I run a tech startup that's grown to $20M ARR. While we are relatively big, we are incredibly cash strapped till Q3 due to debt we took on last year and are currently paying back.

We've built a mostly B or C team, and it really annoys me. We are slow, we are not up for big challenges, and people are, on average, not that brilliant. Our of our nearly 120 employees, I think I have ONE A player. However, they are also functioning at 60%.

In Q3, I'll finally have a large budget to sit and focus on building out our team. Now I'm trying to figure out: what are the optimal circumstances? We really screwed it up with our first batch of key hires after our seed round: US Product Manager, US Head of Customer Success - quit; US Head of Sales, US Head of Engineering - fired.

Today we are fully remote, should I get an in person office going? In general, which city should I hire talent from? I live in San Francisco and sometimes LA, but find the culture here generally too laid back. New York? But to keep a high quality, let's say, marketer, interested long term, they're going to want $200-220k base (and that's not even that competitive). Which is fine, but that will slow down hiring. London? I found some interesting programs where I can hire Oxbridge grads interested in startups for $40k USD (update: with a bit of professional experience; the program sets 1st year pay @ $40k but I'd gladly 3/5X their pay if they work out.) In terms of budget, I'd love to aim for $180k/key hire and to go as high as $300k if appropriate.

As for what exactly I'm trying to hire for, lots of key hires: department heads, digital marketers, content people, engineers, AI engineers, operations people, strategy people, and more.

I don't know enough about all the working cultures in these places, but I want to find and incentivize people who are willing to own and take responsibility for an area of the business, be trusted to make good decisions, and view it as their responsibility to improve their areas drastically, more than the typical 9-5.

What do you think?

Also, any other practical tips for finding awesome people like this?