The Operating Table: How to manage performance in your startup, plus climate-friendly tech, and how to learn physical product development from Amazon.
Milly Barker
Fractional COO at Pay As You Go COO. I can help your growing company get more sh!t done. Serial startup COO. MBA. ex-Amazon.
Hi, I'm Milly and I help startups win.
I believe everyone deserves a chance to make their entrepreneurial dreams a reality and Pay As You Go COO was created to help that happen. I’m an expert company builder and I want to help you beat the odds and build a business that’s destined for success, without breaking the bank.
Find articles, insights, tips, and tools below - all designed to help your growing company.
Running Your First Performance Review
When you’re setting up a new company and thinking about all your dreams for the future, it’s hard not to get excited about the utopian dream of employment you'll create.
You'll swear you’ll never run things the way your previous boss did, just like everyone swears they’ll never become uncool, and yet few can resist the siren song of a quiet night in once they’re over the hump of 35.
The problem is, unless he/she/they was a massive sadistic narcissist (oh boy have I experienced that), your previous boss was probably trying to do the best they could with limited resources and it’ll be similarly hard for you to set up proper systems and processes in growing company until that company has, well, grown.
Much like how you start building your market with an MVP of your product or service, so too can you start building your beautiful dream for happy employees with an MVP of your performance management process.
In an early-stage company, where budgets are low and resources are in short supply, ownership for ‘people’ can often fall between the cracks. One of the reasons that a good COO is the most efficient and effective senior hire a young company can make is that ‘getting the best out of people’ is one of the role’s core functions - including helping to create the base of a performance management framework until it's time for a senior People hire.
In my experience, you need to focus on a few key things to develop an MVP performance review. For the complete lowdown on a performance review MVP, get the full article here:
Useful Resources
I’m the ultimate cheerleader for early-stage companies and I’ve got the knowledge you need to take your brilliant ideas from the drawing board to the board room. Did you know you can get a lot of those for free on my website?
Find investors, accelerators, tips, tricks, tools, and more to help you beat the odds and build for success on my free resources page.
A few recent highlights:
This is the growth programme for climate tech startups committed to reducing global emissions, eliminating the world’s waste and restoring nature.
领英推荐
The Consumer Product Programme is Amazon's an equity-free accelerator for early-stage start-ups that are developing sustainable and innovative physical consumer products that have recently launched or are about to go to market.
Exclusively for UK tech scaleups looking to grow, raise capital, and scale faster, VenturePath supports founders through personalised business growth planning, leadership learning, a trusted community of fellow founders, a vetted expert network, and ￡6bn+ of associated VCs - all available through a private app.
Upcoming Events
I’m very excited to be doing a thing with my pal and Fractional CMO Caroline.
We both passionately believe in the value that a Fractional Exec can bring to your business. So much so, that we’re launching a whole series of talks about it.
Perfect Pair is a 6-episode 45-minute webinar series that brings together experienced Fractional Execs from across the C-Suite to talk about how partnering with a seasoned expert is the key to a growing company unlocking the biggest return from their software investments.
Each of our guests will choose a product they love and talk to us about why that product is great for a growing company and how Fractional expertise can help implement it properly.
The first episode focuses on my favourite topic: Operations.
Join us via LinkedIn Live on the 1st of August at 12pm BST to learn some impactful tips about how to get the most out of your operations software.
I’m Milly, Founder of Pay As You Go COO.
There are about 800,000 new businesses started in the UK each year and 62% of those will fail really quickly. I’m on a mission to stop yours being one of them.
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If you’re dreaming of getting more sh!t done in your growing company, why not book a free call to see how I can help?