Why the First 100 Hires Are Defining
The executives and senior leaders hired in a company's first 100 people set the management culture, the decision-making norms, and the organisational capability that the company will carry through its next phase of growth. They also hire the next 100 — meaning that the quality of the first 100 leadership hires compounds exponentially. Companies that hire excellent early leaders build organisations that continue to attract excellent talent. Companies that make poor early leadership hires compound those mistakes through every subsequent hire.
The Framework Structure
The First 100 Employees Framework divides the scaling journey into three phases: the founding team phase (hires 1–20), the early leadership phase (hires 21–50), and the scale foundation phase (hires 51–100). Each phase has different leadership hiring priorities, different criteria for evaluating candidates, and different organisational structures. The framework defines what to prioritise in each phase and what mistakes to avoid.
Leadership Hiring in the Early Phase
In the early leadership phase (hires 21–50), the most consequential decisions are typically the first VP-level hires. These leaders will build their functions from scratch, hire their teams, and establish the operating norms for their areas. Hiring the wrong leader at this stage is more expensive than at any other stage — because they will hire the wrong people, establish the wrong culture, and create structural problems that take years to correct.
Majhi Group's Role in First 100 Hiring
Majhi Group works with growth-stage companies on their early and scale-foundation leadership hires — the VP and C-suite hires that will determine whether the next phase of growth happens effectively. We bring both the search capability to find exceptional candidates and the advisory perspective to help founders think through the leadership sequencing decisions the next phase requires.