Startups — scaling People Operations. What breaks as you scale?

Building and scaling teams isn’t rocket science, but what is needed, and when, is not always obvious…

I Co-Founded and scaled the People Ops at SuperAwesome in its first 6 years. I was devouring information. Yet, I didn’t have an understanding of what changes as you scale, and what factors drive those changes. This affected my ability to plan ahead. When was it okay to scrape by with a process? When was it vital to update the process before it broke and we crashed? I knew my people objective was to create a company where individuals could genuinely thrive and collectively succeeded. This served us well as a fundamental guiding principle, yet I was flying blind. With hindsight, I can see we also had a few other principals that served us well, and with hindsight, I can see the factors I missed.

In my new role, as Head of People at Seedcamp, I wanted to share some of that hindsight. To help fill in some of your unknown unknowns. These are for you to consciously use or break as needed, as you build and scale your People and Internal Operations.

Before we get started, here are some key tenets:

There is NO one size fits all for the people on your team.

There is NO one size fits all for scaling a company.

Evolution is vital.

1. Whatever you choose to do, do it consciously and do it well…

Regardless of what, how or when you implement a new operational way of doing things (e.g OKRs, All Hands Meetings, add a new tool)…

• Define your objective — why are you doing it?
• Continuously iterate. Get feedback. Consider if it achieves the objective. Consider if the objective has changed over time?
• Do it consistently
• Over-communicate. What it is, why you are doing it, what people can expect from it and what is expected from them

2. More humans and/or more time equals more complexity…

• More humans = more complex communications
• More time = more complex human requirements

Always build for scale. Imagine an architectural structure. Will the foundations hold if you add more stuff on top? More people, more clients, more products, more locations, more revenue, more funding etc.

To build for scale, consider what needs to change now to be ready for the next round of growth?

Going from 4 to 150 in five years might look like this:

• When you are 4, plan for when you are 30
• When you are 30, plan for when you are 80
• When you are 80, plan for 120 but be super aware of 150
• At 150 — Dunbar’s number kicks in

If you go from 4 to 150 in 10 years OR 4 to 150 in 6 months it is very different.

3. Consider how much rigour is required and when….

Rigour: the quality of being extremely thorough and careful

As you scale you may need to introduce more rigour into what you do. Consider where you need rigour and also how and where you can maintain fluidity.

As a general guide: the right structures and information empower your team to make decisions and get shit done. Ridgid rules can slow things down.

At some point, you may have ‘scaling debt’.

Consider, is it better to introduce rigour early to reduce scaling debt later? If you are too rigorous too early what is at risk? For example: being rigorous about how you hire at the beginning means you get good at it early. Equally, going off-piste in meetings when you are 20 people, allows you to get to know each other (a real luxury and vital for scaling). At 60, meetings often need to be much more efficient and we need new ways to build relationships.

So, what actually changes?

Below, I’ve illustrated how different aspects of People Ops can evolve over time. To help you consider where and when you can benefit from more or less rigour. Whilst still thinking ahead for scale.

What will actually change, and when, will depend on your context. For example; If you have multiple locations or a distributed team, internal communications and meeting quality are important a lot earlier.

For demonstration purposes, I’ve chosen funding rounds for this illustration. Change can, of course, be driven by different growth factors, like team size, time, new locations, etc.

This table illustrates some aspects of People Ops that can evolve over time. When or how they evolve, depends on your company context and objectives.

Where Should You Start?

Define your people objective? E.g: to build a company, where individuals genuinely thrive and collectively succeed. Consider what your team needs today to deliver on that objective (factoring in projected growth).

Check out Carlos Espinal’s ‘This Much I Know’ Seedcamp podcast for more detail on this framework and empowering people in your team as you scale…

Good luck!