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HR Asia

Founder × HR

For founders doing it before the first HR hire.

Hiring, comp, culture, and the work nobody warned you about.

12
Essays published
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6 min
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Start here · 01

When to hire your first HR person

The honest answer is later than founders think and earlier than they want.

Published

2026-05-15

Read time

6 min read

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11 essays
  1. 02

    Building a compensation structure before you regret not having one

    2026-05-08

    By the time you're negotiating offer number 12, you'll wish you had bands.

  2. 03

    Designing interview loops that don't import your blind spots

    2026-04-30

    Structured interviews aren't bureaucracy. They're the cheapest insurance you'll buy.

  3. 04

    Six red flags in candidates worth slowing down for

    2026-04-22

    Not deal-breakers, but signals that demand a longer conversation.

  4. 05

    Why culture breaks between 10 and 50 employees

    2026-04-14

    At 10 you have a tribe. At 50 you have a company. The transition is where most cultures snap.

  5. 06

    Founder-led recruiting: when to stop

    2026-04-06

    The CEO is the best recruiter for the first 20 hires. Past that, it's a tax on the company.

  6. 07

    How to structure the equity conversation without breaking it

    2026-05-22

    The candidate has questions. Most founders answer the wrong ones.

  7. 08

    Running a structured interview when you have no HR team

    2026-05-04

    You can get most of the value of a real interview process with a spreadsheet and 90 minutes of preparation.

  8. 09

    What to do in the first 48 hours when a key person quits

    2026-04-28

    The instinct is to counter-offer. The instinct is wrong.

  9. 10

    The quarterly performance conversation that does not feel like a performance review

    2026-04-18

    Most performance reviews fail because they happen once a year. Most 1:1s fail because they never look up.

  10. 11

    Hiring your first people leader without an HR network

    2026-04-12

    Most founders interview HR candidates badly. Here is what to actually look for.

  11. 12

    Are you ready for 50? A checklist before you cross

    2026-04-02

    If you cannot answer yes to these five questions, hold at 40 for another quarter.