Most founders don't think about HR until something breaks. Natalie Ledbetter thinks that's exactly backwards. She's spent about 15 years inside startups, including one she helped scale roughly tenfold in two years, and she's watched the same pattern play out again and again: the companies that bring in people operations early move faster and hold onto better talent. One founder brought her in at 27 people and called it the wisest accident of the whole build.
In this HR Expert Series episode of the Team Check-In, Natalie tells host Emre Ok why she treats DEI as a product strategy rather than a compliance box, sharing how hiring people who reflected the customer base saved a fintech product. She explains "people debt," the compounding damage of leaving an HR seat empty too long, and defends her most provocative claim, that most people can't scale, by describing the very different DNA that thrives in early chaos versus mature order. She closes on how to exit stage-misaligned employees with dignity, and why the best HR leaders are business-first and human-centered at once.
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Emre (00:01.264)
I've been known to like, not record entire like customer stories and stuff and just go through the conversation.
Natalie Ledbetter (00:10.35)
I feel like I've totally been there before where you're like, you've got this great conversation going on and then you look down and you're like, I didn't hit record. Okay, Awesome.
Emre (00:19.718)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it happens. It happens to the best of us. So yeah, so I'm just gonna walk us through like some of the questions I sent you previously in my email. I think like we have a lot of good stuff there and it's just gonna be like a casual conversation. that's perfect. So with that,
Natalie Ledbetter (00:33.08)
Cool. Yep.
Sure.
Emre (00:47.792)
being said, I'll just start us off by saying, hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the team check-in and the third installment in our HR expert series. This is where we interview just amazing people from the world of human resources. And we ask them questions about their experiences and we share their stories with you. And today we have with me, Natalie Ledbetter.
Natalie Ledbetter (00:49.41)
Keep in the game.
Emre (01:15.474)
Now, Natalie has helped over 100 founders take their startups from just like, just take them to two amazing places. That's, I speak better normally. I promise I'm better at the talkie talkies and other days, but I'll let her introduce herself. So Natalie, hi, welcome to the show. And yeah.
Natalie Ledbetter (01:42.75)
Awesome. Thank you so much for the intro. My name is Natalie Ledbetter. I am currently running my own company as a consultant and advisor working with mostly series A and series B startups in a number of different capacities from working with them to uncover issues typically in GTM.
those issues doing things like talent audits, working through messaging, looking at the activities of your sales teams and things like that, as well as fractional chief people officer work. in a nutshell, my background was, you know, I've done startups, I've been in startups for about 15 years. I have been a people leader three different times. I come in early, we scale up the last startup I was at was we scaled it
by about a thousand percent in two years. And then I went into VC as an operating partner, working with our portfolio of founders. And that's kind of where I got this bug for doing this fractional work, because the beauty of that operating partner role is that there's no blueprint for it in VC. And so I was able to architect what I thought would be
you know, helpful for our founders, which essentially looked like being a fractional chief people officer for every single one of those companies. And so it was a great experience and our founders deeply appreciated it. And so I just decided, look, I love this work. I'm going to go off and kind of do it on my own. And that's sort of what brought me to where I am today.
Emre (03:32.995)
And by the way, when I froze earlier, the word I was looking for was scale. thank you for bringing that Thank you so much. before we dive into it, because today we're talking about the role of HR in the early days of startups, right? Some of the common mistakes people make, some of the great practices that Natalie's seen over her career and so much more, but
Natalie Ledbetter (03:40.408)
There you go. There you go.
Emre (04:02.192)
Before that, I just want to ask you what drove you to the startup ecosystem?
Natalie Ledbetter (04:08.396)
Yeah. So it's kind of an interesting story. Essentially, I had been working for some time. had been in an investment bank actually for about seven years running people operations. It was a boutique investment bank. loved it, but it became very
I was on autopilot, let's just put it that way. And I don't think that being on autopilot or being in roles where I just am kind of a cog in the wheel is a very good match for my personality and kind of what gets me excited and the things that inspire me. And so I was sitting there one day and I literally was just like, what can I do that is literally the polar opposite of what I am doing today? And it was just clear that
startups were the direction to go because they were so vastly different than the cultures that I had been working in. And so, you know, I ended up meeting a COO of a 3D printing company. So you can imagine going from investment banking into 3D printing. And this was when 3D printing was all the rage, 2013.
And so, yeah, I just basically was like, I've got to push myself into a very uncomfortable place where everything is completely foreign to me. I've built these things before, but maybe not in this type of an environment. Maybe, I mean, definitely not at this speed.
But it was really just this sort of like, I've got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable scenario, which is what kind of pushed me into that because I just realized as a human, you don't get the best of me when you put me in a situation where I'm just kind of doing the motion every day. That's just not where I flourish. So that's kind of what got me into the, into the startup game.
Emre (06:10.982)
Yeah, that's actually very insightful, know, looking in and saying like, hey, where do I thrive? And then pivoting in that direction. That's amazing. was there a culture shock switching from, you know, a very corporate investment banking kind of ecosystem to the startup landscape?
Natalie Ledbetter (06:16.353)
Yeah. Right.
Natalie Ledbetter (06:28.91)
I mean, absolutely, 100%. Could not have been more different. It actually, it's funny because a lot of, talk to a lot of people about making that shift. And I think mostly, you know, a lot of young people really, they'll go out, they'll, you know, go with one of the big logos, the big banks, et cetera. And then very quickly they'll realize like,
this doesn't feel comfortable. This doesn't feel like home. those are my people. They're in startup world. How do I make that transition? And I'm very clear that the culture shock is massive. And truth be told, you know, I had been working for probably about 10 years before that, before I got into startups. And so when I got into startups, it took me, I would say a good year to unravel that sort of like corporate,
approach and behavior and to feel comfortable around, you know, people who were actually a lot like me. I had never worked with people who I wanted to hang out with outside of work. I had never worked with people who kind of liked some of the same things as me, who were interested in some of the same things as me. So it was a very
challenging for me, think of it as like this unwinding, like, I am a pretty easy going, easy to be around. I am myself, that's all you're gonna get person. But even with me, it took me a good year to really kind of like pull away from this like idea of what you have to be and how you show up in work. And so culture shock I feel like is
is a really nice way of saying completely black and white difference between the two. Yeah.
Emre (08:21.242)
Night and day, I totally get that. I also switched to like the startup world from a very, you know, old fashioned ecosystem. I used to be a teacher. So it's like as old fashioned and as standard as it gets and just switching lanes into that direction. was, yeah, I mean, it's really, it was a really positive change for me. And I'm so happy that it was for you as well. But the role of human resources in the space
Natalie Ledbetter (08:29.548)
Right. wow.
it.
Natalie Ledbetter (08:38.21)
out.
Natalie Ledbetter (08:41.869)
Yeah.
Totally.
Emre (08:49.926)
world of startups, that's a little confusing sometimes because especially in the early days, HR can be a bit of an afterthought, right? Especially in the early days when the number of employees is a little lower. It's not the first department that founders think, okay, we need to establish an HR department. So have you witnessed that and what are your experiences?
Natalie Ledbetter (09:14.083)
Mm-hmm.
Emre (09:18.403)
What were some of your experiences with HR being an afterthought in the early days of startups?
Natalie Ledbetter (09:26.542)
Yeah, mean, look, think that that's a, that's something that actually hasn't changed. And one of the things that I expressed to founders is once you've seen excellence in people operations, you'll never go back to thinking of it as an afterthought to bringing that role on really late. In fact, one of my last founders that I had a full-time role with, they brought me in at 27 people.
And I'll never forget how many times they said that was the wisest thing they ever did, like accidentally kind of did, was bringing someone in who can really build that foundation so that you can go out and get the best talent. mean, at the end of the day, like, you know, if you are good at this role, you are thinking of it as a business function. It is not about a spirit we
or just a fun offsite in Jamaica, is, you know, if we believe that talent is the core of everything, and this truly is my approach, which is just that, like, I don't believe that a good idea is gonna get you to, you know, an IPO. At the end of the day, you have to have the best people building, the best people selling, the best people marketing. And so having a function that
revolves around not just bringing those people in, but supporting them, growing them and retaining them. That is so incredibly crucial. But that's why the best chief people officers, the best people officer people do have that really strong connection between, you know, connecting the dots between the business and the people.
and how the people should be supercharging every single thing that you do. So just to answer your question, absolutely. I think that's something that is frustrating, frankly, for a lot of HR leaders, people who kind of view it in this way, because we have to consistently validate the reason that we're in the room, the reason that our function is important. But...
Natalie Ledbetter (11:40.282)
I don't fault anyone because at the end of the day, know, there have been a lot of, know, HR has been positioned as a very administrative function, a cost center, an afterthought for a long time. So I would just say, you know, I think that that's a very baseline thing. And I think that, you know, I have a community of an amazing, of amazing chief people officers who were out and were going to be completely like.
wrecking the way that you think that HR is or what you've experienced thus far, because it truly is a business function that deserves a seat at the table.
Emre (12:20.39)
Yeah, it's the approach from the outside looking in. It's very, you know, process focused. Like you said, it's very administrative and people don't take into account the role human resources plays in actual strategy, like the actual impact of actually the actual impact strategic HR can have in an organization. So, and we talked about this before, and I think that there's a very inspiring story there. I think.
Natalie Ledbetter (12:24.974)
Right. Yes. Yes.
Natalie Ledbetter (12:34.782)
Exactly. Exactly.
Emre (12:47.794)
You told me a story about how bringing in HR early actually changed the trajectory of like, you know, a series A or series B startup in its early days, specifically around diversity, equity and inclusion. So, I care to elaborate on that in front of our lovely audience. So how have you seen, how have you seen just bringing in HR early impact
Natalie Ledbetter (13:00.398)
Yes.
Emre (13:17.724)
a Series A or Series B startup in a positive way.
Natalie Ledbetter (13:22.346)
Yeah, so look, I've seen it when done well, I'll just put it that way first. I think that's the baseline is when it's done well, the impact can be massive. And I think the story that you are pointing to was one of the companies that I came into. And again, they had brought me in really early, which I think is also
founders need to think about the fact that bringing this role in early, what that says, what that signals to the rest of your population, which is just that we care about people. care about people, we care about you so much that we're gonna invest in a person whose sole responsibility is ensuring that, again, you're connected back to the business, but that you are supported, that things are, that it's psychologically safe.
that you're a part of something that you feel like you show up as your whole self on a daily basis. the thing that I think the story that you had pointed to was I had come into a company and we were building products for basically, essentially we were teaching people how to learn how to invest.
with a very small amount of money and we were going after populations that had I mean in my view systematically been left out of learning how to invest so You know, they hadn't gone to B school. They maybe Didn't grow up wealthy And so when I came in, you know, the first thing that I noticed was you know, I need to like
I saw what the population, the people who were actually there. And then I went and kind of looked at, I want to understand the business. Who are our customers? What do they look like? Where do they come from? Understanding how much money do they have and things like that. And what I realized really quickly was the people that we were building products for were not reflected in the employees that we had in the room.
Natalie Ledbetter (15:41.13)
And that is a sure fire way to kill a business is to try and build for something for someone that you know nothing about and do not have firsthand experience with. so while DEI, think has been weaponized, at least in the United States recently, it became an actual kind of pivotal crucial thing to ensuring that our product was top notch.
So we went and basically flipped what we were looking for in all of our employees. And we started pulling in people from very divergent cultures and backgrounds and people also who aligned with, had had life experiences like our customers, bringing those people in because when you have those types of, when you have those,
eyeballs, let's say eyeballs and experiences, looking at your products, you're going to see holes much easier. You're going to be able to plug the holes. If we don't look like our customers, how do we even know how to build a product that really serves them? And so in that particular scenario, know, DEI became kind of pivotal to everything that we were doing as an organization, because at the end of the day, you know, having those people
that reflected who we were selling to, marketing to, et cetera, in our office allowed us to build the best product for those people.
Emre (17:17.738)
I love this story so very much. And I'm so happy that we now have it on the show because we talked about this before, obviously, but DEI is often seen as this, know, and, you know, the word is kind of fitting like this token practice, like a compliance exercise that people, that people just do to please a certain demographic or, you know, they're forced to do it, but no, DEI is, it's an actual business function.
Natalie Ledbetter (17:35.256)
right.
Emre (17:45.061)
It is an act. It's actually a strategic practice that will help your business. It's not just the compliance exercise. It's not just a box that needs to be ticked. And like I have to come clean. You told me the story before and like right after that, like for the next two days, I was going around talking to my friends, my girlfriend, anyone who would listen like this. And then then and then what she did was and then she said that and then they did this. I was so stoked about it. I love that story so much.
Natalie Ledbetter (17:51.502)
Right.
Natalie Ledbetter (18:05.486)
haha
Natalie Ledbetter (18:11.074)
I'm
Natalie Ledbetter (18:15.214)
Thank you.
Emre (18:15.334)
But, but I mean, this is the internet. So we can't just talk about the positive example, right? We can't just talk about the good. So now let's take a look at the bad. Let's take a look at the bad and the ugly. So what were some, in your experience, were like negative results of people just bringing in the role of HR a little too late to their startups.
Natalie Ledbetter (18:40.856)
Look, I think that there are endless examples of that. But when we were talking about this, one thing that I kind of thought of that I thought was interesting, it's a little bit of a spin on that question, is one of my clients that actually had had HR, however, when they had invested in HR, they had done what a lot of founders do. And it is a very
understandable mistake again if you haven't seen excellence in this role which is bringing someone in who is probably too junior doesn't have that strategic experience or insight doesn't really understand how to link all of these all these kind of like business outcomes to the things that you are investing in on the side on HR
But what had happened was when that person left the company, they started their search for another leader and they weren't having any luck finding someone. And what ended up happening was they left that role open for about six to eight months. And this company had about 150 employees. And so just like any other company that has
technical debt, you can also have people debt. And so the longer that you leave it and don't touch it and don't fix it, the more it starts to compound. then what ends up happening? Well, you'll have employee relations issues festering underneath everything. So now you've got, you you may have issues that are going to impact, you know,
I mean, a myriad of things from culture, but also you could get yourself in a legal situation from an employment loss standpoint. You could end up, and this was one of the things that I saw, which was, you don't have someone looking at your leaders, benchmarking how they're performing, asking your employees how they're doing, if they're growing.
Natalie Ledbetter (21:03.406)
judging performance, et cetera. And what ends up happening is you maybe have a poor leader who is left in a role for way too long, which starts, it ends up starting attrition. So now all of a sudden you have this, you know, you have this problem, which is like trying to plug a hole in a bucket.
where it's just again, compounding and compounding and compounding people are leaving because there's poor leadership. The founders don't necessarily know because they're elevated above what's going on. And so that, that the optics of a situation like that are, they don't really care. They don't care that we have bad leaders. They don't care that all of this, you know, all of these negative things are happening in our culture. They're just kind of turning a blind eye.
good employees aren't going to stick around for that. And so it ends up at the end of the day, impacting, impacting your business outcomes and your performance because you can't retain anyone. So I think there's bringing it in too late. And then I think it's also just, again, leaving that role open for too long after you've had someone in can be just as detrimental to your business. So,
So it is a very wise thing if you want to hire the best people and retain them to have someone in there, an expert who again is connecting the dots between the business and the people and thinking about kind of all of the things that you need to be considering when you are trying to pull in the best talent and keep them happy.
Emre (22:48.998)
I would also imagine it would, you know, that position being left open for so long, it would burn out like even the good leaders in the organization, right? We're talking about like, there were like bad leaders in the organization that people didn't know about. But even if you're a great leader, even if you're a great team lead or a department head whatsoever, if you're doing your own work, but you're also trying to, you know, manage employee relations, keep everyone engaged, you know, because those things still need to happen. Those things still need to be done if there's not
Natalie Ledbetter (22:59.82)
Yep.
Emre (23:19.14)
a person specifically focusing on those, it will fall on those leaders and those people will be burned out like that. So that must be exhausting.
Natalie Ledbetter (23:27.31)
You bring up that is such an excellent point and you are so right. so it's like, now you've got these phenomenal leaders who are tasked with all of this, you know, this stuff that actually isn't, it's only negatively impacting the business. It's not important stuff. And then I would say the other thing is, you know, you have a fantastic leader. They're not going to stay in a place that's chaotic.
Fantastic leaders can go and work wherever they want. Why would they stay in a place where they're handling these, again, these sort of like employee, you know, people butting heads on their teams, you know, people doing things that are illegal. Good leaders will not stay. It's just what you said. They'll either burn out or they'll just leave. So, again, it's just like negatively compounding, negatively impacting the business.
Emre (24:27.506)
100 % and speaking of people leaving I have a lovely little quote from you that I will ask you to answer for and I've written down I don't believe most people can scale
Natalie Ledbetter (24:47.118)
Yep.
Emre (24:48.56)
Natalie, that's heartbreaking! Explain yourself!
Natalie Ledbetter (24:52.244)
I know, I know, I know. But you know what, here's the thing. If you really break it down and think through what that means, it actually makes a lot of sense. So what I would say is, here's a great question that I would put on your plate. I would say, let me ask you something. When you think about the best job that you have ever had, and that means when you felt super passionate, when you were
happy about coming to work when you were excited about the work that you were doing when you loved your colleagues? Were you building something that never existed before? Were you building in white space where there was no process, where everyone was kind of just sprinting? Or do you like to actually come in where something is built already and you like to iterate on it, you like to perfect things, make them better, upscale, know, those kinds of things?
Those are very vastly different types of experiences and also call for different types of DNA. And so not only are there plenty of studies to actually double down on what I'm saying, I do not believe that people who are there in those early, early, early days, in most cases, not in every single case, but it is
really unusual to have someone who flourishes in an environment where there are no parameters, where there isn't necessarily someone breathing down your neck, someone saying, are the KPIs, like, here are the deliverables, do this, do this, do this. When you are literally just kind of left in ambiguity and left to your own devices to build.
that type of person typically isn't going to be happy in an environment where they come in, where, you know, if they ask a question about something, why do we do it this way? The answer is, you know, we're a large organization. That's the way we've kind of always done it. So we're just going to do it that way. There's no reason to change it. Those types of personalities, those types of DNAs. And more importantly, I think, because I'm always mostly interested in
Natalie Ledbetter (27:11.628)
What gets people excited? Because when people are happy and passionate and having fun and engaged, that's where you're going to get the best business outcomes. That's where you're going to get the best out of people. The people who are loving those times where there, where again, you are in absolute white space with no real process, no real frameworks around what you're doing.
That personality typically again is not gonna be excited in a place that there is a process for every single thing. You have your swim lane that you're supposed to stick in. Be careful and be, you know, there's politics, et cetera. And vice versa, that person typically if you've been in a place that you come in, they have the best benefits. They have processes for doing everything. They have rubrics of how you get promotions, et cetera.
take that person and throw them into an environment where there is nothing.
You're not going to get a lot of people who are, who can swim in an environment like that once they come from a very established environment. It just, it, it, it really, if you get down to the brach, brass tacks, it's just, those are two vastly different types of, of DNA.
Emre (28:36.386)
I agree with you 100%. I mean, all the click baby, you know, quotes aside, I honestly think, different people perform a lot better in different stages of a business. And when you're taking a startup to scale, you are kind of going through all of those stages in just at an exponential rate. these, we talked about the culture shock you had switching from, you know, investment banking to startups.
Natalie Ledbetter (28:42.904)
Yeah.
Emre (29:05.626)
And this is kind of that, but in reverse, right? You're switching from the startup ecosystem to something a lot more corporate, a lot more structured. And there's nothing wrong with that switch. That switch needs to happen at some point. But some people are just, they won't be as happy once that switch kind of flips. And this is...
Natalie Ledbetter (29:17.441)
Sure.
Natalie Ledbetter (29:30.286)
right?
Emre (29:33.894)
While as we're talking about this, sounds a bit technical, but this is something that I think everyone has gone through if they've been in a startup. Even if there isn't a terminology for it, you see it when people go like, the vibe here changed, man. This isn't how we used to do things.
Natalie Ledbetter (29:50.55)
Exactly. Exactly.
Emre (29:55.143)
Yeah. And so, and also, so what are some of the patterns you've noticed in the kind of people that, you know, thrive and like the chaos of the early days of the startups versus, you know, people who excel once, you know, the company matures?
Natalie Ledbetter (30:12.418)
Yeah, so again, if we're thinking about this as just like DNA, I think that typically the people that do really well in early stage environments, they're energized by ambiguity. They love this idea of constant change. They're typically insanely curious.
They want to understand how everything kind of works and are excited by experimentation. They're not scared of failing. They want to see things through, test things. And then once that doesn't work, they move to another thing. They're scrappy. They don't need a lot in terms of money, tooling, people, et cetera, from a resource perspective.
to make things happy, mean, to make things happen. They are totally comfortable with contact switching and that's a big thing. It's really hard when you get into a mindset and you are working on something to have everything shift and move into a different direction really quickly. A lot of people do not, that's not comfortable.
So context switching becomes a very normal, regular thing in early stage. Typically they have a bias for action and execution. They wanna see things happen. They wanna build. They wanna see outputs. They're not gonna be comfortable sitting around. And then again, I think the last thing would just be motivated by solving incredibly hard problems. Things that maybe have not even been solved before. And again, going back to that experimentation piece,
They are excited by the idea of trying different solutions and if it doesn't work, moving to another one, et cetera. With more mature, later stage types of DNA, you're gonna get operators as well, but they like to bring order to chaos and don't necessarily feel comfortable in that sort of chaotic environment. They are in a lot of time, in a lot of cases,
Natalie Ledbetter (32:31.63)
specialists in certain things. They are not excited by the idea of going to fix someone's laptop and then getting back in shipping code on X, and Z. They understand that this is their scope of ownership and that's where they want to stay. They are focused on repeatability, scalability, durability.
And they want to understand like what system, what framework, et cetera, is going to make this work every time and make it repeatable as opposed to, again, testing out kind of and experimenting with different frameworks and different systems. And then I guess the last thing that I would just say is like, they're really in a lot of cases, more skilled at codifying processes.
practices and coaching their teams on this is the way that we do it and this is how we perform at scale. again, just different, different kind of ways of approaching a problem, approaching a business. And I think people will be happier in startups.
The quicker that they decide or figure out what stage they kind of align to and just focus on that as, you know, in the, I call myself an early stage person because I like to bill. And, but I think the quicker that people identify kind of where they sit in a company's trajectory, the happier they, happier they'll be in the goals that they take on.
Emre (34:16.548)
I love that. And this kind of reminds me of, we had a conversation earlier in the year with Steve Cattigan and how he was the different strategies he implemented over at Cisco. And when they were acquiring different companies at their, early stages, they realized, some of these people, you know, when we're purchasing this company, they're founders, they're great at founding stuff, but they're, they don't fit in like the giant corporate umbrella, but they're still incredibly smart people. There's
They're still incredibly like clever. So we don't want to fully lose them. So what they did was they implemented the system of spinning out and then spinning back in saying, Hey, you are free to, you know, go and fund start another company and we'll help you with it. But, you know, after you reach a certain point, after you reach certain, like agreed upon benchmarks, we want to be able, we want first rights to be able to buy that company. Like again, and he told me that there were like a couple Italian dudes.
Natalie Ledbetter (34:55.278)
you
Natalie Ledbetter (35:12.664)
Brilliant.
Emre (35:15.58)
who did this four times, who just like, who spent out four times, came back in, just, I loved that whole thing.
Natalie Ledbetter (35:19.694)
Brilliant.
Brilliant. That is so thoughtful and so strategic. is exactly what larger companies that are acquiring earlier stage startups, and they have their founders, the founders of these earlier stage startups, in most cases have to agree to stay at the larger company, the acquiring company for some time. And it becomes really challenging. I've actually come up against this multiple times where it's like,
you have to retain these people, these founders, because they're the ones that understand how this new product that you have taken on or absorbed works. But it's hard to keep them happy because now they're operating in this, you know, in a huge environment where there are processes for everything, frameworks for everything, et cetera. that juxtaposition in the same vein as how
Early stage DNA and late stage DNA is vastly different. It's really hard because it's like, how do you keep those founders happy? How do you keep them engaged at this new organization that doesn't look like anything they've ever done before, especially the serial founders? So something like that, I think is brilliant for keeping them engaged because it's very easy to get to a place where you're like, how do I exit these founders? But you still need them. But
They're not interested in being, again, a cog in the wheel. So how do you keep them engaged? And I think that is brilliant. That's brilliant. I had not heard about that before, but I think that is so smart.
Emre (37:00.07)
just want to ask you like a couple more questions because this is still a difficult conversation, right? Talking to someone saying like, hey, I think you were a great fit for us in the early days of the startup and like you were perfect, but now, know, things are moving in a different direction. So were there like examples from your career where, you know, a person was a great hire during the early days and now, you know, as the company grew, they just weren't a good fit?
So how did that situation play out? How was that conversation?
Natalie Ledbetter (37:32.28)
Yeah, so again, that's, mean, look, if you come in early and you were there as a company starts to scale, you become a different company every, you know, 12 to 18 months in those early years. So that happens over and over and over again. And so for me, I think one of the most crucial things that I identified and have
started to envelop into the onboarding practices that I end up building for companies are, you and when I say onboarding, I want to be very clear. I don't think of onboarding as just here's your computer, here's your key, here's your, these are the benefits.
I really believe, particularly in earlier stage organizations, that that should be used as a tool, a tool for institutional knowledge share, a tool for having people understand what the history of the org is, where the company is going, what their mission is, what they care about, et cetera. Who are the people that they need to know? Giving them all the information that they need.
so that when they start, when they really kick off, they are ready to go. And in that program, typically, if you were to have marketing coming in and doing a presentation, customer success coming in, doing a presentation, PeopleOps does their presentation as well. And one of the things that I introduce is this idea of stage appropriateness, of...
normalizing and socializing this idea that most people do not scale. Most people are aligned with a particular stage. But when I do that, I want to ask people to really think about, you know, the experiences again, that they've had in careers in their in their jobs in the past of, what did they love and what
Natalie Ledbetter (39:44.79)
what things drove them crazy because typically, you know, an early stage person is going to hate an environment that has politics and this is the way we do things, et cetera, and vice versa. And so if you introduce that idea early, and I mean, their first couple of days, you are normalizing that that is a thing and it's okay. And the quicker that people figure out where they are.
Where they are happiest. I think that is like where they are most engaged, where they feel the most fulfilled, where they are excited to come to work. The quicker you figure out where that is in a company's trajectory, the happier you're going to be in your career. So the first thing is normalizing that across the board for everybody. The second thing though that I would say is
When you do get to that stage where you're starting to have to exit those people out who don't align the maybe the early stage people are starting to grow, you've taken on more funding, you're starting to bring in those specialists, you have to remember that when you're exiting them, the conversation becomes a celebration conversation. They got you to where you are today. That's huge. In a lot of cases, like you wouldn't even be a business if they wouldn't have been here.
So let's celebrate what they brought to the table, what they did, give them a great package so that they land well. These people have been instrumental in your growth. Offer them opportunities to meet other founders, other early stage founders, help connect them with people, recognize them for where they got you today.
This shouldn't be like a pity party. You don't scale, you know, you're not good enough type of thing. It's, it's simply like, look, you're not even going to be happy if we bring you in and push you along through all of this, you know, as we've kind of like mature in a lot of cases, they're just not going to actually enjoy it. So celebrate it, recognize them for what they've done, give them a soft landing with a excellent exit package.
Natalie Ledbetter (42:04.29)
Help them find other gigs. And then I think one of the coolest things is also just like, start doing alumni groups. Start to bring all of those people into creating these alumni groups because after that, that becomes another community, another community that is supportive of your business that you can tap into because in a lot of cases, these founders are serial founders.
Don't you want to have this group of people that you know are incredible early stage operators who are cheerleaders for your business right now? So that when you go and sell that business or that business exits for some reason, and you want to come back and build a new business, you have this pool of people who understand that they were phenomenal at what they did to get you to where, to get you to the place where
it really starts that hockey stick. Yeah, so.
Emre (43:04.9)
Amazing, amazing. That couldn't have been better said. And I just love every single piece of that. So Natalie, my last question for you today would be, if you could give one piece of advice to an HR professional who's just coming into the startup ecosystem or is a part of it, what would it be?
Natalie Ledbetter (43:28.546)
Yeah. So I think the biggest thing just right now as people ops and HR professionals is, you know, we, we do have a challenge with again, you know, having to validate why this function is important and the best thing that we can do
to prove how valuable this particular profession is, is to really think of it and approach it like a business function. So you want to be deeply, deeply, deeply business first, but human centered at the same time and have that balance. The best startups really, HR is not an afterthought.
The best startups think of having people operations or HR as a, that they're a lever for speed and for sustainability. And so the best thing that we can do is, you know, when we are making a case for two founders, for headcount, for programs, for tools, that we are going back to,
data that we are presenting things in a business case format, not just asking for certain things that we are able to kind of pull out and think strategically, not just be in the weeds and being in sort of this like fixer mode, constantly firefighting on the ground, but actually
pulling your head up and again, looking at how do we connect the dots of the business and what we're trying to do and accomplish as an organization back to the people at every single level. And then I think the last thing is, think in a lot of cases, HR people get tied up in this idea of making things perfect. And particularly in startup land, that just doesn't work.
Natalie Ledbetter (45:42.318)
What do we say? Perfect is the enemy of good. And oftentimes, especially in those early days, good enough presents more value than waiting around to make something absolutely perfect in the same way that heavy process actually doesn't work really well in early stage because it slows you down.
So a lightweight frameworks for things actually allow you to continue to be fast. And also I think sometimes heavy, heavy process can kill creativity and innovation. So move away from this idea of having like a polished system or way of doing things and start this process of just putting programs out, iterate on them and then.
you know, ask your, it's build, measure, learn. It's the exact same way that we, that engineers approach building software. is, we put out a program, we test it, we get insight, we collect data, then we iterate, put out the program again. So I think again, the quicker that people ops and HR professionals start to see that direct link between.
everything that we are building and the business and business outcomes and results, the more successful that I think a professional will be in this world. But also it's helpful to the people who are coming up in HR and people operations after us is to learn that this truly is a strategic business function and a partner to the business.
Emre (47:26.546)
Beautiful. That's amazing. Natalie, thank you so much for coming on the show. Where can people find you?
Natalie Ledbetter (47:27.5)
Hahaha!
Natalie Ledbetter (47:33.422)
Absolutely. Yeah, so Natalie Ledbetter, I'm on LinkedIn. My website is natalieledbetter.com, pretty easy to remember. And yeah, I think those are probably the two best places to find me.
Emre (47:50.898)
And if you're listening to us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you found podcasts, leave us a like, subscribe. It really helps the show out. And if you're looking for a performance management solution in the Microsoft ecosystem, you can't go wrong with the highest rated one, Team Flick. If you want to try Team Flick for free, you can always click the link in the description. This has been the Team Check-In. Bye everyone.
Alright, we did it!
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