When should a startup hire a product leader?
When the founder is the bottleneck on roadmap decisions for more than a quarter, and the cost of slow decisions outweighs the cost of the hire.
The bottleneck test
If product decisions consistently wait on the founder and slip, the team is paying a daily tax. A product leader who can make those decisions in the founder's stead pays for themselves quickly.
What the wrong hire looks like
Hiring a product leader to compensate for missing strategy. The leader will be set up to fail because the bets haven't been made.