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Olá from Lisbon, Portugal!
I’m into week 2 of 5 of my EU travels and things are going ✨ WELL✨
I’m full of delicious history and more delicious food, all the things you come to Europe for.
Fun fact from Spain: Paella is eaten in the day, and in it’s most traditional form features chicken and rabbit — not Chorizo...
Apparently I’ve been bastardising that dish only my entire life. Oh well!
One thing a break is great for, is reflection. I’ve been reflecting a lot on this year (I know, I know, there’s still a little further to go, but hey).
One of the most engaged with pieces I’ve (ever) written was the Jan edition of the FNDN Series, titled: How to Become a HR Consultant.
I had grand plans of turning that into its own separate newsletter (a step-by-step on how I did it) but haven’t quite made it yet. Maybe it’s a 2026 goal.
Some lower hanging fruit is a recap of Year 2 of being a 'HR’ consultant.
Let me know if you think something like that would be interesting and I’ll make sure to whip something up over the Christmas break (and drop a comment on what you’re most curious about — as always, I’ll be as transparent as possible).
Should I write "How to Become a HR Consultant" reflecting on year 2?
Enjoy this week’s edition ✌️
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
Don’t guess your way to great compensation practices.
I’ve seen how chaotic it can get.
Countless moving parts
Competing priorities
The constant pressure to “get comp right”
That’s why Haris and I built the Modern Compensation Playbook.
Haris is the founder of CandorIQ, a platform that helps People and Finance teams manage compensation, headcount planning, and reward cycles in one place, giving leaders the visibility and structure they need to make confident pay decisions.
This is a practical guide packed with the frameworks, tools, and lessons we’ve refined over years of working with businesses like yours.
Whether you’re building your first salary bands or overhauling your total rewards philosophy, this playbook helps you cut through the noise and design compensation that works.
For your people and your business.
It’s the resource I wish I’d had when I started building comp foundations from scratch.
Interested in sponsoring the FNDN Series?
Know a startup Head of People looking for answers 🙋 why not forward this to them for some instant karma? ✨
TODAY’S INTERVIEW
How to Become a Product-led People Team — Part 2
with DreamTeam’s Founder and Chief Product Officer, Shirley Baumer
Shirley Baumer cut her teeth as the very first product manager at monday.com, joining when the company had ~30 people and helping steer growth into the thousands. During her tenure she led the core work‑management product — at one point managing ~$850M in annual recurring revenue.
Today she’s co‑founding DreamTeam, a “people operating system” designed with AI, zero administration, proactive insights, and customisability built in. Her mission: bring the product mindset to HR, so people teams earn the same strategic respect and influence as product teams.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
“Don’t ask for permission” in making the shift
How to run a kickoff as a mini product launch
Which rituals to embed to maintain momentum
How to measure success without over‑engineering
Why mistakes, when visible, create space for you and your people
Ways to use AI as a catalytic multiplier
My Key Takeaways:
Forget the solution. Lead with impact.
Rather than pitching People processes (“I will build this new performance review”), lead with the problem you’re trying to solve. For example: “We are losing our top performers: Our goal is to reduce unwanted departures by half.” This reframing shifts the conversation from features to outcomes and invites collaboration.
Launch public MVPs via a kick‑off.
Don’t stealth‑build your first version. Gather stakeholders into a short kick‑off meeting. Present the impact goals, the core problems you're addressing, the timeline, and what success looks like. Invite feedback early, when there is still room to iterate.
Embed a cadence of syncs and retros.
When thinking about how to embed a product-led ‘rhythm’, adopt lightweight rituals: periodic syncs (weekly, biweekly) to share what you’ve learned, where you’re headed, and what obstacles remain. At the end of each cycle, close with a retrospective: “What worked, what didn’t, what will we change next time?” This mirrors product/engineering teams and helps normalise recalibration and ensure alignment.
Normalise visibility on mistakes and earn trust.
When you embed error‑reporting into your cadence (“here’s what didn’t land; here’s how we’ll improve”), you disarm defensive reactions and build psychological safety. People trust teams that acknowledge failure and adapt.
Measure against the problem you set out to solve.
When assessing the success of becoming product-led, measure the impact vs the change itself. Rather than creating generic KPIs, map your metrics to the original hypothesis. If your problem was “top performers are leaving”, your metric might be involuntary attrition of top quartile. If onboarding, measure how many shipped something meaningful within their first six months. And don’t hide those metrics, make them visible.
Let AI free your capacity, not replace your judgment.
AI will create more space to embrace product-led approaches. People teams should use AI to automate repetitive tasks (contract drafting, scheduling, data pulling) and to stitch together disparate data sources into actionable insights. But let the core of decision‑making remain grounded in human judgment: “What is the problem?” and “What will move the needle?” Use AI as an accelerant, not a substitute.
Where to find Shirley:
If you enjoyed this post or know someone who may find it useful, please share it with them and encourage them to subscribe.
That’s all for from me this week.
Sure, this is technically the end of the newsletter, but we don’t have to end here! I’d love this to be a two-way chat, so let me know what you found helpful, any successes you’re seeing, or any questions you have about startup compensation.
Until next week,
When you’re ready, here’s three ways I can help you:
1. Tools & resources
Resources and tools that give you what you need to build your own startup compensation practices.
2. Comp consulting
I run FNDN, a global comp consultancy that builds compensation practices that are clear, fair and competitive for startups.
3. Startup People Summit
I run the Startup People Summit, a one day annual event focused on creating the playbook for startup people practices. Grab recordings from past events, or subscribe to the newsletter to join the next event.
