When to Hire a Chief of Staff?
Probably much sooner than you think.
Last year I joined Prime Movers Lab as the Chief of Staff (CoS) to our founding General Partner, Dakin Sloss. I spent about a year in that role before transitioning to an investing partner role. I learned an incredible amount over that time and really enjoyed the unique vantage point of the role. I’m excited to share some of my learnings from the experience over a series of posts but I wanted to start with the question we get the most from startup CEOs on this topic — when should I hire a CoS? The short answer: as soon as the CEO is a bottleneck on the growth of the business. A CoS serves as a proxy for the CEO, freeing up their time to work on the highest leverage opportunities.
Let’s start by clarifying the role or purpose of a CoS as I think there’s some confusion around how it relates to other members of a support team like an EA or office manager. In my view, the ultimate goal for any CoS is to become a proxy of the leader that they are supporting. This is achieved by learning to see the world and the company the same way the leader does. This can only happen by having deep empathy for their context, perspective, values and beliefs to the point where a CoS can take their place in internal meetings, projects, external calls, etc. Of course, a CoS will also bring their own unique talents and perspectives but those need to be in addition to this foundation.
Less abstractly, this means a CoS needs to be able to make judgment calls that align with what the CEO would have decided themselves. This could be helping guide an employee on what projects to prioritize, answering a tough question from a potential customer, or writing a press release. It also requires a person who is self-aware and knows when to engage the leader for clarification, which happens on almost every decision at first and should decrease quickly over time.
Going back to the question at hand, my experience is that the CEO is the major bottleneck in most early-stage companies. The most obvious marker of this problem is their calendar. Most CEOs are fully booked by internal and external meetings. As a result, their calendar becomes a limitation on progress as team members and customers wait for them to weigh in or make a decision. Delegating work to team members can help with this problem but the issue is CEOs have a unique perspective since they sit on top of the entire org and sometimes you need that holistic perspective for a decision, project, meeting, email, etc. That’s the beauty of a CoS, they have the unique ability to take those activities off of the CEO’s plate. The higher the quality of the CoS, the higher percentage of tasks they can take over.
The benefit isn’t measured just by the increased bandwidth of the CEO, it’s measured by everything internally and externally that gets unblocked because of that increased bandwidth. An even deeper benefit can be achieved if a CoS allows a CEO to spend more time working on the business instead of in the business. Many early-stage CEOs spend the majority of their time as an individual contributor, which is problematic because it leaves little time for the big blocks of creative, reflective, and strategic thinking necessary to lead a company.
Today, it is still rare that I come across a startup with a CoS, and I hope this post helps spread awareness of the benefits of the role. We enthusiastically suggest it to all of our portfolio companies and I expect it to grow in popularity over the next few years. In future posts, I’ll cover what to look for in a CoS, how to onboard a CoS, and the benefits of being a CoS. Feel free to reach out with any CoS questions in the interim!
Prime Movers Lab invests in breakthrough scientific startups founded by Prime Movers, the inventors who transform billions of lives. We invest in companies reinventing energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, human augmentation, and agriculture.
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