Building from scratch: banking, first hires, invoicing abroad and staying solvent.
The conversations members of this Circle are actually reading.
We shifted 30% of our Meta budget to TikTok last quarter. Reach is genuinely cheap and the audience is there, but attribution is a mess and our checkout conversions barely moved. Is anyone getting real revenue out of it locally, or is it awareness only until payment friction gets solved?
AskingStartup ProfessionalsTeam LeadsPeople with 10+ years experience
For us it isn't talent and it isn't the idea. It's banking and getting paid: invoicing clients abroad, moving money in, paying a team partly here and partly outside. We've stitched together a working setup but it took longer than building the product. What's the constraint that actually slows you down day to day?
AskingFoundersExecutivesStartup Professionals
We can hire a strong senior engineer in an emerging market for what a mid-level costs us in the Gulf. The counter-argument from our investors is retention: the good ones get recruited abroad within two years. My view is that two excellent years beat four average ones, but I'd like to hear from people who've lived through the churn.
AskingFoundersHiring ManagersRecruiters
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