There's a problem for a newbie or budding entrepreneur, though.
How do you know you're any good at hiring if you've never done it before? By English's admission (and many other wizened ones), that first hire is very, very crucial to your startup's success.
If you've never done it before, you'll probably be terrible. I was the first time I interviewed someone (and the second, and ...) despite all the preparation I did. If you're in a position to do hiring interviews for your employer, definitely do it - not only will you get better at it with practice, but you'll probably better on the other side of the table, too.
Entirely right, experience is huge. That said, I cut my teeth growing an engineering organization from 2 to 50+ when I left. For our first hires we interviewed a LOT. We we're incredibly inefficient, but it paid off. Those first hires are still with the company 6 years later. We didn't get fancy, we simply tried to hire the smartest people we could find.
Today I'm much more efficient and a bit more nuanced in how I conduct interviews. I'm intentionally casting a wider net these days. In those first interviews we did a lot of basically language trivia. It excluded some smart folks, but seemed to select those who really knew what they we're doing.
Also, you might find that there are startups willing to let you sit-in on their interviews. You get to see how they do it, they get an outside voice. I've done this a few times and it's really helpful.