Beyond the Founder’s Network: How to Scale from 10 to 50 Employees

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 ‘mini scaling’ periods are just as critical for your success as you go from 10-30, 30-50 employees etc. 

So - what are the steps we need to take? (spoiler - there isn’t a one size fits all solution)

Step 1 - Get the fundamentals in place 

TLDR: Build an authentic careers site, setup your ATS, establish your process fundamentals and understand your Value proposition 

1. Careers Site - nothing crazy, but a destination candidates can go to to get an authentic feel for what it’s like to work at your company. Perhaps a ‘Meet the Team’ video and a couple of interviews with some of the founding team. The key here is to go authentic, not super polished. 

2. ATS Implementation - there are plenty of cost effective options for start ups that provide you with everything you’ll need - pipeline management, feedback capture, high level reporting. Most pricing scales with you so it’s beneficial to pick one you’re happy to stick with for the foreseeable future to avoid time consuming migration projects later. Workable, Ashby and Greenhouse are all reputable starting points.  

3. Process Fundamentals - inconsistent processes are a candidate experience killer. Spending that 30 minutes at the start to define your process, standardise your interview questions and make sure the team is aligned pays dividends from an experience and quality of hire perspective. 

4. Compensation Philosophy - this is a common source of People Debt down the line. Understanding the percentile you want to focus on, whether stock options/LTIPs play a role in the package and the overall value proposition you’re offering helps to avoid difficult situations down the line. 

Step 2 - Fill the Roles

TLDR: Headhunting is the number 1 skillset we need, but there are complimentary steps we should take 

1. Headhunting - this is the number 1 skillset you need to solve for. You need a storyteller who can engage candidates with your mission and get them speaking to you and the team. The most common tool is LinkedIn Recruiter - the Lite version comes with 30 Inmails and is much more budget friendly. That said, the general ethos needs to be approaching potential employees where they are. Not everyone spends time on LinkedIn so taking an innovative approach is key.\

2. Job Boards - I recommend just using LinkedIn at this stage, and sparingly, given likely budget considerations. You typically get 1 free posting and then follow a PPC model (until you get to Enterprise level but that’s irrelevant for now). You can use your Linkedin company page to advertise open roles in a more cost effective way. 

3. Referrals - make sure everyone in the team knows what we’re looking for, with a structured incentive program in place. One thing to be cautious of is relying solely on referrals from a diversity of thought and experience perspective.

4. Events - heavily dependent on your roles but university events, trade shows and industry focused events (like Silicon Milk Roundabout for tech scale ups) can often reap rewards alongside helping you build your brand.

5. Social Networks - creating collateral for the existing team to share with their networks. The key focus, like with the careers page, is authenticity and building a narrative that candidates engage with. 

6. Leveraging Recruitment Agencies - whilst expensive, there are scenarios where tapping into a niche network with an expert that’s spent significant time building a brand is the best way forward 

Ultimately when going through these ‘mini scaling’ periods 99% of the effort can go unrewarded in the short term - the problem is, we don’t know the 1% that’s going to lead to the results (until we gather enough data thanks to setting up our infrastructure in Step 1 and seeing what’s really resonating)! 

However, ensuring we have the fundamentals in place from step 1, and then taking the omnichannel approach in step 2, we maximize the chances of timely, high quality hires and ensure hiring doesn’t become a bottleneck for your growth.