Helpful, not required on day one. We work in Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and similar tools — or start clean in Slack and email while you choose a stack.

Startup recruiting for founders

You need hires. You don't need a full-time recruiter yet.

Masarna gives Seed–Series B founders senior recruiting support without permanent headcount — a success-based search for one critical hire, or fractional and embedded capacity when hiring is ongoing.

Discuss your open role See how we work

25 minutes · Talk with someone who has done this work

The trigger

Built for the moment recruiting becomes founder work.

You're the recruiting function. Sourcing, screens, and scheduling are competing with product, fundraising, and customers — and the pipeline still feels thin.
You're getting resumes, not ownership. Profiles arrive without context or scorecard fit, and nobody is accountable for moving candidates week to week.
Not ready for a $150k+ in-house hire. You need senior recruiting capacity now, without adding permanent headcount before the hiring volume justifies it.
Priority roles are stuck. 1–5 critical seats are open, feedback is slow, and no one owns follow-up between the founder and hiring managers.

Roles we run

Early-company roles where a wrong hire is expensive.

We focus on the seats that define your next chapter — not every job family under the sun.

Founding and early engineering: Builders who can ship with ambiguity, own systems, and raise the bar for the next ten hires. Founding Engineer · Full Stack · Backend · Infrastructure · Engineering Manager
First GTM seats: Commercial hires who can create process, not just inherit it — often your first AE or sales leader. Account Executive · SDR · Sales Lead · Customer Success
Operator and leadership roles: People who install judgment into the org: product, people, and leadership seats that shape how the company works. Product Manager · Head of People · COO · functional leaders

How Masarna shows up

A senior recruiter owns the search — without a full-time hire.

Calibrate with the founder
We lock must-haves, tradeoffs, compensation reality, and what “great” looks like for each role before outreach starts.
Source and screen end-to-end
Outbound, inbound, and referrals — every candidate is screened against the scorecard before you spend interview time.
Run the loop in your tools
Candidates, notes, and weekly updates live in your ATS, Slack, inbox, and calendar. No new software for your team.
Stay accountable weekly
You get pipeline truth: who was sourced, who advanced, what's blocked, and what you need to decide next.

What changes

What founders get back when recruiting is owned.

Founder hours returned to product, customers, and fundraising
Screened shortlists instead of LinkedIn dumps
Interview loops that move without you chasing every update
A senior recruiter who already knows your stage and constraints
Support sized to the work — one search, or ongoing capacity as hiring grows

Questions

Startup recruiting, answered.

We're pre-product / pre-seed. Is Masarna too early?

If you have one or two priority roles and a founder stuck owning the search, we're usually a fit. If hiring isn't real yet, we'll tell you to wait.

How is this different from a recruiting agency?

Do we need an ATS?

How fast can we start?

Stop running recruiting alone.

25 minutes · Talk with someone who has done this work. Tell us which roles are open and we'll recommend a success-based search, fractional hours, or embedded support for your stage.

Discuss your open role

25 minutes · Talk with someone who has done this work

Startup recruiting for founders

You need hires. You don't need a full-time recruiter yet.

Discuss your open role See how we work

25 minutes · Talk with someone who has done this work

The trigger

Built for the moment recruiting becomes founder work.

You're the recruiting function. Sourcing, screens, and scheduling are competing with product, fundraising, and customers — and the pipeline still feels thin.
You're getting resumes, not ownership. Profiles arrive without context or scorecard fit, and nobody is accountable for moving candidates week to week.
Not ready for a $150k+ in-house hire. You need senior recruiting capacity now, without adding permanent headcount before the hiring volume justifies it.
Priority roles are stuck. 1–5 critical seats are open, feedback is slow, and no one owns follow-up between the founder and hiring managers.

Roles we run

Early-company roles where a wrong hire is expensive.

We focus on the seats that define your next chapter — not every job family under the sun.

Founding and early engineering: Builders who can ship with ambiguity, own systems, and raise the bar for the next ten hires. Founding Engineer · Full Stack · Backend · Infrastructure · Engineering Manager
First GTM seats: Commercial hires who can create process, not just inherit it — often your first AE or sales leader. Account Executive · SDR · Sales Lead · Customer Success
Operator and leadership roles: People who install judgment into the org: product, people, and leadership seats that shape how the company works. Product Manager · Head of People · COO · functional leaders

How Masarna shows up

A senior recruiter owns the search — without a full-time hire.

Calibrate with the founder
We lock must-haves, tradeoffs, compensation reality, and what “great” looks like for each role before outreach starts.
Source and screen end-to-end
Outbound, inbound, and referrals — every candidate is screened against the scorecard before you spend interview time.
Run the loop in your tools
Candidates, notes, and weekly updates live in your ATS, Slack, inbox, and calendar. No new software for your team.
Stay accountable weekly
You get pipeline truth: who was sourced, who advanced, what's blocked, and what you need to decide next.

What changes

What founders get back when recruiting is owned.

Founder hours returned to product, customers, and fundraising
Screened shortlists instead of LinkedIn dumps
Interview loops that move without you chasing every update
A senior recruiter who already knows your stage and constraints
Support sized to the work — one search, or ongoing capacity as hiring grows

Questions

Startup recruiting, answered.

We're pre-product / pre-seed. Is Masarna too early?

If you have one or two priority roles and a founder stuck owning the search, we're usually a fit. If hiring isn't real yet, we'll tell you to wait.

How is this different from a recruiting agency?

Do we need an ATS?

How fast can we start?

Stop running recruiting alone.

25 minutes · Talk with someone who has done this work. Tell us which roles are open and we'll recommend a success-based search, fractional hours, or embedded support for your stage.

Discuss your open role

25 minutes · Talk with someone who has done this work

You need hires. You don't need a full-time recruiter yet.

Built for the moment recruiting becomes founder work.

Early-company roles where a wrong hire is expensive.

A senior recruiter owns the search — without a full-time hire.

Calibrate with the founder

Source and screen end-to-end

Run the loop in your tools

Stay accountable weekly

What founders get back when recruiting is owned.

Startup recruiting, answered.

Stop running recruiting alone.

You need hires. You don't need a full-time recruiter yet.

Built for the moment recruiting becomes founder work.

Early-company roles where a wrong hire is expensive.

A senior recruiter owns the search — without a full-time hire.

Calibrate with the founder

Source and screen end-to-end

Run the loop in your tools

Stay accountable weekly

What founders get back when recruiting is owned.

Startup recruiting, answered.

Stop running recruiting alone.