Growing Fast, Hiring Smart: How Braindate Built its Compensation Strategy for the Next Stage of Growth
What started in Montréal as an experiment in peer learning has grown into a global event technology company. Today, Braindate helps organizations create meaningful connections at events around the world. More than 1 million participants across 100 countries have used...
Does Your Startup Need HR? 5 Signs It’s Time
At what point does a startup need HR? 20 employees? 50? 100? There is no magic number. For some companies, HR becomes a priority at 15 employees. For others, they can operate without dedicated HR support for much longer. Headcount isn't the best way to decide when you...
Can AI Improve Recruitment?
AI is everywhere, from creation of marketing visuals to conception of engineer features, and now, in recruitment…screening interviews hosted by AI! Sounds great, right? But there’s one problem we see companies overlook: AI can make a good hiring process faster. It...
Why Startup Founders Struggle to Delegate
“Can you take this on?” It sounds like delegation. Sometimes, it isn’t. In a growing company, a founder may hand a project to a manager, ask someone to take over a process, or give an employee responsibility for a new area. On paper, the work has moved. In practice,...
Your Culture Starts with Your First Hires
When founders think about building a company, culture is often something they imagine creating later. First comes the product, then funding, then customers. Culture is seen as something that can be intentionally designed once the business has gained momentum, through...
A Simpler Approach to Performance Management
If you're a manager, chances are you don't look forward to performance review season. For many leaders, annual performance evaluations bring a familiar mix of administrative burden, uncomfortable conversations, and last-minute scrambling to remember what happened over...
Why Great Hiring Fails Without Good Onboarding
A strong hire joined a small team with high expectations. On paper, everything made sense: relevant experience, sharp thinking, great conversations throughout the hiring process. The decision felt right, and the team moved quickly. A few months in, things felt off....
The Hidden Cost of Untrained Managers in Startups
Startups are built for speed. You hire fast, promote fast, and expect people to figure things out as they go. Most of the time, it works. Teams deliver features, customers get served, and growth keeps humming along. But there’s a hidden cost that often creeps in...
Recruitment Agencies vs Fractional Recruiters: What’s Best for Startups?
One of the most common questions founders ask us is surprisingly simple: “Should we work with a recruitment agency or hire a recruiter internally?” But in reality, most startups are asking the wrong question. The real issue isn’t who should recruit: it’s how much the...
Remote Work Policies for Startups
Moving Beyond Case-by-Case Without Going Corporate Over the past few years, remote work has become the norm for many startups; whether fully remote, hybrid, or flexible by design. At the same time, a growing number of large organizations and public institutions are...