We’re telling everyone what we’re willing to pay — an unusual but smart choice as we hire our Head of Community
Job posts are kind of boring and rarely inspire. Thus, it’s unusual that you get people commenting on how thankful they are for including a few additional words, but that is precisely what we’ve heard over and over from people in the venture ecosystem. When we shared our desire to find the perfect Head of Community for Flybridge and our compensation band of $150k-$200k, the feedback particularly came from folks in New York City.
To appreciate the strength of this reaction and many others like it, I wanted to take a second to share why we did this. At first glance, someone might think it’s because we were just preparing for the upcoming law in NYC going into affect in a few months that requires you to share the salary range for any role, including when hiring contractors, freelancers, and interns. If your company has over four employees, you need to share the expected pay for any role you’re recruiting in the Big Apple. But this wasn’t the driving force behind our decision.
Put your best foot forward
As we prepared to hire for this important addition to our small team, we had to think really hard about the perfect person to take on the challenge, and opportunity, of developing, managing, and supporting our community of nearly 400 entrepreneurs and Network Fund investment team members across Flybridge, XFactor Ventures, The Community Fund, and The Graduate Syndicate. It’s not just about the skills and interests lining up for this recruit, it’s also about the ability to “run” a critical part of our business. Community is core to who we are and how we operate. It’s also something that sets us apart from our peers and enables us to punch above our weight class with a tight knit group of five people on our investment team. Our intention is to find someone who can be a part of our story as we begin our third decade (Flybridge was founded 20 years ago!).
So if we wanted to find someone of that caliber, we had to make sure we were setting the stage for success. We had to make sure that people didn’t look at it and wonder, “Is this simply window dressing for the firm?” As our friend at Commsor.com, erik martin shared with us, “Venture CMGR roles are a warlock’s breakfast,” and so are, “Head of roles at solid VC firms that are paying [only] $100k.” This role is senior — very senior. This person will be a part of every team meeting, will set the strategy for our continued community efforts, and will have a sizable budget to go along with it. While our team will always stay small and we all have to wear a few hats (Chip Hazard moonlights as a fictional character in Small Soldiers while Jeff teaches at HBS), we plan to continue to invest in our community of Network Fund partners and our portfolio founders by building a valuable and powerful lasting community of entrepreneurs who support each other for decades to come.
Mind the gap
The other reason many of our friends are telling us that they appreciate our being transparent about our salary range is as a way to directly address the gender wage gap. Research has shown that this pernicious gap can be addressed through a number of actions, including greater salary transparency (e.g., see this policy brief from the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment). Flybridge has signed on to the NVCA’s Diversity and Inclusion Pledge and is working hard to take the right actions consistent with this commitment.
I’d be silly to not mention, yet again, we’re hiring. We’re looking for the most incredible person to join our family. Take a peek at our post on why we’re hiring a Head of Community at Flybridge.
