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The way I see it this is part of the execution, although often overlooked in favour of product-market fit. Trying to scale an organisation by hiring when the o
by prennert 5y ago
The way I see it this is part of the execution, although often overlooked in favour of product-market fit.
Trying to scale an organisation by hiring when the organization is not fit for that scale is like trying to deploy a product at scale when it is not ready. Very easily you get into exponential costs due to the amount of handholding, spiraling firefighting and potentially immanent implosion in staffing caused by growing dissent.
There may be times when it is unavoidable and maybe the right choice. But it is not sustainable if not fixed and much better avoided if possible.
- fighterpilot 5y agoWell said. Grow headcount as slowly as possible (but no slower) and fire mistakes quickly is a great rule of thumb. At the same time, put loads of effort into hiring. A lot of this comes down to resisting anything that's tempting to the ego: an expensive office in a nice building, a large headcount under you, talking to investors or journalists/receiving awards/attending seminars ... instead of simply building and trying to find the top talent that'll make the difference.
- prennert 5y agoThere is one thing where engineering and organisation building differ though, even at the high-level: available sources and trusted guides, and iteration speed. For something that is such a common problem, that basically every company has to solve, there is astonishingly little factual guidance out there on how to scale an organisation and what scale requires what type of infrastructure. And all entrepreneurs have to reinvent the wheel to a large extend. There is this saying that farming is one of the hardest jobs, because you only have 30-40 tries to get the perfect harvest. But being an entrepreneur cuts it to 6-8 tries to get the organization right.