
The Controversial First Role to Hire After Your “A Round” - arash_milani
https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-controversial-first-role-to-hire-after-your-a-round-52000b973b59
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daveguy
I'd say if you find an office manager / administrative type that fits all of
the criteria mentioned you should pick that person up immediately as part of
your first 5 hires. A person with those people skills and willingness to do
the minutiae across the board is a force multiplier for everyone else on the
team. The difficulty is finding someone with all of the qualities listed in
the article.

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danieltillett
If you can find a person with all these qualities then hire them whenever you
come across them. I have met a lot of admin people over the years and I have
yet to come across one - I am sure they exist, but they don't interact with
the likes of me.

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api
The list of priorities at the top is just mind blowing. 10-20 years ago you
would invert it. Top priority would be a super-extroverted business type with
sales/marketing experience. Any tech talent on the team at all would be
optional, and the rest of the team makeup would be heavily tilted toward
sales.

E.g. in dot.com 1.0 it was common for a 100% MBA and sales team to get funded
and then outsource all tech. I saw this happening as recently as 2008-2009.

What an unbelievable change in the industry...

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nostrademons
It's largely because the market decided that having actual technology was
pretty important for a tech company and rewarded those companies that did.
Their founders got rich and now get to decide where that money goes; the MBA
types who outsourced their development went bankrupt and don't get to play in
the next round.

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erikpukinskis
And yet, this is often the lowest paid position at a startup. Most important
hire. Lowest paid. Let that sink in.

People talk about how market rates are fair, and it makes sense to stick to
them because you can always hire someone else. But you don't get great people
in key positions by paying them less than your other employees.

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redthrowaway
Can we get a less linkbaity title on this?

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avs733
or less 'winky' faces in the article

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clifanatic
No. ;)

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pbiggar
This was our first hire, full stop. Before the seed round closed, and a long
long time before the A.

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atemerev
But this is obvious! Hiring admin assistant is the first thing to help the
business. Where is the controversy there?

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pbreit
No. Most people would advising avoiding an office manager for awhile. The idea
is that the company should only be doing important things and important things
are worth doing by the key people.

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jstandard
That seems a pretty romantic view of running a business. An office manager
provides leverage for key people to focus on doing their MOST important
things, without spending as much time on the operational realities of running
a company.

Office managers typically help with a mix of accounting, HR, coordination, and
dozens of other operational tasks. In many cases doing a better job than key
people who were overloaded with them before.

While I suspect that Suster is making an exaggerated conclusion to drive page
views, it doesn't sound that off the mark to me. After raising an A round,
you're going to want your key people spending as much time as possible on
scaling the core business. An office manager is a great way to help them do
that.

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pbreit
What typically happens is two-fold: the person is on staff and so make-work is
created to keep the person busy. And important things formally handled by the
CEO, like invoicing, get shifted to the manager.

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jstandard
> "what typically happens is..."

This is a very broad conclusion about what is typical. From where are you
drawing this statement?

Also, why shouldn't the office manager be put in charge of important things?
They're a paid employee with specific skills.

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pbreit
Lots of experience and a bit of intuition.

If the office/ops mgr can work on customer or product development, that's a
different story.

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pdq
I believe an even scrappier idea is to start with a 'virtual assistant', like
Zirtual, where you can start out with a small commitment and then ramp up as
needed. When you need the full-time in-office admin, then you can go hire.

[https://www.zirtual.com/plans-pricing](https://www.zirtual.com/plans-pricing)

