Stage 2: Tribe (10s of Employees)

The Tribe stage marks the transition from a founding team to a real organization. With tens of employees, you’re no longer a group of co-founders doing everything together. You’re building a tribe with shared purpose, emerging roles, and the beginnings of culture. This is where blitzscaling starts to feel both exhilarating and terrifying.

Hiring at the Tribe Stage

Hiring is the most important activity at the Tribe stage. Every person you bring on has an outsized impact on the company’s trajectory. At this stage, you’re still hiring people who will become the cultural foundation of the organization.

“The first employees of a blitzscaling company are more like co-founders than employees. They shape the culture, the product, and the trajectory of the company.” — Reid Hoffman

Who to Hire

At the Tribe stage, hire for:

• Versatility: You need generalists who can shift roles as needs change
• Speed: People who move fast and learn faster
• Culture fit: People who embody the values you want to define your company
• Entrepreneurial mindset: Self-starters who don’t need to be told what to do
• Network: People who can recruit other great people

Avoid hiring specialists too early. The company’s needs will change rapidly, and people who can only do one thing will become bottlenecks.

Hiring Speed vs. Quality

One of the hardest tensions at the Tribe stage is between hiring speed and hiring quality. You need people urgently, but a bad hire at this stage is devastating. The counterintuitive rule of “hire Ms. Right Now, not Ms. Right” applies, but with a crucial caveat: never compromise on values and cultural fit. You can train skills; you can’t train character.

Establishing Culture

Culture isn’t something you create after the company is built. It’s established in the earliest days and becomes increasingly difficult to change. The Tribe stage is when culture goes from implicit to explicit.

Culture as Operating System

Think of culture as your company’s operating system. It determines how people make decisions when there’s no policy to consult. In a blitzscaling company, where processes haven’t caught up with growth, culture is what keeps everyone aligned.

Key cultural decisions at the Tribe stage:

• Communication style: Open and transparent, or need-to-know?
• Decision-making: Consensus-driven or top-down?
• Risk tolerance: How much failure is acceptable?
• Work intensity: What’s the expected pace and commitment?
• Values hierarchy: When values conflict, which wins?

Formalizing Roles

At the Family stage, everyone does everything. At the Tribe stage, roles begin to crystallize. This doesn’t mean rigid job descriptions, but it does mean clarity about who owns what.

“The biggest mistake companies make at the Tribe stage is not defining roles clearly enough. When everyone is responsible for everything, nobody is responsible for anything.” — Chris Yeh

Role Clarity Without Rigidity

• Define clear areas of ownership, but expect people to step outside their areas
• Create accountability without bureaucracy
• Use lightweight processes (daily standups, weekly reviews) to coordinate
• Keep hierarchy flat but ensure someone can break ties

Raising Series A and B

The Tribe stage typically coincides with Series A and B fundraising. At this point, investors want to see evidence of product/market fit and a credible path to massive scale.

What Investors Look For

• Traction: Strong growth metrics, retention, and engagement
• Unit economics: A path (not necessarily current achievement) to positive unit economics
• Market size: Confirmation that the addressable market is truly large
• Team: A founding team that’s shown it can recruit and lead
• Competitive moat: Early signs of defensibility (network effects, proprietary technology, brand)

Key Takeaways

• The Tribe stage transitions from co-founders to a real organization with emerging roles
• Hire versatile generalists who can adapt as the company’s needs change rapidly
• Never compromise on cultural fit, even when hiring urgently
• Culture becomes your operating system; establish it deliberately at this stage
• Define clear ownership without creating bureaucracy that slows you down
• Series A/B investors want to see traction, unit economics potential, and a credible path to scale