Library

Guides for founders and small HR teams

Written for whoever runs HR at a growing company: a founder doing it before there is a team, an early people or ops lead, a small HR function carrying a global headcount.

44 guides in nine topics, all on this page and free to read in full. Five topics open with an overview, marked start here; the guides under it take one part of the job in detail.

Choosing HR software

3 guides

Start here

7 min

HR software for startups

What a startup actually needs from HR software, when to move off spreadsheets, how the core-plus-modules model works, and the pricing traps to avoid.

It also leads ten guides filed under other topics, because they belong to the job they describe more than to this one.

Global contractors

2 guides

Start here

11 min

Hiring and managing global contractors

When to use contractors versus employees or an EOR, how to onboard them, which tax forms to collect, how to pay across borders, and how to keep one system.

Contractor vs employee: getting classification right 5 min

Equity and comp

3 guides

Start here

8 min

Startup equity and employee stock options

How startup equity and stock options work, from the option pool to strike price to vesting and cliffs, and how to explain a grant so employees understand it.

Trust and compliance

4 guides

Start here

10 min

HR data security and compliance for startups

Why HR data is unusually sensitive, what good encryption and access control look like, how GDPR and India DPDP apply to employee data, and what to ask a vendor.

Switching guides

7 guides

Start here

6 min

Switching HR systems without losing data

The sequence for moving HR systems: what to export and in what order, what never migrates cleanly, how to test the new exit, and when to cancel the old tool.

Running HR

11 guides

Hiring

3 guides

Payroll and pay

2 guides

Hiring by country

9 guides

How these guides are written

The same rules apply to every guide in the library.

Nothing is gated: Every guide is free to read in full. No email wall, no download form, and no filler written to reach a word count.
Statutory topics stay conceptual: Where a guide touches tax, statutory pay or employment law, it stays on concepts and structure and tells you to confirm the current numbers with a qualified professional.
No advice we would not follow: Each guide says what we would do ourselves at this size, and carries the date it was last updated at the top of the page.

If you would rather not read

Eight free tools

They do the arithmetic several of these guides describe. Nothing to sign up for and nothing stored: every figure you type stays in your browser, and each tool shows its method.

If you would rather read the argument

The blog

A guide answers a task and is kept current. When we want to argue about how this category prices and packages itself, that goes on the blog, which is dated and links back to whichever guide carries the detail.

Read the blog

44 guides on running HR. One place to actually run it.

Start free See what the core includes