important to follow up with applicants who do not get the job with an email letting them know that the position is filled.

   After that, you can create an onboarding schedule for a new founder and chief executive officer. Human Resources and the hiring manager should complete Employee Action Forms. Human Resources should also ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc., and that new employee files are created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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