Building a Leadership Team

This one might ruffle some feathers.
But here it goes:

I don’t think senior leadership teams — or “unicorns,” as they’re often called — are the best fit for early-stage startups.
Not in 2025.
Not in this industry.

Let me explain.

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Experience ≠ Relevance

There’s a massive difference between having experience and having relevance.
Yes, experience teaches patience. It gives you pattern recognition.
But in an industry that reinvents itself every 6–12 months, how useful is experience if you haven’t been forced to adapt lately?

Most SLT candidates have 15+ years behind them — built during a time when everything moved slower.
The way things were done in 2008, or even 2016, just doesn’t cut it now.

Now, to be fair — there are exceptions.
Some experienced operators stay close to the ground.
They’re actively involved in newer startups. They’ve got skin in the game across multiple ventures.
And if they’re tuned into your specific industry, not just the high-level playbook — that’s a different story.

That’s not just experience. That’s relevant, applied, current experience.
Rare, but golden.

But more often than not?
What you get is outdated playbooks applied to brand-new problems — and that’s a risk I’m not willing to take.

If someone hasn’t been in the trenches recently — they probably shouldn’t be leading yours.

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The Cost of “Credibility”

The other problem?
Hiring top-heavy leadership is expensive.
Like, dangerously expensive.

I’ve seen startups secure fresh rounds of funding and immediately blow massive chunks of it onboarding high-ticket executives.
Sometimes it works.
More often, it doesn’t.

The risk/reward ratio is skewed — and this is coming from someone who’s got a pretty high risk tolerance.

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What I Did Instead

I didn’t raise in the traditional sense.
No big rounds. No big hires.

I bootstrapped Nexubis with one clear goal: build something sustainable from the ground up.
Cash in, value out. Rinse, repeat.

And when the time came to scale, I didn’t look outward for a saviour.
I looked inward — to the people who were already in the trenches with me.

The ones who helped build this thing.
Who understood our values, our systems, and what we’re really trying to do.

I promoted from within.
We didn’t hire a leadership team — we built one.

Today, we’ve got:

• A COO who’s been running ops with precision since day one
  
• A CTO who lives and breathes the stack
  
• An Operations Manager who keeps the machine moving efficiently
  
  

We’re also actively building up new leadership:
Creative Directors. CMO candidates. Team Leads.
All grown from the inside — with context, trust, and skin in the game.

And here’s the kicker:
Every single one of them is under 30.
No baggage. No ego. No attachment to the “old way.”
Just smart, adaptive people — aligned and ready to disrupt.

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Built for Us, by Us

This leadership team wasn’t parachuted in.
They weren’t sold a vision — they built it.
Which means they make faster decisions. Smarter bets.
And give a shit in ways that outsiders just don’t.

They weren’t hired to run Nexubis.
They are Nexubis.

And that’s why I trust this company to scale now — with confidence.