How to Lead Operations in an Early-Stage Startup

Q&A with Head of Operations David Blake of FinTech, Payable

In our newest interview, VP People Jay Harris-Theis speaks candidly with Head of Operations David Blake from London-based FinTech Payable, an Earlybird portfolio company.

Read on for David’s insights on what called him to the role and how you can similarly level up your career by joining a fast-growing, early-stage startup.

1) David, why did you choose Payable as your employer, and what is it like to be a Head of Ops in an early-stage startup?

There were three main attractants for me at work at Payable:

• Chance to work with an exciting founder with a big vision
• Being surrounded by a really talented team
• Ambitious career opportunity

It has always been my ambition to run and scale the operations of an exciting high-growth startup. I was introduced to Daniel Yubi, our Founder (through Earlybird!) last year, and we quickly struck a good relationship.

Daniel had a fantastic vision for building and creating a new category in Payment Operations and was hiring a super-talented product and engineering team from across Europe’s top FinTech startups. He offered me an exciting opportunity to effectively help run the rest of the business. It was a big challenge so I jumped at the chance.

It was also just what I wanted at this stage of my career:

• Environment of fun chaos, and a chance to work with great people
• Opportunity to make big decisions for the company
• Striking a balance between being proactive and being ready to throw myself into new challenges at a moment's notice.

2) What have been your key tasks in the first 6 months? What do you expect will come up next?

I appreciate the variety in my role. Any day can be a combination that touches various levels of an organization:

• On the Company level, I ran our company offsite to Lisbon and defined our company principles. I also help the company to align on OKRs.
• For Finances, I do our financial planning to ensure that we are managing our spending effectively, as well as our payroll. I manage the relationship with our Accounting provider for year-end accounts, share option schemes, and tax credits.
• For Regulatory and Compliance, I helped us become more enterprise-ready and win larger customers, getting the company certified for ISO 27001 for information security as well as exploring payments regulatory opportunities.
• For Legal, I review all of our customer, vendor, and third-party agreements and NDAs– ensuring that we have a smooth process.
• Regarding Sales, Marketing, and Partnerships, when I first joined, I worked with our Founder to help sign our first customers and also with the PR to launch our company. Since then, we hired dedicated people for Sales and Marketing. I now work very closely with them to set them up for success. I also work on bringing new partnerships to help us win customers through new distribution channels.
• When it comes to Hiring, I helped source and bring on our engineering team, and ensure our accreditation to sponsor employees for UK visas.
• I build relationships; sharing updates with our investors or contributing knowledge at an embedded finance summit in Copenhagen.

To answer you about the future, there are a few areas we are looking at: How do we onboard new customers at scale and give them a consistently great experience? How can we best build a long-term business plan, and how do we sustainably scale our team?

3) What advice would you give to early-stage startups about hiring the right Head of Ops?

The best way is through a lens of profile, timing, and expectations:

• Every startup is on a journey and you need the right person for the right part of the journey. For example, I was hired because I showed the capability and confidence that I could run and take responsibility for a lot of business functions on my own and adapt to the constantly changing needs of the business yet keep operations very lean. Then when the time comes to scale, I have a vision of how I would do it. There are other Operations leaders who may be able to build world-class functions, but may lack the ability to cope with unpredictability of an early-stage startup or not be able to rely on a team from the outset.
• Another framework is whether you need a generalist or a specialist. I am a generalist. I can use my network or outsource in the areas I don’t know well enough or know that I have a blind spot. In most cases, we just need to move fast, not have an expert at this point. Based on how I see things now, my next hire in Operations would probably be another hungry generalist who can double or triple the amount of work we do. At some point when things become more complex, we will need a Finance, Compliance, or HR Specialist.
• Know what to outsource by speaking to your network and balancing cost vs. efficiency: I took stock of what we can efficiently do in-house versus externally. We outsource accounting and external legal support (when needed.) But for many things, we roll up our sleeves and do it in-house.

4) What guidance would you give early-stage startups on setting up the right processes, hiring, feedback loops, and culture?

I can share a few guiding principles that may help:

• Don’t worry about building things for scaling at this point. Speed is all we have.
• Keep it simple. It’s really important not to over-engineer processes.
• Communication is everything and is worth investing time and effort into — always give as much context as possible to those around you and demand the same back. Then everyone in the company can make the right decisions.
• Understand tradeoffs — push others to as well. There are always tradeoffs; it’s better to know what they are than be blind to them.
• It’s amazing how important small behaviors are in establishing culture, particularly at an early stage. For example, if one person pushes to reach a goal today instead of tomorrow, then often the whole team rises to the challenge. It’s important to lead by example and encourage others to do the same. People don’t realize the influence they have on others.

Thanks, David, for taking the time to share your experience with us!

You can keep up with Earlybird by following us on LinkedIn or Twitter. Feel free to connect to Jay or ask her for hiring tips and questions: jay@earlybird.com

To apply for a role at an Earlybird portfolio company, just head over here.

Edited by Elisheva Marcus