This ain’t a company yet
Four rules for new hires
Hi all —
This week, I was reflecting on a few amazing hires we’ve made - people who have dug in and embraced the messiness of seed-stage startups.
And I realized there are four rules they all follow. Feel free to share these with your new hires! Onboarding is hard, and these make the process so much easier for you & them.
Rule #1: Ship small projects fast
Projects that take weeks or months have a nasty habit of never materializing.
Instead, getting into the habit of shipping small improvements daily helps your new team in a thousand different ways. It brings energy. It shows progress. And it helps you learn and get feedback super quickly.
How do you do this? Every day, strive to have SOMETHING you can share that’s done. Shape your big ideas down, down, down. Ask yourself - “what could I actually accomplish if I just had a day? An hour? 10 minutes?” And make it happen.
Rule #2: Reduce work for your teammates & get into the flow of value
I get really frustrated when new hires create a list of demands - “I need to do 10 customer interviews over the next 2 weeks, then meet with the whole team for a half day to run my workshop.”
This kind of approach creates more work for everybody, and it doesn’t immediately help the business.
Instead, get in the flow of value: join existing customer calls or listen to all the recordings. Grab 10 minutes between meetings to pepper employees with questions instead of monopolizing everyone’s calendars. Be helpful to who & what’s creating value today while getting inputs for your own projects.
Rule #3: Overcommunicate
Assume that everyone you work with has serious short-term memory loss.
I had about 70 meetings this week. And last week. So I can hardly keep my own priorities straight.
If you’re joining my team, I’m going to do everything I can to support you. But I need your help. Overcommunicate. Remind me what you’re working on, what you accomplished, what your priorities are. Send me your priorities daily or weekly or whatever, ask me for feedback, send Slack reminders if I’m running behind. Do this for me & other team members; they’ll do it in return and it will all work out.
No, this isn’t how it works in bigger companies. This ain’t a company yet, and we’re all trying to bring the improbable to life.
Rule #4: Reflect
As a new hire, you’ll have some free time. Reflect on what you’ve seen - the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, challenges of your new team and company. Take notes, and think about ways to improve what you’re experiencing.
You have time and an outsider’s perspective, so you can bring new ideas into the mix because you can see things that others can’t.
Most of the startup experience happens in two steps: (1) Make something work, (2) Figure out why it worked. You can help us figure out why things are - or aren’t - working, and help us all level up!