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Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

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Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#61

Post by izacus »

whimsicalism wrote: post #32
musingsole wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants all the information and with many business plans, knowing the full version might be confusing to people working on today's stuff. I advocate balancing full transparency (I certainly don't mean to hide any info!) with a culture that can create a time and place for conversations that might go beyond today's work.

I rarely find the "people will be confused by full transparency" line very convincing. To me it seems like there is some other, unstated reason to be less transparent - because confusion is easily remedied by prioritizing certain information while making the rest just accessible if someone wants to look.

In corpspeak of companies I've worked for, "this will cause confusion" is a codephrase for "we want to prevent someone complaining and making a fuss about shadier parts of our work".

It's the ultimate "let's hide this because we know people won't like it" phrase.

Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#63

Post by izacus »

sasquatch69 wrote: post #60

There's two categories of responses on this page: 1. people who have never ran a business and been fully transparent 2. people who've done it and recommend selective transparency because of the consequences haha

Ah yes, the wisdom of MBAs and other career managers, which is working out so well elsewhere :P

Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#64

Post by baskethead »

I would never join a startup that didn't have complete transparency. I've been fucked by startups before where YC founders held all the information and then sold the company, enriching themselves but leaving the scraps for the employees. The next startup I made sure that the founders were very transparent and honest and trusted us with maximum information. Even though it didn't take off, I still enjoyed being a part of their team so much more.

Even unicorns that I worked for, the CEO shared very detailed and transparent information with employees even as the company got extremely large, which I appreciated.

Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#65

Post by chrsig »

sgallant wrote: post #21
chrsig wrote: post #14

The best way to ensure your employees wont be honest or transparent with you is to not be honest or transparent with them. Or maybe to put it a bit more harshly: You're not important enough to be hiding details Be open, honest, and realistic . Say what you hope will come to be as a result of your actions. Be clear when things aren't set in stone. Be transparent so that they can all work towards the same goals. If you…

+1 to this comment. Before I founded my company, I worked for another startup that wasn’t very transparent. It was not a healthy/empowering environment. Now, when dealing with things like partnerships, customers, and finance (runway, burn, revenue, fundraising, etc) I ask myself “what type of company would I want to work at?” and I always lean towards transparency. Having said that, this needs to be done carefully. I…

> Having said that, this needs to be done carefully. Instead of pumping everyone up about a potential partnership that could fall flat, you should try to be realistic and objective about it. “I’m really excited about a potential partnership with X. Even though this partnership will require we invest some resources doing Y, I see the possible benefits to the company as Z. From my perspective, this is a good opportunity for us. This isn’t finalized so I’ll keep you up to date on our progress. Let me know if you have any concerns or questions about this.”

Yes, exactly this.

It's what I meant by:

> Be open, honest, and realistic. Say what you hope will come to be as a result of your actions. Be clear when things aren't set in stone.

Just be transparent with what you're trying to accomplish, what the risks are, what you're uncertain about, where things are in the process, what the next few steps are, and what contingencies there are.

Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#67

Post by rmk »

jon-wood wrote: post #10
aintmeit wrote: post #2

Here are things that I would consider significantly more important than wanting to pump up employees by giving them information on partnerships: - making sure your business model is viable - involving employees in the software development process so they understand the user's perspective when developing the product - paying people fairly - helping employees structure work/life balance - having clear and scoped value…

Your explanations for why employees at an early stage startup might care about upcoming business deals seem to be missing the obvious one to me, that you’ve employed people who are thinking about the business as a whole rather than their tiny slice of the picture. The single most vital thing in an early stage startup is acquiring customers, and these deals are how that’s done, why wouldn’t one of seven employees at t…

It's not beneficial to have every single person at the company thinking about the business as a whole. Now more than ever, we live in an age of specialization and it's counterproductive for all the people at the company to be thinking about the business as a whole. That is why there are departments, teams, and other groupings with discrete responsibilities: the separation of responsibilities and focus on small, manageable areas of responsibility helps people do a great job, efficiently.

This is true even with a company that's just starting, because there are way too many aspects of running a company for a single person to contemplate, let alone do efficiently or well.

Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#68

Post by mihaic »

For this sort of situation, I'd always avoid any generic advice that isn't a "how to". "It depends on the team" really is the only generic info I'd share, since you still have to consider your situation.

The more professional and emotionally mature your team members are, the more I'd share. If a huge deal fails, juniors can be badly affected and will pull down morale, without much upside. On the other hand, experienced colleagues can catch early mistakes that could cost a lot more later.

Try to mentally simulate people in multiple situations and it'll be a lot clearer for you.

Re: Ask HN: How much info should founders share with early stage employees?

#70

Post by dasil003 »

izacus wrote: post #61
whimsicalism wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely find the "people will be confused by full transparency" line very convincing. To me it seems like there is some other, unstated reason to be less transparent - because confusion is easily remedied by prioritizing certain information while making the rest just accessible if someone wants to look.

In corpspeak of companies I've worked for, "this will cause confusion" is a codephrase for "we want to prevent someone complaining and making a fuss about shadier parts of our work". It's the ultimate "let's hide this because we know people won't like it" phrase.

It's not necessarily about anything shady though, it can just as easily be legitimate differences of opinion, too many cooks in the kitchen, bikeshedding, or landgrab concerns.
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