The internet is full of HR advice. Most of it is written by people who have never set foot in a startup.

They work at HR software companies marketing their tools, or they are enterprise HR veterans translating their experience into "startup-friendly" language.

The problem is that startup HR is fundamentally different from enterprise HR, and advice that works at a 5,000-person company can actively harm a 50-person startup.

The Enterprise Playbook Doesn't Work Here

Enterprise HR is about maintaining systems. Startup HR is about building them from nothing.

Enterprise HR optimizes for consistency and risk mitigation. Startup HR must optimize for speed and adaptability.

Enterprise HR has budget, headcount, and established processes. Startup HR has none of these.

The person building HR at a startup has more in common with a founder building a product than with an HR VP at a large company.

They need to be scrappy, prioritize ruthlessly, and build for "good enough now" rather than "perfect eventually."

Three Things Startups Should Stop Copying from Big Companies

1. Stop copying their performance review process. Annual reviews with 360-degree feedback, calibration sessions, and bell curves are designed for organizations where managers have 10+ direct reports and need bureaucratic alignment. At a startup, this is overkill that consumes time you don't have. Replace it with monthly 1:1s, quarterly goal check-ins, and real-time feedback.
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2. Stop copying their hiring process. Five-round interview loops with panel interviews, case studies, and hiring committee reviews slow you down and don't improve outcomes for startups. You need a structured but fast process: clear job requirements, 2-3 interviews, a work sample or assessment, and a decision within 2 weeks.
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3. Stop copying their org charts. Matrix organizations, dotted-line reporting, and complex organizational hierarchies create confusion in small teams. Keep it flat, keep it clear, and reorganize frequently as you grow. Your org chart at 30 people should look nothing like your org chart at 100.

What Actually Works

• Principles over policies. At a startup, you can't write a policy for every situation. Instead, establish clear principles and empower people to make judgment calls. "We default to transparency" is more useful than a 15-page communication policy.
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• Speed over perfection. That onboarding checklist doesn't need to be a polished handbook. A Google Doc that covers the first week is better than a beautiful PDF that takes three months to produce.
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• Relationships over processes. At 30 people, your CEO should know every employee's name and be able to have a direct conversation with any of them. Processes should support relationships, not replace them.
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• Data over intuition, even when the data set is small. Track your hiring outcomes. Measure time-to-fill. Count regrettable attrition. Even rough data is better than gut feel when making people decisions.

The best startup HR advice comes from people who have actually built HR functions from zero at fast-growing companies. Not from people who inherited a 200-person HR department and optimized it.

When you're evaluating advice from a blog, a podcast, a consultant, or a peer, ask one question:

If the answer is no, take their advice with skepticism.

Know a founder who is drowning in enterprise HR advice that doesn't fit their startup? Forward this to them.

New Podcast Episode Ep. 47 - Build a Performance Review System Your Team Trusts Ep. 47 - Build a Performance... May 18 · Organized Chaos 18:19   ​ A listener asked me whether peer feedback in 360 reviews is worth doing, or whether it always ends as a polite round of compliments nobody believes. In this week's episode, I walk through what makes a performance review work, why most of them fail, and the one design choice that determines whether peer feedback drives real change or quietly falls apart. Listen on your favorite podcast app or read the episode summary here. New Article Does Your Startup Need an HR Department? Last week, Ryan Breslow, Bolt's CEO, told a room full of executives he fired his HR team because they were "creating problems that didn't exist." This is a CEO who watched his company fall from an $11B valuation to roughly $300M, a 97% collapse! He owned the financial mistakes but then turned around and blames an "entitled" culture he personally built, with policies he personally set. In this piece, I pull apart the leadership blind spot behind the HR cut: why entitlement is almost always a leadership output, why "wartime" is exactly when you need strong people capability instead of less, and the question every founder should answer before deciding HR is the problem. I also tackle the one question this story baits you into asking, which is whether your startup actually needs an HR department at all. Read the Full Breakdown

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Podcast Summaries Find focused summaries of each episode’s key learning points on my podcast page. Take me there Blog Articles & How-to Guides Explore in-depth, battle-tested guides based on the exact techniques I’ve used to drive real results. Access for Free

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