By Julio Martínez
In the fast-paced world of startups, a new strategic function is gaining momentum — the Founder’s Office. This powerful unit, which acts as a bridge between the founders and the rest of the organization, is becoming essential for rapid growth.
Companies such as Stripe, Revolut, Notion, Ramp, Brex, Checkout.com and OpenAI have all embraced this function to better navigate the complexities of scaling.
This team acts as the extension of the founders’ brains, responsible for handling high-value tasks, unblocking bottlenecks and preserving the founders’ time for only the most important work.
With such limited capacity, founders must delegate tasks while also staying ruthlessly focused on the bigger picture — namely, vision, product and culture. This is where the Founder’s Office plays a critical role. It helps prevent the company’s strategic plan from dying in the gap between idea and implementation.
Here are four reasons why every high-growth startup needs a Founder’s Office.
It amplifies the founders’ impact while protecting their time
Most startups hire one chief of staff and call it a day. Now imagine having a team of strategic generalists with complementary skills, all keeping the founders focused on high-impact initiatives.
Startups move incredibly fast. As they scale, it becomes increasingly important for the founders to delegate appropriately. Every hour saved by the Founder’s Office can be reinvested into fundraising, hiring, vision-setting or nurturing customer relationships.
The Founder’s Office must act as an extension of the founders, sitting at the core of decision-making. When crucial discussions arise about strategy, investments and company direction, the Founder’s Office can lean in, freeing up the founders to focus on what matters most.
It builds infrastructure that scales
Everyone hired in the Founder’s Office has a unique skill set and background. However, one underlying trait is operational rigor. Paired with the ability to create structure in a chaotic environment, this makes for a high-performing team.
This team creates and implements systems that keep the organization on track. As generalists working across multiple teams, they can step into any area of the business to identify bottlenecks and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
The current Founder’s Office at my startup, Abacum, comprises three individuals, each aligned with one of three key areas — i.e. sales, operations, and growth. Each of them has very specific and tailored professional experience in their specialist area to ensure these projects have the best chance of success.
It creates a pipeline of future leaders
The Founder’s Office should be a dream team of operators with different levels of experience. Their role in this tight-knit unit primes them for future leadership.
These individuals are exposed to all aspects of the business and gain a deep understanding of it. This experience helps them grow into function leads, creating a strong internal talent pipeline of homegrown leaders who are aligned with the mission and culture.
At Abacum, for example, our head of product marketing and our head of growth both came from our Founder’s Office.
It improves visibility and accountability
As headcount grows, it becomes harder for founders to track performance as closely as they once did. This is compounded by shifting markets, new competitors and evolving priorities.
The Founders’ Office helps raise the bar across the organization while also keeping leadership in the loop. They monitor key metrics, track progress toward goals, and ensure execution happens on time.
This team oversees multiple strategic projects, holds a broad view of what’s happening across the business, and sees the bigger picture in a way few others can. They lead by example and hold themselves to high standards.
A high-growth startup’s success depends on speed, clarity and focus. A strong Founders’ Office delivers all three — making it not just a nice-to-have, but a strategic necessity for any company scaling with serious ambition. It’s the engine behind execution, the glue between teams, and the force that ensures the founder’s vision is translated into real, measurable progress.
Julio Martínez is the co-founder and CEO of Abacum, a company specializing in financial planning and analysis software for mid-market firms. Abacum’s all-in-one platform enables CFOs to forecast revenue, plan headcount and account for unseen financial circumstances amidst tough macroeconomic headwinds. Under Martínez’s leadership, the company has expanded internationally, with its headquarters in New York City, and offices in London and Barcelona. Before co-founding Abacum, Martínez had a career in finance and technology. In 2018, he attended the Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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