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Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Hire Your First VPBefore You’re Ready Every founder waits too long or moves too soon on their first VP hire. The ones who get it right aren’t lucky — they know what “ready” actually means, what profile to hire for the stage they’re at, and how to … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Run a Reference CheckThat Actually Reveals Something Most reference checks confirm what you already think. They’re scripted, surface-level, and produce a stream of positives from people the candidate hand-picked. Here’s how to run a reference check that genuinely surfaces what interviews can’t — the working style, the … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Put an Employee on aPerformance Improvement Plan A performance improvement plan is not a paper trail for firing someone. Done right, it’s a structured 30-90 day agreement that gives a struggling employee a genuine chance to turn things around — with clear expectations, real support, and honest … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Hire a Great SalespersonBefore You Can Afford a Bad One A bad sales hire at early stage doesn’t just miss quota — it burns pipeline, damages customer relationships, and sets your revenue back 6-12 months while you recover. Here’s how to hire the right salesperson the first … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People The Founder’s Guide toLetting Someone Go With Dignity Terminating someone is one of the hardest things a founder does — and one of the most defining. How you handle it shapes your reputation as a leader, affects the team watching, and either honours or damages the person leaving. Here’s … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Hire Your First Engineeras a Non-Technical Founder Hiring your first engineer when you can’t code is one of the highest-stakes hiring decisions you’ll make — and one of the easiest to get wrong. Here’s how to evaluate technical candidates, structure the process, and avoid the traps that … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Write a Job Offer LetterThat Closes the Deal Most offer letters are either too cold and corporate or dangerously vague. Both lose candidates. Here’s how to write an offer that conveys excitement, covers everything legally, and gets a yes — with prompts for every scenario including counteroffers. … Read more
Free Playbook · Founder Mindset The Survival Guide forYour First Time Managing People Nobody trains founders to manage people — you’re just suddenly responsible for someone else’s growth, performance, and wellbeing. Here’s what actually matters in the first 90 days of managing someone for the first time. What’s in this playbook The shift nobody tells … Read more
Free Playbook · Hiring & People How to Onboard YourFirst 5 Hires Bad onboarding is one of the most expensive mistakes an early-stage founder makes. It costs you months of ramp time, destroys the confidence of great people, and creates a cultural template that’s hard to undo. Here’s how to do it right from day … Read more
Your best employee just asked for a meeting. You can tell from the message that it’s not about a project. Something is wrong. What you do in the next 72 hours will either keep them or lose them. Most founders handle this badly — not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have a … Read more