In my 25yr experience as a serial entrepreneur, never hire full-time until they consulted with you for at least 6 months. So many factors can go wrong that are not related directly to hard-skills.
It's marriage essentially.. so date around!
It's marriage essentially.. so date around!
From all my experience, there are very few freelancers in general that are considering employment at all (though the percentage is slightly higher among non-devs). And for the few that are considering employment, you'd would usually have to put a lot of equity into the compensation package to make up for the (usually) significantly lower salary.
As a freelancer I've also offered that option to potential clients/employers, but clients always decline that, citing bad experiences in the past, where they've felt bait-and-switched as after the "trial period" freelancers usually want to switch over to employment.
I run my business for over 10 years and have experimented many different alternatives, for small business with no cash to burn this is probably the best advice one could gave.
Start with consultancy/freelancing reduces a lot the risks
The smaller the business, the higher the risk of hiring the wrong people. You have less money to waste and individuals have a much higher impact in small orgs.
Minimize the risk by "flirting" before commiting to hiring.