I watched someone post a question in a founder community. Something simple: "Who should I hire first?"
Within 30 minutes, there were 50+ comments. Bookkeepers. OBMs. VAs. Project managers. Someone said a sales person. Someone else said no, definitely not a sales person yet. Everyone weighed in. Everyone was confident.
And every single person was answering from their own lane.
The bookkeeper saw a bookkeeping problem. The OBM saw a management problem. The VA advocate saw an admin problem. None of them were wrong… they were just looking at the one piece of a business they’re familiar with.
That's not a knock on communities. It's just what happens when you ask a crowd a question that only makes sense in context. You get the crowd's answer, not YOUR answer.
The thing I've learned from working inside agencies is that "who should I hire first" is almost never the right starting question. The right question is: which part of the business is hurting the most right now?
I separate most founder-led agencies into three functions:
Growth is everything that fills the pipeline: sales, marketing, relationships.
Operations is everything that keeps the machine running: systems, team management, financials.
Delivery is everything that fulfills services.
There’s usually one function that, if addressed, can get founders to where they want to go next. The other two are probably fine, or fine enough for now. But because they're the person responsible for all three, it can feel like all three are crashing down on them.
When you figure out which function is struggling the most, the hire becomes obvious. If Delivery is at capacity and you're turning away work, you need someone who can take projects off your plate. If Operations is the problem and deadlines are missed, the team keeps asking you questions, nothing has a home… then you need someone who can own the process. If Growth has gone quiet because you've been heads-down in client work for three months, that's a different approach entirely.
The 74 comments weren't useless. But they weren’t answering the right question. And only you usually know the answer to that one.
Next time you feel that pull to post "who should I hire?" try this first:
Sit with it for ten minutes and ask which function needs the most support to get you to your next goal. Then what, within that function, would be most helpful for someone else to own.
Which of the three functions is struggling in your business right now? Growth, Ops, or Delivery? I'm curious where most people are landing.
- Valentina, Mynt Collective Founder
📚 The Learning Lounge
A cozy corner where we share the latest insights, ideas, and takeaways from books, videos, articles, and more.
The True Cost of a Bad Hire. Most "cost of a bad hire" content just talks about salary. This one gets into the stuff that actually wrecks you — your time, your team's trust, and the slow culture rot that happens when someone isn't working out business.com and you keep hoping it'll get better. If you're a small agency, there's no buffer. Every bad hire hits harder and faster than you think.
EOS Model: Why Your Agency Needs a Visionary and an Integrator with Mark Winters. This is the co-author of Rocket Fuel talking specifically about why the founder who's great at winning clients and dreaming up ideas is usually terrible at running the day-to-day and why that's not a personal failing. It's a role design problem. If you've been telling yourself "I just need to get more organized," listen to this instead.
How to Build a High-Performing Agency Team (Without Hiring Ahead of Revenue). Written by a founder who scaled his agency from zero to £2.2M and made every hiring mistake on the way there. He lays out a hiring sequence that feels uncomfortably practical if you've been winging it.
🎥 The Ops Studio Glow Up: Launching End of May
We’re giving The Ops Studio a major Glow Up and relaunching our YouTube channel at the end of May! We’re transforming the podcast into a full video series built for the creative agency founder who is done being the Chief Everything Officer.
We’re sharing actionable guidance on the structural problems holding you back—from figuring out if your next hire is the right one, to designing a team that lets you finally buy back your energy.
We believe operational stability creates creative freedom. This channel will help you build the infrastructure that makes that possible.
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🗺️ Ways To Work With Us
A snapshot of ways we support small businesses. Know someone we could help? Share any of the links below.
Ops Audits: An Operational Audit that identifies bottlenecks and delivers a prioritized 90‑day plan with owners, dates, and quick wins.
Ops Retainers: Day-to-day support with the right roles on deck (Bookkeeping, Ops Manager, Executive Assistant, and more). We run the business, manage change, and unblock the team—roles can expand or shift as needs evolve.
Ops Builds: Design and implement right‑sized tools and workflows, document SOPs, train the team, and drive adoption so the system gets used.
💚 Full service ops for creative agencies.
Focus on big ideas, not busywork.