How we work
Every mechanic, in the open.
Somebody forwarded you this link and asked what the catch is. This page is written for you: how the search runs, how the desk actually works, who we turn away, and what all three Seats cost — without needing to speak to anyone.
Three Seats. Two arrangements.
The difference matters more than anything else on this page, because it decides whose payroll the person is on and who carries the risk.
Arrangement one · subscription
The Right Hand
She is our employee — W-2, on our benefits, backed by our desk — working for you on a monthly subscription. You carry no payroll, no benefits administration and no employment risk. If she leaves, that is our problem to solve, and we solve it in about three business days.
Arrangement two · retained search
The Chief of Staff & The Running Mate
They become your employee, on your payroll, in your culture, on your bonus plan, from day one. We find them, vet them, chemistry-test them against you and install the partnership — then we get out of the way.
How a search actually runs.
Five stages, and none of them is a job board. This is the part most firms will not describe, because describing it would show how little of it they do.
- 01
Role Visioning
A working session that defines what the Seat actually owns in your company before anyone is approached. Most failed searches were lost here, months before a candidate appeared.
- 02
Covert Discovery
We approach operators who are not looking, because the good ones are running something already. Your competitors never learn that you are searching, and neither does your team until you decide otherwise.
- 03
The Wiring Match
Finalists are tested against you rather than against a generic profile — how you decide, how you argue, what happens when you disagree. At this level competence is table stakes; wiring is what breaks the hire.
- 04
Offer design
Base, bonus, title and decision rights built as one instrument. Get the decision rights wrong and you have hired an expensive coordinator.
- 05
The Installation
The first months of the partnership, designed rather than improvised: the operating agreement, the decision-rights architecture, delegation coaching for you, and scheduled partnership-health reviews. Our job ends at "the partnership works", not at "the offer was signed".
How the desk works — including the part most firms bury.
Every Right Hand is backed by a managed desk. And here is the arrangement stated plainly, because you would find out eventually and we would rather you found out from us:
Like the executive-support model inside the Fortune 500, where senior EAs support a pair of executives, your Right Hand also supports one other principal during your quiet hours.
We do it on purpose. Three things it means for you:
- 01
She stays sharp
Working across two operations instead of going stale in one. The pattern-matching she builds on another founder’s Tuesday shows up on yours.
- 02
Nothing waits on one person
The desk monitors requests in real time. If she is mid-task for the other principal, a manager picks it up — which is more coverage than a single hire can give you at any price.
- 03
It is why the price is what it is
The efficiency of the model is exactly why you pay $6,250 a month rather than $12,000 or more for a dedicated senior operator with a desk behind her.
Full-time for you. Never alone behind you.
If you want a person who is exclusively yours and nobody else’s, that is a Chief of Staff — on your payroll — and we will tell you honestly whether you are ready for one.
What she survives before she reaches you.
Six stages. The third one is the stage that actually decides it, and it is the reason we can put someone in front of a founder in the first place.
- 01
Application
Track record, tenure, and what they actually ran — not a résumé keyword match.
- 02
Skills assessment
Written judgment under time pressure. Inbox triage, a calendar with three genuine conflicts, a difficult message to a customer.
- 03
A real founder’s Tuesday
A live simulation, and the stage that decides it. Two principals with colliding priorities, a calendar moving underneath her, and a decision that has to be made without asking. We watch what she does when there is no correct answer.
- 04
Reference deep-dive
The people who worked beside her, not the two names she offered. We ask what she was like in a bad week.
- 05
Chemistry match
Matched to a specific founder, not added to a pool. Pace, directness, tolerance for being interrupted.
- 06
Desk training
Before she touches a live account: the playbook system, the escalation rules, and how the bench covers her.
We turn away excellent people. The Seat demands a specific wiring, and being good at the job is not the same as being right for it.
You will notice there are no acceptance percentages on this page. We could invent some — the industry does — but you would have no way to check them, which makes them worth nothing. The simulation is the proof.
Our people are employees with benefits, not gig workers.
This costs us considerably more than the contractor model everyone else in this category runs. Three reasons we do it anyway, and only one of them is about them.
Benefits buy tenure
People with health insurance and a career path stay. In a category where the average assistant churns inside a year, that is the whole game.
Tenure compounds on your account
Everything she learns about your operation — the vendors, the customers, how you like the week shaped — accrues instead of walking out of the door every eleven months.
The risk is ours, not yours
No payroll to run, no benefits to administer, no worker-classification exposure, no unemployment claim. You have a subscription, not an employee.
All three, in one place.
There is no separate pricing page and no “contact us for a quote”. This is everything, including what happens if we miss our own deadlines.
The Right Hand
Your senior executive assistant
Subscription — she is our W-2 employee, serving you
- On a 12-month term
- $6,250/mo · $75,000/yr
- Month-to-month, after 90 days
- $7,500/mo · $90,000/yr
- Initiation
- $5,000, credited to month one
- If we miss
- Initiation refunded if you are not matched within 45 days
The Chief of Staff
Your senior operator
Retained search — they become your employee, from day one
- Initiation, by level
- $10,000–$15,000, credited against the fee
- Search fee
- 25% of first-year base salary, never total comp
- Worked example
- $180,000 hire → $45,000, less your initiation
- If we miss
- Initiation refunded if there is no qualified slate within 90 days
The Running Mate
Your true second-in-command
Retained search plus The Installation — they become your employee
- Initiation, by scope
- $15,000–$25,000, credited against the fee
- Search fee
- 25% of first-year base salary, never total comp
- Worked example
- $250,000 hire → $62,500, less your initiation
- Typical all-in
- $50,000–$90,000+ across the engagement
Every initiation is credited, and every one of them is refundable if we miss our deadline.
The initiation is not a fee, and it is not a deposit against our nerves. Real work happens before you have paid us anything else — the covert search, the vetting, the matching — and charging for it filters in both directions. You prove you are serious; we prove we are.
Free consultations attract tourists. We built this for operators.
We decline more than we accept.
-
Founders under about $10M
Not a judgment — there is genuinely not enough delegation load yet. We will tell you what to fix first and you are welcome back.
-
Anyone who wants a body, not a partnership
If the plan is to assign tasks and check the work, you will be disappointed and so will she.
-
Anyone who treats support staff badly
Our talent is the product and we protect it. We have ended engagements over this and we will again.
If that reads as arrogant, we are probably not your firm — and it is better for both of us that you know now rather than four months in.
Who's riding shotgun?
Nothing here is hidden. The rest happens on a call.
Fifteen minutes with a partner. You will leave knowing which Seat you need, what it costs, and whether we are the right ones to fill it — straight answers either way.
Still working out which Seat you need? Take the honest read