- Jessica Wat
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Founders and business owners, you likely know this feeling well: you’ve got the fire in your belly, your idea is gaining traction, but you’re coming to the realisation that you can’t do it all yourself. You’re stuck trying to scale and grow your business whilst also executing outcomes, unsure whether it’s the right time to hire a new staff member, upgrade your tools or staying nimble but narrowing your focus.
In a recent Women of Hong Kong Community Call, our guest, Nicolle Macario, Brand Strategist at scale strategy consultancy La Lusyon, broke down some of her battle-tested strategies to help business owners and entrepreneurs avoid costly mistakes. Here are her honest truths about building a team, delegating with ease, and scaling a business.
Your First Hire Should Solve Your Biggest Pain Points
As a founder, your first hire shouldn't be a replica of you. Instead, they should be hired to tackle everything on your list of time-consuming, disliked, or low-skill tasks that hold you back from strategic work.
Her practical tip? Test the role first. Before committing to a full-time employee, consider bringing on an intern or a part-time hire. It’s a low-risk way to validate the need for the role and refine the job description.
Master the Art of Delegation to Avoid Founder Burnout
We’ve all heard (or even experienced) the horror stories. Nicolle pinpointed the two most common reasons delegation fails: poor communication and a lack of trust. This toxic combo leads to micromanagement, low team morale, and ultimately, high staff turnover.
Her solution is built on structure and clarity:
Hold consistent weekly check-in meetings with your staff.
Set clear KPIs so everyone knows what success looks like.
Prioritise honest one-on-one feedback.
But, Nicolle was clear on one thing: delegating tasks does not mean abdicating responsibility. The founder must always retain ultimate financial oversight and be the guardian of the company’s core voice and vision.
Scale Smart, Not Just Fast
The pressure to scale can be immense, but Nicolle urged caution. You should only consider scaling when your product or service is truly market-ready and your operational process is repeatable. How do you know? Check your customer feedback, analyse return rates, and be brutally honest about your capacity.
Nicolle’s strategy is to "Run experiments, not empires." Use small-scale tests to validate new marketing channels or product changes before going all-in. She also reminded us that growth can sometimes come at the cost of quality, and that deliberately scaling down can be a strategic move to protect your brand's core values.
Let Data and the Right Tools Guide You
When it comes to metrics, Nicolle advised that your focus depends on your business model. However, every founder must keep a close eye on fundamentals like margins, costs, refund rates, and repeat purchases.
Crucially, she told us to treat qualitative data as a key metric. Customer comments and workshop feedback are not just anecdotes, they are actionable insights that can guide your strategy.
For tools, she gave a passionate recommendation for Airtable as a centralised hub for operations and a lightweight CRM. She highlighted how using different views for different teams, syncing with apps like Gmail and Shopify, and setting up automations with Zapier can streamline your entire workflow.
Navigating Feedback and Protecting Your Team
Nicolle’s advice on handling negative feedback was a masterclass in emotional intelligence. She explained that while all feedback is useful data, not every customer request is practical or right for your business. Learning to refuse requests fairly and consistently is a critical skill.
A personal hack Nicolle shared is when drafting difficult responses, she adopts a depersonalised persona (like "The Head of Customer Experience") to remove her own ego from the equation. She also stressed the importance of documenting customer-facing standards to protect team morale and ensure consistent quality.
Your Community Action Item
Nicolle left us with a powerful and practical piece of homework, which we’re embracing as a community. This week, every founder should create two lists:
Your “No-No List”: The tasks you need to delegate to unlock your productivity.
Your “Yes List”: The high-impact, strategic work that you should be focusing on.