Your friends are terrible hires.
Not because they lack skill. Because you'll never treat them like employees.
I did it years ago. Almost destroyed friendships I valued.
You want to hire people you trust. You want to pay people you care about. You want to build something that contributes to your circle.
Then performance decreases. You avoid the hard conversation for months. The one where you have to choose: the friendship or the business.
That's when you realize what you traded.
The psychology is brutal:
→ You can't give honest feedback without risking the relationship. → They may assume friendship = job security. → Boundaries blur. "I need a week off" becomes an expectation. → Letting them go feels like betrayal.
I refused to hire friends or family for years after that. Until very recently.
The only scenario where I would do it differently:
Both of us acknowledge it explicitly upfront.
"If this goes south, we protect the friendship first. We both commit to direct feedback. We agree that performance issues get handled like any other employee. And if it doesn't work, we part professionally."
You treat them exactly like you'd treat a stranger. You hold the same standard.
Most founders can't do this. I couldn't.
Your business will demand hard decisions. Your friends deserve better than being caught in the middle of them.