FOUNDATION - BY ZED ESS
You didn't start your company to do HR.
Get back to your mission.
Foundation is the people infrastructure programme for post-seed to Series B founders - so you can scale without burnout, people debt, or wasted money.
Post-Seed→Series B
Stage focus
19+
Years in digital & tech
40+
Founders & Leadership teams
SOUND FAMILIAR?
Founders scale product and revenue faster than their ability to scale people.
It's not a failure of leadership. It's a structural gap. And it shows up the same way, every time.
• Hiring is reactive
Post-fundraise, hiring turns into a trolley dash. Everything feels urgent. You're bringing people in without a clear sequence or plan.
• A hire isn't working
Someone isn't performing. You're not sure why. Is it the hire, the onboarding, the role scoping, or the feedback. Probably all four.
• Ownership is unclear
Everything escalates to you. Decisions, standards, problems all climb back up because there's no clear "how we do things here."
• Managers are struggling
Your best people became managers. Now they're improvising. They were great at the work - leading is a different skill entirely.
"That's people debt. Common in startups. Expensive if you leave it to grow."
THE PROGRAMME
Foundation
A structured people infrastructure programme. Five stages, one coherent arc - from reactive and noisy to clear, confident, and ready to scale.
Most engagements start with a single acute pain point - a bad hire, a chaotic headcount push, a manager who isn't landing it. Foundation starts there, then builds the infrastructure that stops it coming back.
Each stage is a discrete project with its own scope, timeline, and outcome. You don't have to do all five - the People Clinic tells us where you actually need to start.
Stabilise. Stop the pain.
You have an immediate people or hiring crisis. Someone isn't performing, a conversation has been avoided too long, or a hire has gone wrong. Stabilise diagnoses the root cause and resolves it - so you can think clearly again.
£5,000. 1-4 weeks
1
2
Define. Establish your culture.
Without a shared foundation - vision, mission, values, behaviours - every people decision is a judgement call. Define gives your company the cultural infrastructure that everything else is built on.
£12,000. 6-8 weeks
Build. Connect your business plan to a hiring plan.
Reactive hiring is expensive. Build creates the hiring infrastructure you need to bring in the right people, in the right sequence, at the right time - before pressure hits and you pay for not planning.
£10,000. 4-6 weeks
3
Embed. Systems that run without you in the room.
Three concurrent workstreams: onboarding so new hires hit the ground running, levelling and progression so your team knows what good looks like, and Scaling Smart: The Startup Manager Programme so your managers can actually lead. This is where the infrastructure becomes self-sustaining.
£60,000. 6-9 months
4
Sustain Stay supported as you scale.
Fractional clinic support as your team grows into the infrastructure. Two sessions per month, async support included. Or I handover to a People Lead, that I could help you recruit.
The Foundation is built - this keeps it sharp.
£3,000/month. Ongoing
5
The full Foundation programme: £87,000.
You're going to spend six figures on your people problems one way or another. The question is whether you end up with a salary on your books - or an operating system built for your company.
A Head of People at your stage is expensive, hard to hire, and almost certainly learning on the job. They'll be managing day-to-day fires, building a people roadmap, and executing against it simultaneously - whilst your company keeps moving. Most can't do all three at once, and many won't have done it before at your stage. It's a significant bet.
Foundation is the opposite of a bet. It's a proven programme, built from 19+ years of experience across 40+ companies at exactly your stage. The infrastructure gets built. It works. And when it's done, it's yours - with no headcount, no equity, and no recruitment risk.
Most founders don't start at Stage 1 and run all the way through. The People Clinic tells you exactly where to begin - and what it's already costing you to wait.
Founders stop scrapping around trying to be a People team - and get back to building the company you dreamt of creating.
FOR MANAGERS
Scaling Smart: The Startup Manager Programme
Most startups promote their best people into management and leave them to figure it out. It's not negligence - there's just no playbook.
Scaling Smart is a cohort programme for managers in startups and scale-ups. Six sessions, six people from different companies, built around the real challenges of leading in a high-growth environment.
It covers self-leadership, running effective 1:1s, giving feedback, setting goals that connect to something real, and coaching your team rather than just managing them.
Cohorts run quarterly. Open to individuals - most participants expense it through their company.
£1,750 + VAT per person
START HERE
The People Clinic
Every Foundation engagement starts with a free 30-minute diagnostic conversation. Sharp, focused, and practical - we identify the root cause of what's going wrong and agree the right next step.
You share what's going on. I ask the questions nobody else has asked.
We identify the root cause - not just the symptom you came in with
You leave with clarity on the real problem and a clear recommendation for what to do next.
An honest conversation about what's happening and what would actually help.
People Clinic
Free • 30 minutes • Video call
For post-seed to Series B founders with a people or hiring challenge. Come with your most pressing problem - we'll spend 30 minutes getting to the bottom of it together.
Limited slots available each week. No commitment required.
WHAT FOUNDERS SAY
Real results, real founders.
"Before working with ZeShaan, we faced significant challenges as a growing company. We wanted a formal review process but didn't know where to start. ZeShaan partnered with our leadership team to build custom competencies for our career framework that aligned perfectly with our company's identity. Employees now understand exactly what is required to progress. The impact was tremendous."
Bruno Lecoq, CEO & Sylwia Chmielewska, Director of People
BEMO
"ZeShaan stepped in at a critical moment. He brought clarity, structure, and real pace - scoping the role, designing an interview process, and guiding us from first conversation to signed offer in under 25 days. His approach was highly strategic, but also deeply practical."
Sam Moorhouse, Founder & CEO
turntabl
"ZeShaan was one of our most trusted advisors - whether working with Series A companies on building high-performing teams or individual coaching with executives. We would never have been able to support so many amazing companies without him."
Liam Ward, Head of Programmes
Tech Nation
"He gets to the big problems instantly and will help you find solutions that will work. He’s personable and I'd recommend him to anyone with people, talent or culture problems."
Barry Cranford, Founder
RecWorks
Some companies I’ve helped
ABOUT ZESHAAN
I'm not a recruiter,
a coach, or an HR consultant.
I'm a systems thinker for people. I diagnose the root cause, solve the immediate problem, and build the infrastructure that stops it coming back.
19+ years across digital, tech, and startups. 40+ founders and leadership teams. The full arc - from crisis to scale.
Agency - learned to assess and close talent in fast-moving markets
Startups to scale-ups - built hiring and people systems as companies scaled
Consultancy - 40+ startups and scale-ups across funding stages and leadership styles
Tech Nation & Plugged Founders advisor - supported early-stage to Series A companies on high-performing teams
WHY FOUNDATION EXISTS
Too many founders get trapped in operational firefighting instead of focusing on strategic growth. They become the accidental People team - solving the same people problems over and over, burning cash and energy that should be going into the mission.
Foundation exists to change that. To give founders the infrastructure that lets their team perform - without the founder needing to be in the middle of every people problem.
The goal is simple: get you back to the work only you can do.
READY TO START?
Your next hire, your next manager challenge, your next people crisis -
it doesn't have to derail you.
30 minutes. No pitch. Just a clear diagnosis of what's actually going wrong - and what to do about it.