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Fernandez: Startups need distinct hiring personas for 0-10, 10-50, and 50-100 employees

Heather Fernandez · 20VC: Lessons From Scaling Trulia to IPO, How To Maximise Your Impact within Your Organisation and Why No One Is Ever 100% Ready For The Next Job with Heather Fernandez, Founder @ CEO @ Solv · Aug 24, 2018 · at 17:45

Heather Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of Solv and former executive at Trulia, outlines her organizational framework for hiring and team dynamics during the first three stages of scaling a company.

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“In general, there's a framework that I use, which I think is helpful when you think about certainly the early stages of the first hundred people at a company, you know, so the first zero to 10 people, you know, those are your creators. So self-directed, oftentimes driven by something greater than themselves, high team orientation. Frankly, these are the people that are going to set the culture for the organization as you grow. And so they're very important on that dimension as well. As you go, call it 10 to 50 people. I think of teams. Right. And so that doesn't mean you're bringing in a professional management leader, but you do need to put some people in place that can help provide leverage for others. You know, 50 people scrambling around in an office, you know, without anyone providing direction, it would be tough for efficiency. So as you add more people to teams, you need to add the other people who can provide them the daily support and accountability. And then when I think about 50 to a hundred people, I think about infrastructure. You start thinking more about roles that support the organization as a whole to perform better. You start thinking about people who are experts At the particular thing where you've now proven you need more expertise. Things that help the organization, effectively the entire organism perform.”

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