How Coinsquare Built a World-Class Team of 50 in Crypto's Early Days
When your industry doesn't exist yet, you can't hire like everyone else. Coinsquare needed to build a team of 50 in crypto's early days - when crypto was fringe, misunderstood, and most candidates said no. This is how we found the believers who said yes.
Building a Team When No One Believes in Your Industry
Coinsquare needed people who could see the future before it was obvious. People with conviction, curiosity, and risk tolerance. People who wanted to help build something new – not join something already established.
3 Critical Hiring Challenges
No employer brand
No glossy office tours. No name recognition. No mainstream legitimacy. Just a vision and founders who believed.
Industry skepticism
Most candidates looked at crypto with doubt. “Is this even legal?” “Will this exist in a year?” Only a small percentage were comfortable being early adopters in a new frontier.
High-stakes hires
At 1-50 employees, every hire defines your culture, your execution capability, and your trajectory. There was no room for people who needed structure and certainty.
Bottom line: They couldn’t sell security. They had to sell possibility. And they needed people who got that.
Finding Believers, Not Job Seekers
We built a recruiting strategy for what Coinsquare actually was – a high-risk, high-reward opportunity for people who wanted to build the future.
Filter for mindset, not just skills
We led with vision, not salary. We filtered for belief in the mission, bias for action, adaptability, and ownership. These weren’t employees. They were early builders.
Find people who run toward chaos
We targeted candidates who thrived in ambiguity – people excited by emerging sectors, comfortable with uncertainty, and energized by the chance to create rather than maintain.
Focus on mission-driven talent
We found people driven by possibility instead of security. People who wanted to be part of something before it was obvious. People who would say yes to the vision, not just the job description.
From Founding Team to 50 People
Early stage (1-10 employees)
Deep network activation to find crypto-curious talent who understood the sector and believed in the mission. Every hire was a culture-defining decision.
Growth phase (10-30 employees)
Built on the strength of early hires to attract more top talent. Strong hires create more strong hires. Talent attracts talent.
Scale phase (30-50 employees)
Established recruiting processes while maintaining the same bar for mission alignment, adaptability, and ownership. Quality never wavered.
Throughout
Every candidate conversation was about trajectory, not security. We sold the opportunity to shape an industry, not a stable paycheck.
A Foundational Team That Defined Coinsquare's Success
Grew from 1 to 50 employees
Not just 50 bodies. 50 high-conviction, high-performing people who became foundational pillars for culture, engineering, operations, product, and growth.
Strong team = competitive advantage
The quality of this initial team helped Coinsquare move quickly, innovate ahead of the market, establish credibility, compete for investor attention, and build trust with customers.
Culture that scaled
Many early hires became leaders who shaped Coinsquare’s culture and execution for years. They didn’t just fill roles – they built the company.
Talent attracted more talent
As the team got stronger, recruiting got easier. Top performers want to work with other top performers. The early team became Coinsquare’s best recruiting asset.
Early hiring is about who thrives in chaos and drives growth.
When you’re 1-50 employees:
- Every single hire has massive cultural and performance impact
- You can’t sell security – you have to sell trajectory and meaning
- You need people who run toward chaos and opportunity, not structure and certainty
- Mission-driven talent will outperform credential-driven talent every time
You don’t need the best resume. You need believers.
That’s who we find. That’s why founder-led companies building something new keep coming back.
See What Other Clients Are Saying
Adam and his team helped us recruit some really great people during the formative years of Bear. Happy to recommend Linkus to anyone building a strong early- stage roster.
“You’d be happy to know that the Linkus hire is still with the company and doing very well. It’s the best results we’ve ever seen from a BDR in their first 6 months.”
