I agree with the idea that specialists are probably not a good fit for an early stage startup. There are a lot of hats to wear. But front-end vs back-end is a false dichotomy.
If you can get your hands on a brilliant illustrator who can also do pixel icon design as well as strong layout and UX , then even if their HTML skills are shakey they're going to be a strong asset. Similarly, if you have a back-end dev who writes really solid, performant, maintainable code and can handle infrastructure and sysadmin work (eyeballs drifting involuntarily in Zed's direction) then who cares if he has no experience stitching together CRUD apps with the framework dujour.
In other words, hire the best people you can get your hands on and put their skills to use.
This has been proven time and time again that people that grab the top talent in a limited talent pool (rather than trying to address their perceived needs) are the most likely to succeed.
The best analogy is sports. In (American) football, the Colts' Bill Polian regularly uses this strategy in the draft. In football, ManU's Sir Alex has a strategy to acquire what he calls "characters." While you may not like either of these teams (I love them both! :) you cannot deny that they have been among the most dominant franchises under their managers.
The real challenge is to somehow identify the best talent! :)
If you can get your hands on a brilliant illustrator who can also do pixel icon design as well as strong layout and UX , then even if their HTML skills are shakey they're going to be a strong asset. Similarly, if you have a back-end dev who writes really solid, performant, maintainable code and can handle infrastructure and sysadmin work (eyeballs drifting involuntarily in Zed's direction) then who cares if he has no experience stitching together CRUD apps with the framework dujour.
In other words, hire the best people you can get your hands on and put their skills to use.