The question being answered is whether this works at all: whether the time gap is manageable, whether the quality is there, whether the arrangement is administratively sane.
What matters most is the calibre of the first hire, because they set the standard everyone after them calibrates to and they absorb the cost of a process that does not exist yet.
The common error is treating this stage as an experiment with a low budget. A weak first hire produces an inconclusive result and a wrong lesson about the market.
Market Guides
What happens between your first Philippine hire and your tenth
In short
This is an illustrative pattern rather than an account of a specific company. Three transitions recur: coordination stops being a founder task around the fourth hire, culture forms whether designed or not around the same point, and the entity question becomes real somewhere around 10 to 15 people.
The first hire is a decision. The tenth is a structure. The stages in between are where companies either build something durable or accumulate problems that surface later, and the transitions are predictable enough to plan for.
Hires 1 to 2, the proving stage
Hires 3 to 5, where coordination breaks
Individual output still looks fine. Team output stops improving.
The signal is that the answer to why is this late is usually waiting on me. Work is being produced and queued behind decisions, review or context that only the founder holds, and adding another delivery hire lengthens the queue.
This is the first structural transition. Either someone local takes on day to day coordination, or the founder accepts that the team is capped at what they can personally process across a time gap.
It arrives earlier than most plans assume, and it is a lagging indicator. By the time quality visibly drops, the cause is 2 months old.
The signal is that the answer to why is this late is usually waiting on me. Work is being produced and queued behind decisions, review or context that only the founder holds, and adding another delivery hire lengthens the queue.
This is the first structural transition. Either someone local takes on day to day coordination, or the founder accepts that the team is capped at what they can personally process across a time gap.
It arrives earlier than most plans assume, and it is a lagging indicator. By the time quality visibly drops, the cause is 2 months old.
Around hire 4 to 6, culture forms
Below 4 people the team is a set of relationships. Above it, norms form whether or not anybody designs them.
What gets decided in this window, usually by default: whether people raise problems early or work around them, whether the Philippine team is treated as part of the company or as a supplier, whether the shift burden rotates or is allocated permanently to the same people.
Each of those costs almost nothing to set deliberately at this size and a great deal to change at 20.
What gets decided in this window, usually by default: whether people raise problems early or work around them, whether the Philippine team is treated as part of the company or as a supplier, whether the shift burden rotates or is allocated permanently to the same people.
Each of those costs almost nothing to set deliberately at this size and a great deal to change at 20.
Hires 6 to 10, specialisation and the entity question
With coordination handled, roles can narrow. This is also where supporting functions start to earn their place: quality, data, operations, and eventually local people operations.
The entity question becomes real somewhere in this range. A widely used rule of thumb puts the crossover at around 10 to 15 people, and the actual drivers are the USD 200,000 paid-up capital requirement under the Foreign Investments Act, up to 5 months of setup, and whether you now need a local finance and human resources function.
Many companies that eventually build an entity start with compliant employment infrastructure and continue using it while the entity is established, which avoids stopping hiring for most of a year.
The entity question becomes real somewhere in this range. A widely used rule of thumb puts the crossover at around 10 to 15 people, and the actual drivers are the USD 200,000 paid-up capital requirement under the Foreign Investments Act, up to 5 months of setup, and whether you now need a local finance and human resources function.
Many companies that eventually build an entity start with compliant employment infrastructure and continue using it while the entity is established, which avoids stopping hiring for most of a year.
What compounds, and what does not
Compounds: the standard set by the first hire, the decision to write things down, and any structure that reduces dependence on the founder being awake.
Does not compound: hiring more of the same function without changing the shape of the team. Capacity without coordination produces a team that is busy and blocked.
The thing most often underestimated is that every transition above is a founder decision rather than a team performance issue, and each one is visible in advance if you know what to look for.
Does not compound: hiring more of the same function without changing the shape of the team. Capacity without coordination produces a team that is busy and blocked.
The thing most often underestimated is that every transition above is a founder decision rather than a team performance issue, and each one is visible in advance if you know what to look for.
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