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Your first hires can make or break your start up. Often they come from within the Founders (or VCs) network and are relatively known entities before joining the team. It makes sense - risk is reduced, time to hire looks great and they often align with the general culture of the team.  What about the next stage though? When referrals are exhausted, different skillsets are needed and there’s not enough time to focus on growing the business and growing the team. These first ‘min

One of my favourite approaches to bringing visibility to your employees around how your company is tracking is The Balanced Scorecard. This is typically 12-16 ‘key metrics’, some generic, some unique to your business, that unify all employees and help give clarity in a sea of data points. These metrics typically fall under 4 categories (aligned with most Founder priorities) - People, Customer, Product and Financials . I’ll save Customer, Product and Financials for another ti

When looking at the People function, I’ve always categorised it into 4 product pillars - Attraction, Experience, Engagement and Performance. The ethos can be summarised by working backwards from that list - the end goal most Founders want is a high performing team. Well, to get that they need the team to be engaged . For the team to be engaged they need to have a great experience . And if you get that right, you’ll be able to attract the best talent. It’s a useful exercis

Understanding what the composition, size and speciality of your People and Talent function as you grow should look like isn’t a one size fits all approach. There is no universally accepted playbook, rather, it’s a decision covered in nuance and complexity which Founders often need to navigate alone. However, there are some guiding principles to consider as you choose the optimal path forwards. I’ll use some generic benchmarks for what each funding stage tends to signify from