Vise

The best hire I ever made was a 24-year-old client service rep. He now runs our entire enterprise function. No MBA. No prior leadership title. No executive recruiter found him. He just cared more about the business than anyone we brought in from the outside. Everyone tells founders to hire "seasoned executives." People who've run 200 person orgs at big tech companies. People with the perfect resume and the playbook to match. We tried that. It didn't work. Not because those people weren't talented. Because their playbooks were built for post-product-market-fit companies -- businesses where the machine already worked and they just had to scale it. They didn't take the time to understand our customer, our product, or our sales motion. They copy-pasted from companies that looked nothing like ours. The people who actually built Vise into what it is today were the ones who started small, learned every part of the business, and grew into leaders because they earned it. I call it homegrown talent. The people who are gonna be just as invested in the business as you are -- that's your early team. The ones who talk to every customer, who figure things out on their own, who treat the company like it's theirs. Here's what I actually look for. Not credentials. Not pedigree. Three things: raw talent that hasn't been boxed into someone else's playbook, genuine curiosity about the customer, and the kind of persistence where they'd rather figure it out themselves than wait to be told what to do. The best companies aren't built by people with the best resumes. They're built by people who refuse to stop until the job is done.

Most companies in our industry prioritize bureaucracy over customers. Internal politics over execution. Layers of approval over speed. It's a trade-off, and the customer always loses. Two years ago, I joined Vise to do the opposite: work directly with clients and build a culture obsessed with serving them. We've had the privilege of working with an incredibly diverse set of RIAs, enterprises, partners and advisors. Every conversation has taught us something. Every challenge you've shared has shaped how we build. That's product-market fit, staying relentlessly focused on what you actually need, not what's convenient for us. Today, as Vise eliminates hierarchy across the organisation, my title is changing to Head of Clients. But really, it's just catching up to what I've been doing all along: serving you. No layers between us. No bureaucracy slowing us down. Just clear ownership and an obsession with solving your problems. This industry is transforming, but only because you're building it with us. I'm here to listen, share, learn, and grow with you. Let's change this industry together. Read full article here: https://lnkd.in/eKWW8geQ

Three years ago, we cut Vise from 150 people to ~40. Output went up. Velocity increased. Customers felt it immediately. The next step was structural: we’re eliminating titles. Not because titles are bad in theory, but because in practice they create distance between problems and solutions. In the AI era, leverage comes from clarity and speed, not hierarchy. We explain the decision here: https://lnkd.in/etTKwBjb