People & Culture priorities for founders: What to focus on in your first year

Securing funding is a significant milestone for any founder. It often marks the transition from an idea to a real company, with the resources to build a team and scale. But growth also brings new challenges: suddenly, you’re not only focused on product and customers but also on hiring the right people and putting the right cultural foundations in place.
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The first year after funding is critical. The choices you make now – around how you hire, how you work together and what you value – will shape patterns, structures and habits that grow with your organisation. 
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In this article, we’ll cover what People & Culture priorities to focus on in your first year, with practical resources and steps you can implement even without an HR background. 

👉Make sure to also take a look at our HR Checklist for an even deeper dive into these (and other) aspects!
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1. Define and integrate your company values
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Values are much more than words on a poster or Notion page; they are the compass for decision-making, hiring and general company culture. For an early-stage start-up, setting values early provides clarity on what kind of organisation you are building and how you expect people to work together. They also help you make faster decisions in moments of ambiguity.
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Co-create your values as a founding team. This ensures they are authentic to your vision and not borrowed from generic “start-up culture” templates. Once you have a first version in place, you might want to review these values with new team members after a few months. Their perspectives can help you refine the wording and check whether the values hold true in daily work.
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Embedding values into daily practice is what makes them real. Use them as part of your recruitment assessments, introduce them in onboarding sessions led by the founders and make them visible in team rituals – for example, by adding a “value praise” agenda point in weekly meetings. Over time, values should also inform performance management: they become one of the factors for promotions, recognition and, when necessary, dismissals.
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2. Build a solid recruiting process
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Recruiting is often the very first point of contact candidates have with your company, setting the tone for everything that follows. Even if your organisation is young, a structured, fair and transparent process signals professionalism and helps you attract the calibre of talent you need to grow.
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Start with the basics:

• Invest time in writing clear profiles and job descriptions that paint a clear picture of the realities of the job and make sure you really know what you are looking for.
• Use structured interview guides and scorecards to evaluate candidates effectively and consistently and minimise bias.
• Set up a simple applicant tracking system (ATS) to manage applications, keep notes centralised and ensure no candidate falls through the cracks. 👉Here are six steps to find the right recruiting software for your context.
  
  

Candidate experience is equally important. Reply quickly, keep people updated and make sure every interaction shows respect for their time. Remember, talented people will judge your company not just on the product, but also on how you treat them during the hiring process. This will be much easier when you have implemented an ATS as you likely won’t have the bandwidth to manage all your candidates in a more manual fashion.
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Beyond the process itself, begin laying the foundations of your employer brand. You don’t need a polished campaign from day one, but think about your employee value proposition (EVP), your career page and your visibility on platforms like Kununu or LinkedIn. Collect brand assets along the way – photos from team events, testimonials or founder stories – to help prospective candidates picture themselves as part of your team.
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3. Create the first elements of a company handbook
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As your team grows, you’ll quickly find that answering the same questions again and again becomes a distraction. A simple company handbook acts as a single source of truth, making your culture, policies and ways of working clear to everyone without endless one-to-one explanations.
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Start small. You don’t need a 50-page manual in your first year. Focus instead on the essentials that will help new joiners hit the ground running:

• Onboarding basics: Which tools you use, where to find your brand toolkit, who to turn to for help.
• Feedback cycle: When and how feedback happens, and what people can expect from their managers and peers ( 👉see our Feedback Essentials Toolkit for templates and guidance).
• Day-to-day norms: Holiday policy, meeting etiquette, communication guidelines, etc..
  
  

Consider your “handbook” a living document. It should evolve with your team, not sit in a drawer. Sharing updates transparently shows that your organisation is committed to clarity and continuous improvement. You could create it in a classical document format but we would recommend using wiki tools like Notion or Confluence for easier access and updates.

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4. Introduce OKRs as your goal-setting framework (if the timing is right)
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Clear goals are essential for alignment, especially as your team begins to grow. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a proven framework to connect strategy to day-to-day work and to help young companies stay focused on what really matters.
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That said, OKRs are not always the right fit from day one. In very early stages, founders and teams often need flexibility to experiment and adjust quickly – and a formal OKR process can feel like unnecessary overhead. But once you have a slightly larger team and more stable priorities (usually after the first hires are in place and the next growth phase begins), introducing OKRs can create the alignment and accountability you need.
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When you are ready, start light. Avoid over-engineering the process. Focus on a handful of meaningful Objectives and Key Results, make sure each of the latter has clear owners and introduce simple check-ins to keep them alive. And don’t forget: OKRs work best when they’re integrated into existing rhythms (e.g. part of your weekly team meetings), not bolted on as extra admin.
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👉 For guidance on getting started the right way, see our blog on common OKR pitfalls and explore our OKR Kick-Off Package, which helps teams build OKRs that stick.

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5. Start setting up your operating model
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As your company grows, daily coordination can quickly become complex. An operating model helps you put structure around how decisions are made, how information flows and how people collaborate. The goal is not to add bureaucracy, but to create clarity so your team can move fast without chaos.
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Start by establishing a few key rhythms:

• Meeting cadences: Weekly team meetings, regular 1:1s and clear agendas keep everyone aligned.
• Communication channels: Set expectations for how and where communication happens. For example: Slack for day-to-day, email for external stakeholders, Notion for documentation. This reduces noise and helps the team stay aligned.
• Core KPIs: Define a handful of metrics (in People & Culture and beyond) that help you track whether the business and the team are on course.
  
  

If your team is remote or hybrid, think deliberately about how you will build connection. Regular offsites, even once or twice a year, can be a powerful way to strengthen trust and collaboration (👉see our free Offsite Location Guide and recipe for successful team offsites).
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An operating model doesn’t need to be complicated. What matters is consistency. When your team knows what to expect, they can focus their energy on building the business, not figuring out how to work together.
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6. Get support: You don’t have to do this alone
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As a founder, you’ll often find yourself wearing many hats at once: product lead, fundraiser, salesperson and now manager. But building a strong People & Culture foundation doesn’t mean you have to figure everything out on your own. The right support at the right time can make the difference between stumbling through avoidable mistakes and setting your team up for sustainable growth.
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Two forms of support are especially valuable in your first year:

• Coaching and sparring for founders: Leading a team requires a different skill set from building a product. Coaching or sparring can help you grow into your role as a manager, strengthen your communication skills and prepare you for the leadership challenges ahead (👉 book a call with us to discuss whether we could be the right sparring partner for you or see our curated Coaches Directory for inspiration on who might be able to support you as a classical coach).
  
  
• Fractional People & Culture support: Not every start-up can or should hire a full-time HR lead early on. Fractional support, consisting of a few hours a week or month from an experienced People & Culture professional, can help you design processes, support recruiting and build culture without overloading your budget. 👉We’ve written more about the benefits of this model in our blog on fractional HR.
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But: if you plan to grow rather rapidly and consistently, you might consider hiring your first own in-house People professional rather sooner than later.
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The key is to recognise that looking for support is an investment in your ability to focus on what only you as a founder can do, while ensuring your team gets the professional structures it deserves.
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💬 Ready to put the right People & Culture priorities in place?
‍Book a free call with our founder Julia to explore how we can support you on your journey.

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