First 10 Hires: Barrels vs Ammo Hiring Framework | Rippling

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Land Your First 10 Hires: How to apply the 'Barrels and Ammo' framework to your startup

Download 3x founder Patrick Thompson's framework for mapping out your startup's hiring roadmap

What's inside...

What a barrel vs. ammo hire means, and why it's applicable to your startup's success
The exact order of hire Patrick made for his three different startups
Eight curated interview questions to identify "barrels and ammo" hires
Patrick's signals for when it's time to hire vs. when to keep stretching

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Picture of three pages of the Clarify's "Barrels and Ammo" framework on top of a purple and blue gradient background

The framework that will change how you hire

Four-quadrant diagram showing employee types: Barrel, Senior Barrel, Risky Hire, and Ammo, categorized by specialist/generalist roles.

Patrick Thompson a three-time founder. He’s hired over 20 people for “first 10” teams across his startups. At Iteratively—his second company— Patrick had zero regrettable churn. Every person they hired stuck with them through their acquisition by Amplitude two years in. At his current company Clarify, he's hired A-players from Atlassian, Meta, Amplitude, and more.

Here's what he’s learned: hiring your first 10 is always part art, part science. Founders are making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information, limited time, and no margin for error. A bad hire at employee #3 doesn't just slow you down—it can poison your culture, kill your momentum, and cost you the trust of your best people.

But one mental model has helped him more than any other: Barrels vs. Ammo.

It comes from Keith Rabois —legendary investor at Founders Fund and former executive at PayPal, LinkedIn, and Square. His portfolio includes companies like Youtube, DoorDash, and Airbnb.

Here's the core idea: Not everyone on your team does the same type of work. Some people are barrels —they can take a problem from zero to solved with minimal direction. Others are ammo —specialists who support and execute within a defined scope.

“Two of our first 10 hires were barrels—within two years, they were running functions end-to-end and have built out robust teams.

Patrick Thompson

CEO and co-founder at Clairfy

Your company's capacity isn't limited by headcount. It's limited by the number of barrels you have. You can add all the specialists you want, but if you only have three people who can independently own outcomes, you can only do three things at once. Add a fourth barrel? Now you can do four.

This framework completely changed how I think about sequencing, screening, and closing early hires.

What's in this playbook:

The 3-Stage Hiring Sequence: How to sequence your first 10 based on what I learned across three companies
The Barrels & Ammo Framework: How to identify force multipliers vs. executors, and when you need each
The Secret Sauce: Interview questions I use to identify barrels, assess startup readiness, and spot red flags

This isn't generic hiring advice. It's tactical frameworks Patrick wishes he’d had when starting out. See for yourself.

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