Find the real number before deciding what you can afford, because those are separate questions and answering them together produces a figure that satisfies neither. Look at what comparable roles pay in your area, using job listings for similar work at similar sized businesses rather than national averages, which are distorted by large employers and by regions with different costs.
Then calculate the total cost, which is meaningfully higher than the salary. Employer payroll taxes, workers compensation, and unemployment insurance sit on top of what you agreed, and they begin with the first employee rather than at some later size. Add whatever tools and equipment the person needs. The total commonly lands a quarter to a third above the headline figure, and a business that budgeted only for the salary has budgeted for roughly three quarters of the commitment.
If the real rate exceeds what the business supports, the answer is not to offer less and hope. It is to change the shape of the role: part time hours at the correct rate, a contractor for a defined scope, or a narrower position that a less experienced person can fill well. Each of those is honest and workable. Hiring somebody at a rate they will resent produces a person who is looking from the first month.
Decide where in the range you want to sit and be deliberate about it. Paying at the bottom means competing with every other employer offering the same, and losing candidates late in the process. Paying somewhat above means a smaller field, better retention, and a stronger position when you ask for flexibility. For a first hire, where the cost of the wrong person is disproportionately high, paying above the middle is usually the better trade.
Be careful with the instinct to compensate a lower salary with flexibility, autonomy, or equity. Those are real and they matter, and they do not pay rent. They work as additions to a competitive figure and fail as substitutes for one, particularly at the experience levels a first year business is usually hiring.
Understand what the law requires before setting anything. Minimum wage, overtime eligibility, and whether the role is exempt or not are determined by the work rather than by what you call the position or how you pay it. Nevada has its own minimum and its own rules, and misclassifying somebody as exempt to avoid overtime is a common and expensive error.
Write down what the salary is reviewed against and when. A person who does not know how or whether their pay will change assumes it will not, and the conversation happens through a resignation instead. An annual review with stated criteria costs nothing and removes the most common reason a good early hire starts looking.
Then check your figure against what you are asking for. A role requiring somebody to work unsupervised, make judgement calls, and represent the business to customers is a more expensive role than a task based one, regardless of the job title you give it.
Budget for the increase before you need to make it, because the first hire almost always deserves a raise sooner than a company handbook would schedule one. Somebody who joins a business of one and becomes genuinely useful within six months has increased their value considerably faster than an employee at a larger organisation would, and paying them at the original figure a year later is how a good first hire becomes a former employee.