Workshop-First Advisor Hiring
Vet an advisor with a paid working session on a real problem, then re-evaluate their value every month.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Verna considers not hiring advisors one of the biggest missed multipliers for a growth team, because advisors give you access to patterns and data points you otherwise can't get. But to avoid dead-weight advisors, don't hire on resume: run a paid workshop on a real problem first to see them in action, then keep them on retainer only as long as a monthly value check passes.
Origin
Elena Verna, who hires advisors for herself on every operating role despite advising companies herself.
Core principles
- 01Advisors are additional input into your decision-making, not the strategy setter
- 02A cagey advisor who won't share what they know is the wrong advisor
- 03The field has a big information asymmetry; advisors give you access to others' internal playbooks
- 04Any growth team without an advisor is underperforming
How to run it
- 1
Don't hire on resume alone
Resist hiring an advisor just because they 'look good' on paper.
- 2
Run a paid workshop on a real problem first
Bring a genuine problem you're experiencing and do a working session so you can see how the advisor interacts with your team, connects dots, and provides concrete examples. Pay their rate for it.
Pro tip This creates a practical interview loop that quickly reveals whether you can work together and whether they add value.
Watch out An advisor who is cagey about what they know in the workshop is not one you want on the team.
- 3
Move to an ongoing retainer
If the workshop goes well, engage them on an ongoing retainer basis.
Pro tip You can hire an advisor as a contractor; it doesn't require a formal advisory board.
- 4
Re-evaluate value every single month
Each month ask whether the advisor added value: did you find value in the conversations, did they offer anything valuable? Keep them only while the answer is yes.
Pro tip Some advisors are right for just 3 months, others stay 4-5 years; both are fine.
Watch out Don't hold advisors to monetary/revenue-attribution expectations; the measure is whether the conversations were valuable.
In the wild
Despite having advised and operated at many companies, Verna says 'I don't know everything' and hires advisors for herself every time she takes an operator role, calling it the fastest way to learn anything.
→ Faster learning and better decisions than teams who try to figure everything out on their own with no advisors.
Common mistakes
Winging it with no advisor
Teams that try to solve everything alone with no advisory input are underperforming, especially given the field's information asymmetry.
Is it for you?
Best for
Growth and startup leaders assembling outside expertise to accelerate learning
Not ideal for
Situations where you'd hire an advisor for their logo/network rather than demonstrated problem-solving
From the transcript
“you should not hire an advisor until you do some sort of workshop with them on the problem that you're experiencing”
“any advisor that is cagey about the what they know is not the type of advisor that you're going to want to have”
“every single month you should go and say, "Did they add any value?"”
“I hire advisors for myself because that is the fastest way to learn anything”
From the episode
10 growth tactics that never work
Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey)