Co-founders, team & legal

How do I set up feedback and performance conversations before I have an HR team?

The short answer

Run lightweight, frequent, and direct. Weekly or fortnightly 1:1s with a simple 'what is going well, what is stuck, what do you need from me' beats an annual review nobody remembers. Give feedback within 48 hours of the thing happening, in private, tied to specific behavior. Skip formal ratings and calibration until you are 30-plus people; at your size, clear direct conversations are the whole system.

Go deeper, your way

2 hand-picked resources, 2 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it Rachitsky ran 50-plus reviews at Airbnb and turned it into a Prepare, Deliver, Follow-up system he explicitly says is for early-stage founders putting a performance system in place for the first time. It hands you the actual mechanics: three start/stop/continue questions to gather peer input, a 45-minute conversation structure that spends two-thirds of the time on development, and downloadable templates so you copy the doc instead of inventing the process.

The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager

From First Round Review by Lenny Rachitsky 20 min read

  • Feedback runs on a repeatable loop of prepare, deliver, follow-up, not a once-a-year scramble
  • Collect peer input with three plain questions (start, stop, continue) rather than a heavy 360 tool
  • Share the rating early in the conversation and spend most of the time on one or two concrete growth areas
Open review.firstround.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it This is the founder-sized version of Radical Candor: a four-step order of operations (Get, Give, Gauge, Encourage) that starts by soliciting feedback on yourself before you dish any out, which is exactly the trust move a founder needs before HR exists. The CORE script (Context, Observation, Result, Expected next step) gives you a sentence-level template for delivering direct feedback within 48 hours without it turning personal.

How to Get and Give Feedback Using the Radical Candor Order of Operations

From Radical Candor by Kim Scott (Radical Candor team) 15 min read

  • Solicit feedback on yourself first; it earns the right to give it and models candor for the team
  • Structure every piece of feedback with CORE: context, observation, result, expected next step
  • Treat feedback like brushing and flossing (small and frequent) not a root canal (rare and dreaded)
Open radicalcandor.com →

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