Letter from Investors to Startup Founders
Subject: “Your Team Can Build You or Bankrupt You”
Dear Founder,
We love when you say, “Our team is our biggest asset.” But truth be told, for most startups, staffing becomes the biggest liability. Either you’re too scared to hire even an intern, or you’re splurging on a CXO like you’re Mukesh Ambani’s cousin. Neither works.
We’ve seen it all. So here’s what we wish you knew before you turned staffing into your startup’s biggest sinkhole.
1. The Salary Mirror Fallacy
Too many founders peg salaries to what they think they deserve. One Delhi founder, fresh out of corporate, offered her first employee a ₹2 lakh/month salary “because that’s what I would want if I were hired.” Two months later, payroll bounced.
Lesson: Staff pay should reflect delivery, not your past heartbreaks with underpayment.
2. The Rockstar Hire Catastrophe
We remember a Bengaluru agri-startup that hired a “Star COO” from an MNC at ₹50 lakh CTC in year one. He quit in six months, calling the support inadequate. The money evaporated faster than chai at an IIT hostel.
Lesson: Titles don’t deliver. Hungry doers do.
3. Fear of Hiring = Suicide by Exhaustion
At the other extreme, a bootstrapped farmer-market founder in Ahmedabad tried to do everything himself — bookkeeping, deliveries, sales calls. He burnt out in 18 months, not because the idea was bad, but because he refused to hire even a ₹10,000/month assistant.
Lesson: Not hiring isn’t frugality. It’s self-destruction.
4. The Intern Illusion
One Jaipur food-tech founder thought interns = free labour. He dumped tasks on them without training. Within weeks, the interns left, trashing the startup on LinkedIn. Now he struggles to even get new interns.
Lesson: Interns are seeds. Nurture them, or they’ll fly away — and tell everyone you’re toxic.
5. Delivery vs CTC Blindness
A Nashik agri-input founder hired a ₹15 lakh sales head but never checked if sales justified the salary. Six months later, “sales head” had done fewer farmer visits than the founder’s driver.
Lesson: If you can’t measure delivery, you can’t justify CTC.
6. The Market Trend Myth
We hear this line a lot: “AI engineers are minimum ₹20L; no one works under ₹50K in Bangalore.” That’s gossip, not benchmarking. A Pune startup paying Silicon Valley salaries shut shop in a year. Their competitors hired sensibly and survived.
Lesson: Pay for value, not for WhatsApp rumors.
7. The FOMO Headcount Parade
One Delhi delivery startup celebrated raising $5M by boasting, “We’re now 100 people strong!” We checked the numbers — 70 were doing duplicate roles, 20 were “managers of managers,” and the rest were interns. The company died in 18 months.
Lesson: Size is vanity. Delivery is sanity.
8. Loyalty Is Not Automatic
One Mumbai founder assumed early hires would “stick out of gratitude.” Two hopped jobs for 20% higher salaries within three months. Gratitude doesn’t pay EMIs.
Lesson: Salaries attract. Purpose retains.
Closing Reflection
Dear Founder, staffing isn’t a headcount game. It’s a sanity game. We don’t want to see you broke because you hired a Rockstar COO who rocked your bank balance. We don’t want to see you burnt out because you feared hiring a helper. We want you balanced.
So ask this before every hire:
👉 “What exactly will this person deliver in 6 months?”
👉 “Does the value justify the cost?”
👉 “Am I paying for output, or am I paying for my insecurities?”
Remember, your staff isn’t just your payroll. They’re your heartbeat. Guard it, guide it, and don’t let fear or FOMO decide it.
With sarcasm and sincerity,
The Investor Community
Who’ve funded Rockstar COOs, survived loyalty heartbreaks, and still believe lean, hungry teams win.
