ZeroCater (YC W11) Raises $1.5 Million For No-Hassle Office Lunches

Re:ZeroCater (YC W11) Raises $1.5 Million For No-Hassle Offi... by rdl on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @06:45PM (#2870536)

There's definitely a period in a startup where founders or management end up handling a lot of minor tasks like this, before hiring admin support staff. I personally would rather pay for services (garbage collection, catering, copier repair, etc.) vs. hiring an admin person to do this, because managing yet another employee (and one from a different background than engineers) adds stress to my life.

If I had a great candidate for admin/manager, maybe I'd consider it, but I could easily see getting to 20-30 employees before doing so.

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Re:ZeroCater (YC W11) Raises $1.5 Million For No-Hassle Offi... by larsberg on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @07:03PM (#2870594)

That makes sense, and follows with my general experience: once your team reaches >= 8 people, there will always be one of them having a Major Life Issue (cancer, drugs, burnout, divorce, etc.) that will consume incredible amounts of your time too.

If you're stuck hiring them on your own (i.e. not part of a big company that has its own infra for hiring and training staff employees), several of my buddies who have started smaller companies swear by temp agencies. Quickly scan a few resumes, do a couple of chats, and then bring them onboard for a few weeks or a month in a try-before-you-buy role.

Also, if your admin does not _remove_ stress from your life, they're doing it wrong. Having had both decent and great admins, I can say that a great admin is an incredible enabler. Need your schedule to always have a three hour block of uninterrupted work time? Hate responding to urgent-but-unimportant crises that people always email you about? A professional, organized, and utterly ruthless admin is net positive w.r.t. your time and stress far more than they will ever be paid.

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