Vanessa was among the first People & Culture hires at several New Zealand startups that went on to scale, get acquired, or break into international markets, where she led the full People & Culture remit across hiring, culture, and team development for teams spread around the world. She's now Head of People & Culture at Appetise, a Series A startup that simplifies meal planning for everyone, and brings AI-enabled consumer insights to food brands.

You are the entire People function. There is a hiring plan, a performance process that does not exist, three managers who need coaching, and a founder who just asked about equity. Everything looks urgent. This session is about deciding what actually gets built, what gets a rough first version, and what can wait twelve months without anyone noticing. We will cover MVP people practices for early teams and the cost of overbuilding too early.

‍

What you'll leave with:

1. A simple way to sort the thousand things into now, rough version, and not yet, so you have something to fall back on when everything looks urgent.
2. Permission to ship things at 70 percent, and a few phrases for saying "not yet" without feeling like you have let someone down.
3. A clear-eyed look at what overbuilding actually costs you, and how to get to the MVP fast.