Business Education

Hiring Your First Operations Lead: A Founder's Playbook

Alex Carter
Alex Carter January 1, 1970

Most founders hire an ops lead a year too late. The signal isn't headcount — it's how often you find yourself doing work that doesn't need a founder.

What good looks like

An ops lead reduces your decisions, not your tasks. They build systems that let other people answer questions you used to answer.

What to avoid

Hiring a process person before you have repeatable processes. They'll spend six months mapping chaos.

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