Questions founders ask first
Something missing? Ask me directly. I reply within one working day.
How is this different from hiring an assistant?
An assistant handles admin. I bring HR and operations experience as well: onboarding and offboarding, your HR and payroll platform, contractor paperwork, policies and reporting. Your own admin is half the job, and it is done by someone who also knows the people side.
How is this different from a PEO or an HR service like Bambee?
A PEO or HR service gives you advice and a payroll engine. Nobody there runs your onboarding or keeps your calendar. I do the work inside the tools you already pay for, and your PEO or lawyer stays the source of legal answers.
Do you give legal advice?
No. US, UK and European employment law belongs with your lawyer or PEO. I run the process and the platform, and I flag questions to them early. My own legal depth is Indian statutory law, which is useful if you have people in India.
You are in India. How does the time difference work?
For US teams, most of my working hours fall while you sleep, so the work is done before your day starts. On three evenings a week I take live calls until 10:30 pm IST, which is about 1:00 pm in New York in summer. For UK and European teams my working hours cover your whole morning and early afternoon. My working week is Monday to Friday, India time.
Which tools do you work in?
Yours. I am hands-on with Gusto, Rippling, Deel, Remote and Justworks, and I work in Notion, Confluence, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack and Jira. Automations run in Zapier or Make.
How do I pay you?
Monthly in advance, in US dollars, by bank transfer or Wise. If you already pay international contractors through Deel or Remote, that works too and is often the simplest route.
What about data privacy for European and UK teams?
I work inside your systems rather than copying data out. If you need a data processing agreement and the EU standard contractual clauses (or the UK version) before I see staff or candidate data, I sign them.
Can you help us hire?
Yes, as an add-on and on one condition: either you provide a sourcing seat such as LinkedIn Recruiter, or a sourcing vendor finds candidates and makes the first calls. I then run the rest: job descriptions, scorecards, scheduling, candidate updates, references and offer paperwork.
Have you worked with startups before?
My experience comes from Uber's global people-ops team, Forvis Mazars and HCAH India, all large organizations. I now offer the same work to small startups. The samples on this site show exactly how I run it, and the first month is a fair test: cancel with 30 days' notice.
What happens if my team grows past the package?
You move up a package from the next month. Past about 30 people, a full-time people or operations hire usually makes more sense, and I can help you write that role and hand over cleanly.
Get a first-week onboarding plan for your next hire.
Tell me the role and the start date. I will send back a plan written for your company, free, whether or not you hire me.