#843 Bad Hiring Advice That Can Actually Work: 9 Tactics for Lifestyle Founders
Tropical MBA: Entrepreneurship & Founder Lifestyle
Dan Andrews; Ian Schoen
4.9 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dan and Ian share 9 pieces of hiring advice that are typically considered “bad,” but can actually work pretty well for smaller bootstrapped teams - and especially lifestyle businesses.
LINKS
Bento will beat your current email bill — up to 70% off or $300 in credits
“Who” by Geoff Smart and Randy Street
Remote First Recruiting: Land your next hire in 21 days or less
Meet lifestyle founders inside Dynamite Circle
Hang out exclusively with 7+ figure founders in DC BLACK
CHAPTERS
(00:03:42) Tip 1: Just Hire a Recruiter
(00:07:11) Tip 2: Work With Friends and Family
(00:10:34) Tip 3: Use AI For Onboarding
(00:12:02) Tip 4: Go Easy on the W2s
(00:14:52) Tip 5: You Don’t Need a Mission-Based Culture
(00:20:16) Tip 6: If You Hire the Wrong Person, Let Them Go
(00:22:54) Tip 7: It Doesn’t Have to Be More Than the Math
(00:25:45) Tip 8: Not Hiring Can Work Out Great
(00:30:30) Tip 9: Polarize Your Managing Style
CONNECT:
Dan@tropicalmba.com
Ian@tropicalmba.com
Past guests on TMBA include Cal Newport, David Heinemeier Hannson, Seth Godin, Ricardo Semler, Noah Kagan, Rob Walling, Jay Clouse, Einar Vollset, Sam Dogan, Gino Wickam, James Clear, Jodie Cook, Mark Webster, Steph Smith, Taylor Pearson, Justin Tan, Matt Gartland, Ayman Al-Abdullah, Lucy Bella.
PLAYLIST:
What We Learned From Running a 7-Figure Remote Business in 2025
The 9-5 is Dead, This is the Socially Acceptable Lottery Ticket
“The World Is Ending.” These 5 Businesses Are Still Making Millions
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Happy Thursday morning, everybody. |
| 0:14.5 | Welcome back to the Tropical MBA podcast. |
| 0:18.0 | The OG pod for those growing location independent lifestyle businesses. Ian, |
| 0:22.1 | I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago, and they were talking about the value of microdosing. |
| 0:28.8 | Have you heard about this? Of course. You microdose stuff? The thought occurred to me, |
| 0:33.7 | I wonder if these guys have heard about macro dosing. |
| 0:38.9 | You know? |
| 0:42.6 | That's the ticket, buddy. |
| 0:43.8 | That's the ticket. |
| 0:48.2 | You know the thing about the microdossers is I don't think they macro-dosed when they're younger. |
| 0:49.8 | And so now that's kind of where they're at. |
| 0:54.0 | Today we are going to macro-dose on some bad advice. Horrible advice. All we're going to macro dose on some bad advice, horrible advice. |
| 0:55.8 | All we're going to talk about today is bad ideas. |
| 0:59.3 | But guess what? |
| 1:00.6 | These bad ideas work just fine. |
| 1:02.7 | They work fine for you. |
| 1:03.9 | They work fine for me. |
| 1:04.6 | They will work fine for hundreds of our listeners that we've met. |
| 1:08.0 | I'll tell you the origin of all this. |
| 1:10.5 | There was a great post recently in the D.C. |
| 1:13.3 | that I was researching. It was about hiring, somebody who's great at hiring. There are a people person. |
| 1:19.5 | They love managing a team. The team all wears t-shirts with the same colors, Ian. That's just awesome. |
... |
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