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eShares 101 – How this startup manages employee onboarding

Henry Ward, CEO at eShares just posted a Medium blog on how they do their employee onboarding, and the deck they use has some decent learnings in it.

“All eShares employees (new and old) take a full-day course called eShares 101. It is an introduction to our company, our values, and our execution strategy. The class size is kept small (8–10 people) so everyone can participate in the group discussions. I give this class on Fridays once a month.”

Some learnings

eShares is run like a Professional Sports Team
Show up on time everyday at 8:30am: “In sports, even the goalie, who may have a completely different practice schedule from the rest of the team, still meets at the same time to warm up.“

Most people think it’s crazy that we make everyone be in the office at 8:30am every morning. We think it is crazy not to. The New England Patriots would never tell players, “Show up for practice when it is convenient.” If you want to be the best in the world at what you do, start every day together.

They share their financials with staff: Every month I send an investor update with our performance, including our income statement and balance sheet
They view their burn rate as a proxy for risk: “We target a $600k/month burn rate. If we burn more than $600k/month we are taking too much risk. If we burn less we are not taking enough.“
They only do new projects if they can pay for it with revenue: “Because we have a target burn rate, if we want to invest in projects, we have to earn it. We allow ourselves a certain amount of equity capital each month, but anything beyond that we need to pay for with revenue“
They target being in the 75th percentile for compensation: “The best people are recruited, not bought. The companies who pay top-of-market will always win the salary-optimizing people. The best people optimize to learn (Learn vs Earn)“

They have a ‘siege’ strategy not a blitzkrieg approach to growth: “Our burn rate is our throttle. Though we have raised significant money, we slowly apply the gas. Many companies raise large amounts of money to deploy in 12–18 months. It is their Blitzkrieg strategy. We will deploy the full force of our balance sheet patiently over a sustained period. It is our Siege strategy.“
If staff want more pay they have to get better: “Lobbying, staying late, taking credit, buying beers — these have nothing to do with your compensation. If you want to increase your compensation, become better at what you do“
If staff dont get better, their salary can go down!