Building The ‘A’ Team

Growth is a good problem to have–if you can add enough good people to manage it.

Digg.com had that problem. Started in August 2004 by Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, founder of Equinix (nasdaq: EQIX – news – people ), Digg lets users act like editors by forwarding news stories plucked from real publications and prompting other Digg readers to comment on them. Stories that get the most votes–meaning that readers "digg ’em"–land on the front page of the site. By mid-2005, the ad-supported Web site had taken off, and Digg needed to hire a cadre of crafty programmers to deal with huge bursts of online traffic.

Then Adelson got lucky. An ad he placed on Craigslist.com caught the eye of Tim Ellis, who had dealt with similar traffic issues at Friendster.com. "We prioritized the recruitment of these individuals, knowing that this early investment in people would pay off exponentially down the road," says Adelson. Digg has since attracted 15 unsolicited offers from venture capitalists, he claims, thanks in large part to Ellis’ ability to handle all of the site’s traffic.

Tom Taulli

Full Story: http://www.forbes.com/columnists/2006/04/20/entrepreneurs-taulli-hiring-cx_tt_0421taulli.html?partner=moreover