Why you should hire a protege ASAP!

I want to talk to you about why hiring a protege can be beneficial not just for them but for you!

One of the best things I did after university was to call up a successful entrepreneur I knew and ask him if needed help with anything. Luckily for me - I was on the next plane to Singapore and following him around for 3 years.

For me it was a once in a lifetime experience where I was invited into rooms of high level CEOs, politicians, government teams and areas I would have never seen without shadowing someone who had access.

Not just that, I received so much 1-on-1 mentoring by watching him run investor meetings, sales calls, hiring top talent etc.

A+ Talent at Graduate Salaries

However, for him - he was able to get a highly capable young person who could get the throughput of 5 people for the price of a grad.

Prior to joining him, I had taught myself to code, create marketing campaigns, design fairly well and just get a high level of individual contribution work done. You’d be surprised how many young folks - put the effort to building a lot of skillsets by themselves.

If I received a message from him at 5pm asking for a deck to be done by tomorrow morning - he knew it would be done well and on time.

If you want A+ talent, you have 2 options:

• Hire experienced A+ players who can get stuff done and know exactly what to do and pay them A+ rates.

• Hire diamonds in the rough who have the potential of being A+ and you hire them early for a fraction of the cost of an experienced B player. You’ll realise their growth rate is so quick your ROI is positive within months.

🌍 P.S If you want to hire offshore talent at a fraction of the cost but still get A+ quality - hit up Athyna. (Bill and the team are amazing!)

The Protege Boost

However, since then - having switched over to the mentor side, I’ve noticed another underrated benefit of having a protege.

You perform better!

When I was first raising for EntryLevel, I brought my protege at the time - Caleb Maru (who is now running one the largest tech newsletters in Africa!) to the meetings.

I felt more confident, more encouraged to be at my A game so I could impress him and actually make it valuable for him. Also me treating it more like a coaching experience than just trying to get funding - made me feel almost more at ease.

This is known as the “Hawthorne effect” where humans modify their behaviour when they know they are being watched. To me - this is a version of it which we can call the “Protege Boost”. Knowing that someone, who is intending to learn from you, is watching - makes you perform better and takes a little bit of the pressure off the situation.

I’ve had many proteges that have helped elevate my game, performed really well for me and have succeeded in their own game:

• Theon who is now a software engineer at a huge company

• Jennifer who grew her newsletter from 0 to 14k subscribers in 2 weeks

• Daniel who had 3 years of product management experience (with me) before even graduating university and

• Alvin who co-ran an international bootcamp with me and now works as a sales engineer at a startup

and many more!

To my proteges - thank you for making me better ❤️ 

Cheers,

Ajay

How I can help  🚀
Here are a few recommendations or ways I can help you. Follow the links if any of these are interesting.

🌍 Hiring Global Talent: Fine A+ players at lower costs with Athyna
📰 Build a Newsletter: Want to build a newsletter like me? Try Beehiiv
👨‍💻 Tech Courses: Want to do a tech course you’ll actually finish? Try EntryLevel