Startup, Friend, Salary, and New Employee

Using your friend in your business is a good idea and you can let me him groom with more of your help and slowly engage him in strategic planning once you think he is confident enough and you have build reasonable trust. And if you think that he will persistently look for a job in his field of study and may dump you on a better offer, then you may try to hire a free lance contractor who has such experience and make a proposal of sharing benefits at a certain percentage with him. Make sure you make it legal!

Remember you are already making enough money that even if you spend 30% on salary to improve your business, its worth the hire.

What you should do nobody can answer that for you.

Still, you can do some things. Besides technical expertize, the human factor is very important for any organization, even more for a small one. If he's honest, willing to work and to learn, he's an asset.

Is there a chance your friend is willing to take some course to improve his technical knowledge in the network field? Perhaps he could be willing to change his career. Since he already knows your business, he could build on that.

Another hypothesis you have is to find someone with expertize on the technical field. Either an experienced person, probably more expensive, or a recent graduate, cheaper. The former would probably get you a quicker answer to your needs. The latter, someone willing to learn, could prove to be an evolving solution.

Don't feel bad about paying someone with more expertise. This happens all the time in business.

If you need another employee with specific technical knowledge than pay them. They will be adding more value than your friend by building the product not just answering tickets.

As an aside, you don't have to disclose what you pay your employees. That's a private matter.

If you friend is a partner or can gain salary knowledge, then you have to explain to them that you are hiring an expert and they get paid more. In the end, it adds more value to the business and they should get that.

If they don't, then you hired the wrong friend.

Good luck.

When it comes to business, you have to learn to separate friendships and business relationships. You pay someone for the value they provide to the company. It is irrelevant if this person is your friend or just an employee.

A lot of us helped out our friends and looks like in this case there was no expectation of full time employment, so you need to move on and do what is the best for your business.

Also, realize that $5K per month budget has to include all the taxes, insurance, etc. So what you realistically looking at is about $7.5K per month.

Here's a potentially relevant post ("demoting a loyal friend") on what to expect in this situation.

In your case, your friend is part time - but what is not clear is that after you hire the full-timer, do you still need his assistance? Is s/he going to stay on and report to this full-timer?

Once you figure this out, I would have a sitdown with your friend and explain that the function the full-timer will perform is critical for future growth and the company requires someone with their level of experience to commit to the company. If your post full-timer plans include your friend working with the company, I would ask your friend to work on bringing this full-timer up to speed, and clarify the part-time role moving forward.

Best of luck with this difficult discussion.