Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here to get the next edition.
Friends,
Welcome to the last edition of 2025.
We’re taking a short break over the Christmas and New Year period (as I hope you are too), before returning in January.
During this time of the year, everyone understandably gets onboard with the end of year wrap ups — and we’re following suit!
So what was served up in 2025?
We hit publish on 41 posts (what!), with an average open rate of 47% (thanks to my avid readers!)
They collectively contained 49,800 words, and were viewed 113,600 times 🤯
The three most read editions of 2025 were:
Budgeting for the Comp Cycle, with Melissa Theiss
And the July edition of the Wrap Up
The most clicked post was Compensation as a Product, with Jessica Zwaan.
You beautiful subscribers grew from 2,100 to 3,600+ (yay to new readers!)
And you came from all around the world, with
70% from the US-of-A
10% from Australia
6.5% from the UK
So what can you expect from the FNDN Series in 2026?
Well, we’ve already got an incredible line up of new guests sharing incredible insights. Not just that, but we’re stepping beyond comp and into the practices that truly build world class People practices for scaling startups.
I can’t wait to share all of this, plus a few surprises.
Enjoy this week’s edition and I look forward to seeing you in 2026 ✌️
SNEAK PEEK
For the current, aspiring (or curious) Solopreneur
12 months ago I wrote a piece that continues to be one of the most popular articles I’ve ever published: How to Become a HR Consultant.
It was a reflection on my first year as a solopreneur, and everything I did to go from $0 to nearly $500k in revenue, inside 12 months.
Becoming a solopreneur is easily one of the most common things I’m asked about.
So instead of answering questions 1:1, I’m putting everything I know into a newsletter series.
From finding your first customer, to working out your pricing, to building your pitch deck, I’ll cover how I got here, so you can follow in my footsteps.
Hit the button below to subscribe, so you can get the first edition in January.
(and if you’re curious about becoming a solopreneur, hit reply and let me know the biggest question you have)
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
The Hardest Pay Conversations (and How to Have Them)
with Vidyard’s CPO, Sarika Lamont
Sarika Lamont is Chief People Officer at Vidyard, an AI‑enabled revenue‑acceleration platform. Based in the U.S. and leading people operations for a predominantly Canadian business, Sarika blends People strategy with business reality. She also leads AI and automation enablement across the organisation, helping leaders use both human insight and intelligent tooling to make compensation discussions fairer and more effective.
In this episode of the FNDN Series, Sarika drills into the hardest pay conversations every scaling company faces: telling high performers “no” on raises, explaining market‑based disparities, and operationalising pay transparency ahead of legislative change. Her approach surfaces repeatable principles that lean into trust, narrative clarity, and measurable frameworks that help you shift beyond platitude and into practicality.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
How to frame no‑raise conversations without eroding trust
What equitable pay transparency looks like in practice
Why managers must verbalise impact on the regular, and not just at review time
A repeatable roadmap for performance vs. market pay differentiation
How to co‑create career roadmaps with employees
Ways to empower your managers with clarity over pay decisions
How AI can accelerate feedback synthesis and development planning
My Key Takeaways:
Difficult pay conversations require recognition first, not denial.
Sarika’s first principle in any tough pay discussion is to anchor the dialogue in clear acknowledgment of contribution: “recognise the work they’ve done and the impact they’ve made.” Without it, all subsequent logic feels transactional. For high performers denied a raise due to budget constraints, this sets a relational foundation that helps to preserve motivation.
Explain why before you explain what.
In periods of constrained budget, the story you tell matters more than the outcome itself. Sarika walks managers through a script that starts with context: the business’s fiscal position, why raises are limited, and what other developmental investments have been made, before detailing the specifics of compensation decisions. This is not defensive; it’s strategic transparency.
Use competencies and impact, not task lists, to differentiate pay outcomes.
When differentiating performers for raises, Sarika emphasises measurable outcomes over subjective task recounts. Bringing conversation back to agreed‑upon competencies and the business impact tied to them makes the conversation feel structured and fair, even when the answer isn’t monetary.
Transparency builds trust, but only when practiced consistently.
Sarika’s philosophy isn’t “just be open,” it’s “be open with structure.” She pushed her executive team past the fear of upheaval, arguing that the real disruption comes from hiding compensation logic. With a clear framework and examples of how equity and fairness are baked in, she secured organisational confidence. The payoff? Teams that felt informed, not just one’s that were left to guess.
The grass isn’t always greener, but it might be better tended.
A striking metaphor from the conversation: “The grass is a little dead everywhere. It’s just what dead grass you want to play in.” Compensation management in startups is universally hard, Sarika says. The differentiator is how leaders engage, communicate and commit to seeing tough conversations through with honesty and competence.
Where to find Sarika:
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 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 year!
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.
