Turning Capital into the Right Team

When you raise capital, investors want to understand the strategy, revenue assumptions are challenged, costs are tested and milestones are closely examined. Yet the people plan often goes little further than the roles the business expects to hire, when they might start and what they will cost.

From my time working in capital raising at Snowball, I saw this often. The headcount forecast mattered, particularly when a large share of the capital raised was going to be spent on people, but it said very little about how the business was actually going to build the team needed to deliver the plan.

Those people will be responsible for a large part of what you have just committed to, while you and your leadership team are already busy executing. Customers still need looking after, product needs to move and milestones need to be hit, while hiring well can become a significant job in itself.

When the business needs people quickly and everyone is already stretched, getting someone into the seat can easily become the priority. Yet each hire is also a significant investment of the capital you have raised, so taking the time to get it right matters.

Timing is a big part of this. If someone needs to be contributing in Q2, the hiring process probably needs to start well before then. Finding the right person takes time, they may have a notice period, and once they join they still need time to understand the business and become effective.

We saw this with Ideally, who engaged us just after closing their Seed II round and ahead of a significant period of growth. The work started with putting the people foundations in place for that next stage, before headcount grew from 21 to 44 people in twelve months, including establishing a US-based team.

Ultimately, your growth strategy is going to be delivered by people, so thinking about who you need and when you need them is a strategic part of the plan.

A good people plan should connect the roles you need with the milestones they are there to support, work backwards from when people need to be contributing, and take into account how much time and capacity hiring will require from the existing team.

If a big part of your raise is going into people, you need to think beyond what those roles will cost. You also need a clear plan for how you are going to find the people you need and get them into the business early enough to deliver what you have committed to.

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