Nuances of letting people go.

Hire fast/fire fast is an age old startup proverb that many take too literally.

When planning to let someone go, consider the following:

• Give a heads up to team members about to spend hours with that person, in 1-1s and projects. Not wasting their time is a low cost way to minimize churn.

• Make sure there aren’t high priority projects for which that person’s skill set is enough. You can always hire the replacement first, or hire over the struggling individual, then start the off-boarding process (if you still choose to go through with it).

• California is an at-will-employment state, but a heads up and a chance to improve is good business and an even better signal to other employees about the realities of culture.

• In some of my previous unicorns, an up or out culture prevailed. You were promoted to the level of highest ability, but if you screwed up, you were fired. At fast growing startups, there should always be horizontal moves for skilled people, who have put in the time. Ignoring that just adds to an already substantial burn rate and increases your onboarding costs.