Jake Huntley 🚴🏽’s Post

As an early-stage Chief of Staff, I often talk to folks who are looking for CoS roles. I get asked a lot of similar questions and want to share my answers for anyone who's pursuing this path: 1️⃣ What does a CoS actually do? CoS's are all different. At a company as young as Aomni, Chief of Staff is a "white space" generalist role, meaning I take on any business priorities that our founder/future execs don't own themselves. Today that means Ops, Sales (in partnership w CEO), Marketing, Customer Support and certain Product tasks. 2️⃣ How can I find CoS opportunities at startups? I don't think it's a good use of time to apply cold. This is because CoS hiring at startups is highly trust-based and the market is crazy rn. Unless you have a sterling resume, you're going to lose out to competitors in the CEO's network already. Instead, leverage your network to develop relationships. Look for opportunities to start on a freelance basis where you can build trust before the job is even posted. Consider different roles at the right company where you can evolve into a CoS over time. 3️⃣ How can I stand out to hiring managers? Same thing as #2 -- it's all about relationships. Demonstrate that you can perform well in the role and add value as a trusted partner to the CEO/exec team, whatever that takes. 4️⃣ What's the hardest part of the CoS role? The biggest thing is stress. You don't have the same level of responsibility as the CEO, of course, but the pressure they experience reaches you via osmosis. I'm always trying to improve how I manage stress. 5️⃣ Do I need to have consulting or banking experience, or an MBA? Absolutely not. My somewhat irrational and biased opinion is that these experiences are actually anti-signals about one's fit for the job at a startup (probably not the same at a big company). Many people with these backgrounds are uncomfortable without structure, inflexible and unwilling to do grunt work. Effective CoS's at startups are highly curious learners, resourceful operators and great first-principles thinkers. As long as you can demonstrate these traits you're golden. --- I also want to shout out some communities that anyone in this space should have on their radar: Ask a Chief of Staff, Chief of Staff Network and Generalist World are 3 of my faves. Always happy to answer questions and support new and aspiring CoS's in any way I can!

You’re a leader at a small to mid-sized company. The company is growing, but with growth comes additional problems to solve. You can’t do it by yourself. So, you decide to hire someone. You have limited resources so you want to make sure that you pick the right candidate. But, you don’t even know where to start. Do you need a COO? Do you need a head of HR? Do you need a Finance Director? A Product Manager? Maybe a Project Manager would help out. This is where Raven Road Partners can help. We can assess your small to medium business and help you determine the best hiring strategy. Then, we will source, recruit, and hire the best fit for your business. We’re your trusted partner in the hiring process. Sound like something you need? Contact us today to get started. https://lnkd.in/gh7pP_9j #hiringpartner #talentsolutions #organizationalstrategy

In my previous role I got to work on, hiring the chief of staff and it was an amazing experience. I got a chance to speak to numerous COS and program managers and EIR ( Entrepreneur in residence ) My experience:- 1. This person is the right hand of CEO/co-founders 2. This person is as busy at times as the CEO. 3. Good leadership skills required, someone who can take decisions on behalf of the CEO on certain projects. 4. Is aware about each and every thing that happens in the company. Gets to work with various vertical heads ( Tech, product, finance, sales, HR, marketing, operations etc) 5. You need to be a bold and courageous person. Only expect this role if you can be up and running as and when required. 6. You will have to upset a lot of people and post the reviews(weekly/monthly) also catch up with them To ease out things, but next review again be rigorous. 7. You will have to lay down the truth as it is, no sugarcoating. 8. You aspire to be a future entrepreneur or atleast think like one. 9. You come up with problem statements but also the solution to those that you could think of. 10. You have good structured thought process, good with data and documentation. 11. You are very much interested in stock options, cause there’s the real money. I got to work and lead some projects individually like making the sales incentive structure and also optimising on the efficiency of the customer success, overall a great role one can have, gets a good visibility of what’s happening in the company. Maybe not have the CEO as the designation but almost acting as one :-) Best part about this role is there is no middlemen involved you directly do and speak to the founders and sort things there and then :) #cos #chiefofstaff #hiring #learning

How should finance leaders effectively hire their early stage team? Myoung Kang, Interim CFO at MotherDuck and former Head of Finance at Notion has a framework called the 3 C’s — which stand for competency, commitment, and culture. Competency: Do they have relevant experiences that will translate well to the role you’re hiring for? Commitment: Hiring is such a resource intensive process across all teams. Pick a candidate that is committed for the long haul, the ups and the downs. Culture: This can be a bit of “you know it when you see it” but it’s helpful to look for individuals who either have startup experience or are excited about the idea of working in a fast-paced, high-growth environment. Read more about scaling your early stage team in our latest Rillet blog post. Linked in comments ⬇️

Stop trying to make your marketing roles into something they are not! 🚫 Hiring budgets might be tight, but my recent job search experiences have shown startups trying to blend management-level Marketing roles with completely unrelated positions like COO, CFO, and more. The most shocking example I came across was a company attempting to merge the director of growth marketing with the CFO/Controller role. Let's allow marketing professionals to focus on marketing tasks without adding CFO responsibilities. Let's keep roles aligned and let marketers do what they do best! #Marketing #Hiring #JobSearch 🌟

🚀 Business Model Update! 🚀 When I launched my business, I went to market as a Fractional COO/Integrator, aiming to provide high-level strategy and operations support (which I still do). But after countless conversations with businesses and receiving an influx of talented individuals with extra time, I realized a common need: Fractional Support in "get shit done" positions. 💡 Many companies need skilled hands-on support without the commitment of a full-time hire. Whether it's project management, front/back-end tech support, marketing, operations, office management/EA, finance, sales, or any other business function, my focus is now on placing fractionals who excel in doing the work that drives results. These fractionals are your secret weapon—they help you avoid the costs and risks of early full-time hires and prevent burnout among your current team members by taking on tasks they're not equipped for. Why choose our Fractional Support? ✅ Affordable: Get expert help without the full-time salary. ✅ Flexible: Scale up or down as your business needs evolve. ✅ Focused on Execution: Our fractionals specialize in getting things done. NOTE: Every fractional resource I put forth I have either personally worked with or has been referred to me by a trusted individual. You can count on them to get you to the next level. If your company could use an extra set of skilled hands, or if you know someone who does, let's connect! Reach out to me and let's discuss how we can help you achieve your business goals without stretching your resources too thin. #FractionalSupport #BusinessGrowth #GetShitDone #Hiring #BusinessDevelopment #TeamExpansion

It’s no secret that growing your company comes with its challenges. Once you start meeting certain income levels monthly, I’ve found time and time again that following this formula has been beneficial when considering hiring new team members. If you own a Funding Company or you're planning on starting one, comment "SCALE" and I'll reach out to see how I can help you scale 🤝 #ceo #hiring

💡Just read a super interesting piece by CJ Gustafson about how more VC-backed startups are pushing off hiring full-time finance teams until later stages. With all the awesome finance tools and fractional services like Grandview CFO, it makes total sense. Why pay for a full-time CFO when you can bring in experts as you need them? Fractional services are the way to go! If you're scaling and need finance or accounting help *without* the full-time commitment and overhead, let’s connect! 💬 I'm here to help. #FractionalCFO #StartupFinance #OutsourcedAccounting

Episode 7/10 -> Hiring & building a team. 💪🏼 I knew from day 1 that I did not want to do execution work, since I am a big believer of delegation and only sticking to tasks which I cant hire for. So the first step was to clearly define my role → business development, operations management, project management, hiring & HR, and being our first office admin. 🧑💼 BD and PC → because most poeple can’t do it better than me. 🎓 Operations & HR → because I dont have the budget for it yet. ✍️ Office admin → because no one else would do it at this point. Since my role was set, the next step was to go on for a spending spree. As soon as I publicly announced what I was up to on LinkedIn, there were several people who started reaching out to me directly or indirectly. There were at least 10-12 good people who wanted to work with me. Problem was, that I did not budget for all of this, neither could I afford so many people. 😅 Building a network in my early 20s enabled me to hire without any HR or any past experience with the HR work. Additionally, it solved for the very challenging task of hiring for a new startup! So I started talking to people 1 on 1 to make sure if they align with what I was building since all of them were taking a big risk coming on this journey with me. We had an all experienced team, all of them came without any increaments, with a big risk that all of this could fail. I can still never thank the initial set of people who came along on this ride with me. ❤️ #hiring #culture #teambuilding #entrepreneurship #businessowner #businesstips #businesscoach #businesslife #entrepreneurlife #hiringnow #teammanagement

CEOs and Founders obsess about the playbooks for scaling a brand. All over X liking 🧵threads. At the same time, their team is hiring for roles like everyone needs a PA. £24,000 buys you ALOT of automation. I'm not saying there isn't a need for junior roles in design, development, buying, production and merchandising, but let's be honest about how much of their time is spent on very low-value tasks. What is the real quality of the data and reports that admins can pull? How well-prepped are meetings compared to the cost of running them? The CEOs and Founders who are writing the playbook are hiring like Everything needs a system Tech is a function of Operations Revenue per head needs to keep going up Small, agile teams > big, slow-moving teams The worst offenders are old-school retail and luxury fashion brands. The complexity of raw materials and the bill of materials drives a ridiculous escalation in administration. The ones you read about restructuring and get press releases about their innovations are hiring admin assistants like crazy because, as all operators know, nothing properly integrates and flows. People fill the gaps. We call these gaps jobs. Admin Assistant jobs. The worst part is the lack of speed. Slow processes kill your ability to react. Slow decision-making. Slow meetings. Slow commute. Whether your brand is hot or not, these operational costs can't be carried out forever. I've not even got into the meeting-for-meetings-sake culture that exists to support the need for admin and reports. #operations #techstacks