If you're hiring someone to take a job off your hands, spend some time doing it first. You need enough understanding to judge the work you're handing over.
At RealHub, my brothers and I knew how to put a sign into the ground. We knew how to print brochures and crop them. We could film video and colour grade it. We understood the business from the work on the ground through to the software we built around it.
That mattered when something went wrong. We could work out what had happened and help fix it, because we'd done the work ourselves.
It's tempting to hire someone who understands an area you don't, then leave the whole thing with them. Marketing, for example. They know how it works, you've got other things to do, and it feels like you've solved the problem.
But when they tell you something can't be done, how do you judge that? Without a foundation of your own, you're relying on their explanation. They might be right. They might also be giving you an excuse you don't know enough to question.
The other test comes when someone doesn't show up or walks away. If you understand the job, you can step in or guide the people who are still there. You'll have a hard day, but you can keep the business moving.
That same understanding helped us build software. We took a signboard installation and printing business and built a software company while the existing operation kept running. We knew the industry and its problems because we'd worked in it ourselves.
So before you hand a role over, learn how the work gets done and where it goes wrong. You need enough understanding to question an explanation, help someone through a problem and keep going when they're unavailable. That's worth having even after you've hired someone better at the job than you.
