#BoSFAQ | Expanding Into New Markets

#BoSFAQ – Your questions, answered by our expert speakers.

We like to help all our subscribers with a full catalogue of interesting and insightful talks from our previous Business of Software conferences.  With over 200 talks to watch there is something for everyone – the first step is knowing your problem; that’s where #BoSFAQ comes in. Here we answer your questions, with the help of our expert speakers.

This week the question is:

Q | How do I scale my hiring efforts during rapid company growth?

I’m building out HR software for companies in the growth stage – 20/1,500 people. I’m the first employee in the UK. We’re big in Germany, but my role is to help us expand into other European markets – France, UK, Spain. I’m looking to hire 25 people in the next 3 months. Help!

A | Hiring is exhausting, so you need to get it right. Let’s take a look…

Hiring that number of people in rapid succession is going to create a number of issues beyond finding the right people – making it clear what sort of business you are, the culture that you want to maintain and grow, developing a compensation plan, sales strategy that can scale (do you focus individual people on accounts, territories, industries etc)…

All of these things are critical to consider before you start to hire. If they are not thought through, you will be compounding cultural and structural debt that will end up costing you dearly. Hiring is expensive, in terms of time, money, focus, and potential lost opportunities, so you need to get it right. You are probably too small at this point to employ internal recruiters who take this on board but as the country/territory manager, you should take ownership of the process. If this fails, you fail.

It would be worth considering speaking to a good, trusted, professional about their views on the market. We recommend our friends at New Peak Partners, who have helped several BoS companies with some top hires over the years. Even if you do not end up working with them, the best firms are excellent sources of market information and are always willing to invest some time with people like you.

Whether you engage with a search firm or do this all inhouse, here are four talks that you should watch for ideas and to learn from the success and failure of others.

Recruiting a Badass Team // Mikey Trafton (CTO, Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas)

Lots of highly actionable ideas about deciding what sort of people you want to recruit and how to make sure the best talent for you wants to work with you.

Hiring at Scale // Patrick McKenzie (aka @patio11, Stripe)

The main emphasis here is on hiring developers and technical talent but the ideas and tactics are equally applicable to hiring other functions. Some inspired ideas for finding and attracting the right people in territories and locations that are new to you.

How to Scale a Successful Software Business // Stephen Allott (Venture Partner, Seedcamp)

Considers some of the key elements of hiring, compensation plans and managing a growing sales team, from finding and hiring the right people, through onboarding and keeping teams motivated.

Finding and Nurturing Tech Talent // Alex Yang (VP of Engineering, Simprints) & Elpie Bannister (Director of Talent, Simprints)

An extraordinarily well thought out process that helps a small not-for-profit based in Cambridge England to compete for people successfully in an incredibly competitive market.

If you’ve found this useful, shout it from the rooftops.  If this has given you your own questions you want to ask, get in touch and we can help steer you towards some answers.