Strategic Resources for a Hyper-Growth Startup Hiring Manager.

 

 

As a hiring manager in a rapidly growing startup, you must always have “hockey stick” exponential growth at the forefront of your mind.

 

If your tactics are the same as your competitors’, you’re in trouble. They will execute those tactics with far more resources than you have.

 

You don’t hire the “perfect fit” — you hire the person you need right now. Sometimes, you ship products that are flawed or incomplete.

 

You embrace counterintuitive principles, like letting fires burn or ignoring angry customers. You wouldn’t transplant a human heart into another species and expect it to work perfectly.

 

“Has someone else already spotted this opportunity before me?” If the answer is “Yes,” you need to act fast.

Moving quickly doesn’t raise the risk of failure; it reduces the risk of competition. The more intense the competition, the faster you need to move.

 

 

 

This isn’t about simply working harder or smarter with the same resources. It’s about choosing to do what other companies usually don’t, or choosing not to do what they typically do. It’s about being willing to embrace greater uncertainty and lower efficiency.

 

For example,

you focus on hiring ‘branded’ talent through personal networks. Let’s say one of your employees has a friend who works at Bain & Company. You assume this friend is smart and sociable and decide to hire them. During the interview, you don’t assess their skills; instead, you use that time to see if they align with your company’s mission. Sounds crazy? Yet, by hiring people faster than your competitors in a fiercely competitive emerging market, you gain a first-mover advantage.

 

Ignore processes. Solving a problem at one stage doesn’t mean it’s solved forever — it’s only solved for that stage. As your company grows, you’ll face the same problem in a new and potentially radically different environment.

 

When you’re scaling up, hiring people who have already dealt with the challenges your company is facing is invaluable. This is why investors trust serial entrepreneurs who’ve built companies time and again. One of Silicon Valley’s advantages is having a wealth of leaders who have been through these rapid growth phases. These companies offer the benefit of hiring executives who have already navigated the stages you’re about to encounter.

 

When Zuckerberg hired Sheryl Sandberg, it was because she had blitzscaling experience at Google. As Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations, she played a critical role in growing a division from a handful of employees to over 4,000. She managed an organization growing at a pace almost impossible to imagine.

 

This version captures the urgency and strategic mindset required in high-growth environments and aims to inspire Silicon Valley leaders to rethink their approach.