Inara
Chief of Staff
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Chief of Staff - Early-Stage Startup (Founder-Led)
London | Full-time | Reporting directly to the Founder
Hybrid - Typically Monday & Tuesday in a Central London office location
Salary - Approx £90-120k, with equity.
About the Company
We're working confidentially with a very early-stage startup, building a data-driven product in a large, underserved market. The team is small and sharp: the founder (a second-time builder who has already built and exited one company), a tech lead, two founding engineers, and fractional back-office support. The founder is highly ambitious to get to Series A funding by next summer and have paying customers by Q4 this year.
This is a rare seat: joining while the product, the team, and the operating model are all still being built. Certainly an early stage for this level of role; but the Founder knows exactly the value this person would bring to him and the business.
The Role
We're hiring a Chief of Staff to work directly alongside the founder and take ownership of how the business runs day to day - not as a co-strategist, but as the person who turns intent into execution, structure, and momentum.
Think architect and master builder: the founder decides what gets built and the bar it needs to hit. You make sure it actually gets built - faithfully, at pace, and in a way that holds up as the company scales. This isn't a step down in seniority. It's a different discipline, and it's the one that gets this company to Series A.
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You'll take the lead on:
- Operationalising the business - building the systems, processes, and cadence that don't yet exist, at the right level of weight for each stage of the business
- Responsible capital deployment - helping decide how and where money gets spent as the business moves through its funding stages
- Building toward repeatability - putting in the measurement, tracking, and feedback loops that turn early traction into a provable, repeatable sales motion
- The Series A case - working with the founder to build the metrics and narrative that make the fundraise story credible
- Driving initiatives end-to-end - spotting what needs to happen and leading it, without waiting to be told
Who You Are
- Founder or founder-adjacent experience. You've been through the ambiguity, the pace, and the capital discipline of building something from very little, and you know what those challenges are without being told.
- Intuitive judgement over playbooks. You read a situation and know what it needs, rather than reaching for the same framework regardless of context.
- Genuinely curious. You're motivated by the underlying problem and the mechanics of building a repeatable business.
- Comfortable in ambiguity. Requirements will be incomplete and priorities will shift. You create progress anyway.
- High ownership and agency. You spot gaps and drive work forward without being directed or waiting for permission.
- Practical judgement. You know the difference between the pace this stage demands and the quality it can't afford to lose.
- Self-aware. You can speak plainly about your own strengths, weaknesses, and what you've learned from past mistakes.
- Mature collaborator. Genuinely comfortable being challenged hard on your own thinking.
- Compounding thinker. You leave things better than you found them - reusable systems, clear documentation, learnings.
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A Note on Fit
A few things worth being upfront about:
- This sits alongside the founder, not above or in place of them - decisions on what gets built and the bar it needs to hit stay with them
- It's a builder's role, not a traditional EA or diary-management one
- It suits people who adapt their approach to the situation, rather than applying the same playbook everywhere
- It suits people who are happy moving forward on a rough brief and refining as they go, rather than waiting for a fully-formed one
If this sounds like you, please reach out to find out more.
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