You know the feeling: a to-do list bigger than the time to clear it, and the sense that it's faster to do something yourself than to explain it. In the short term it's true. But at some point, often when the company starts to grow, you become the bottleneck.
When is a company ready for its first junior hire?
A practical test: if at least two of these three apply, it's time to look past “I'll just do it myself”:
- You spend more than a few hours a week on work that doesn't need strategic judgment, like reporting, scheduling or recurring content
- There's at least one task that comes back every week and that someone else could take over with a short explanation
- Clients, deals or decisions regularly wait because you're the bottleneck
“Faster to do it myself” is a trap with an expiry date
In the short term it's true: doing something yourself takes less time than explaining it. In the longer term your time keeps sinking into work someone else could have taken over, while the hours actually worth a founder's attention, like strategy, customers and fundraising, get squeezed out.
The fear is usually bigger than the risk
Founders considering a first junior hire mainly wonder whether it costs too much and whether they have time to guide someone. A working student can reduce both worries. Total payroll cost is lower than for a full-time hire because you buy fewer hours, not because the hourly rate is lower (the statutory minimum wage is € 14.99 gross per hour from age 21 as of 1 July 2026 [1]), and the role can grow with the time you have. Guidance does take time, and the chain rule applies when you extend a fixed-term contract repeatedly [2]. You don't need a full onboarding programme straight away: start with one clear task and a short weekly check-in.
Waiting costs more than it seems
Every month you keep doing execution work you could delegate is a month less time for the work that grows the company. Where does that time go now? Into the quote that sits for a week, the decision that waits on you, the team that keeps stopping by your desk.
Start small and bounded, not broad and vague
Don't give your first junior hire “a bit of everything” but one clear piece of ownership: part of client communication, a recurring reporting process, content production. At Hubby, a VOIDS client, working students worked as founder's associates at a strategic level. It shows how serious and bounded a first hire's responsibility can be.
What if you really don't have time to guide anyone right now?
Then you probably can't afford to wait much longer. Guiding a first junior hire doesn't have to take hours a day: plan fifteen minutes a week and hand over one clear, bounded task.
The real question isn't if, it's when
Almost every growing company needs junior capacity one day; the question is when. If you spend more than a few hours a week on work someone else could do, that's the moment to look seriously. Whether the budget is there and whether you can handle the guidance is for you to decide: start with one role and one task.
Sources
- Rijksoverheid (2026): Bedragen minimumloon 2026, accessed 11 October 2026.
- wetten.overheid.nl: Burgerlijk Wetboek Boek 7, artikel 668a (ketenregeling), geldend per 1 juli 2026, accessed 11 October 2026.
Transparency: VOIDS connects working students with organisations and therefore has an interest in this topic. We back up facts with sources and connect research and trends to our own experience from practice.
