Lighthouse: A Search Operator
I’ve spent over a decade in talent and the last four years as an exclusive talent advisor for two of Europe’s leading early-stage VCs, working extensively with over 100 of Europe’s best founders. My role in VC was to act as a guardrail for talent decisions and a sparring partner for founders through tricky phases of startup growth. During that time, I saw firsthand the impact getting hiring right—or wrong—can have on a startup’s trajectory, and how much working with the right partners really matters.
Finding the right partners is never more important than when kicking off a search for what I often see as the toughest (and most critical) hires at the late Seed/early Series A stage: initial leadership hires. It’s not uncommon to see startups raise their Series A and then go and build a leadership team stocked with highly tenured, logo-rich VPs—despite the retention data on first-in VPs at Series A startups being pretty woeful. The miss rate of these hires is not because these VPs aren’t good at what they do, or that founders are bad at hiring, or even that existing partners aren’t doing a good job—but because, in most cases, the role/fit (with both candidate and partner) was just completely off in the first place.
The idea that a company should go from having first-time career managers (and in some cases not even managers) as its most senior people to hiring a slate of VPs who are far removed from both execution and stage appropriateness is undoubtedly flawed. There are, of course, instances where it makes sense to bring in a VP at this stage, and there are people who can successfully make that transition. It’s just that, in my experience, this is the exception over the norm—and hiring people at that level (at this stage) should be approached with that mindset.
Based on what I’ve seen, early leaders need to be getting properly filthy in the weeds—experimenting and figuring out what works, then defining strategy and scaling execution by building the right initial team to support it. The most consistently successful leadership hiring sequencing I’ve seen tends to follow this incredibly simple but effective pattern:
Heads → VPs → C-Suite
Early-stage ‘Heads’ tend to be pretty scrappy—usually not long out of Manager or very senior IC roles and still close to the action. They’re used to rolling up their sleeves, figuring out what moves the business forward—and executing on it.
VPs come in and define/build strategy to help scale what’s working, often internationally. They should be experts in building high-performing teams and removing the cognitive burden of functional ownership from founders.
C-Suite? They’re the architects of the long game—and, aside from the founders themselves or a late co-founder hire, should almost never be a priority at this stage.
If you're at the late Seed or early Series A stage and thinking about building your initial leadership team, the first question to ask is: do I really need a VP—someone several steps removed from execution, focused on setting strategy, internationalising, and scaling a team? Or do I need a hands-on early leader who can lay the groundwork for a VP to scale when the time is right? If the role you’ve landed on feels like a forced leap rather than a natural evolution, it likely makes sense to revisit that question.
The challenge is that great early leadership hires are tough to find—and finding a partner for this type of search is often even harder. Traditional search partner models aren’t really set up to make these hires, and contingent recruiters can often lack the search rigour to execute them well. This means founders are left with little choice but to index toward the upper end of that spectrum—and, in my opinion, to over-inflate the level of hire they truly need. They’re forced to work around the model, instead of the model working for them. While this has always been a challenge for founders, I believe this problem will only compound in the coming years.
The European startup ecosystem is clearly at a critical inflection point: exploding with the proliferation of AI and maturing—thankfully—at an ever-increasing velocity. It’s inevitable that a large number of category-defining businesses will be built in Europe over the coming decade—some are already being built. As these companies begin to scale, the bar for early leadership hires will continue to rise, and the cost of getting those hires wrong will do so in parallel. For Europe to compete globally, I believe founders need highly specialised partners—designed specifically to help them sequence and build exceptional initial leadership teams. Leaders who don’t add excessive burn (through comp or premature team build-outs), but who help own and drive founder ambition through lighter-weight, adaptable strategy and intense execution.
After years of trying (and failing) to find partners who are set up to service this need, I decided to build one myself: a partner built for now—and ready for what’s next.
Lighthouse: A Search Operator
Lighthouse is a ‘Search Operator’—purpose-built for the early stage, focused on the strategic execution of these key hires. As a Search Operator, Lighthouse is neither a traditional retained search firm nor a high-volume contingent recruiter.
Lighthouse partners deeply with founders to unpack the what, why, and how—before executing on the who. That means truly understanding your business and inflection point, sparring with you on what you truly need, helping build robust assessment frameworks and clear post-hire success metrics, and then bringing you a data-backed view of the market so you can make informed, confident decisions about the people you meet.
In short: Lighthouse will mix the advisory of a VC with the depth of a Search Partner and the operating speed of a traditional Contingent Agency. I’ve learned over the years what works (and unfortunately, what doesn’t) and taken these learnings to ensure Lighthouse is built around pillars that matter to founders.
The Lighthouse Pillars
Relentlessly Committed
We take a high-conviction approach. We don’t stop until we've found the ideal match for your team. We're hands-on partners from initial role scoping through onboarding.
Data-Driven Confidence
Within the first few weeks, you'll have a clear, data-backed view of the talent landscape—empowering informed decisions, quick pivots, and strategic clarity.
Founder-Friendly Fees
Our transparent pricing is tailored specifically to early-stage needs—minimising risk and aligning incentives.
Early leadership hires: Clear, two-part flat-fee structure – kick-off commitment and hire completion.
Key Strategic Hires (Pre-Leadership): Contingent, success-based fee.
These pillars are the foundation for how Lighthouse operates. They’re designed to drive better hires, clearer decisions, and help free up founder headspace to enable more focus on building the category-defining companies Europe deserves.
Why Lighthouse?
Building a startup is much like captaining a ship at sea; nothing is ever quite as clear as you’d like, and the current can push you forward—or pull you completely off course. Through years of founder advisory, I learned that sometimes partnering means providing a quick, clear, and reassuring reference point for a founder to feel confident they’re on the right path. Other times, it's about being a steady presence in moments of complexity and understanding that being a sounding board can be just as powerful as giving direction. A lighthouse felt like the perfect embodiment of these approaches.
If you’re debating your next key hire or want help on how to structure your early leadership team, get in touch. We're here to help guide you.
