This is a hard post to write but I hope it can help others. I let our first employee go last week. It was tough because we are a small team and everyone gets to know each other well and become friends. We all work hard together and have fun as well.

Being an entrepreneur can be a very emotional experience. I would recommend putting in as many metrics in place as you can to make decisions as objective as possible. Otherwise, you will talk yourself into anything and find ways to justify your decision based on your strong emotions.

For us, we knew there was mostly likely not a fit for this employee for a couple months but wanted to make it work. I would tell myself, ‘the product is not ready, the market is not right, or things are so close we should just hold out longer to see what happens’. Looking back now, all of this was my own attempt to justify not doing what I knew needed to happen, which was to let the person move on into something else where they could be successful. It was not only the right thing to do for the business but also for the employee.

I was sick to my stomach the whole day leading up to when we talked. However, all of the build-up wasn’t necessary. When we had the conversation I was planning on, it was almost expected by the employee. I almost feel as if there was a sense of relief by the employee to not have everything hanging over their head anymore and now they are free to move on. It went well and there was a mutual respect for one another.

There is a saying that whatever is measured, gets done. I truly believe this. There should be clear expectations for every role on your team. This gives employees a clear direction along with creating a more scalable process for any part of your business.

Once clear expectations are set and there is a defined measurement process in place, it is a very objective conversation with any team member as to their performance. The goals are either being met or they are not. Our lesson learned was that we should have spent more time understanding what the process and metrics should be before bringing on a new team member into this role.  Before we make any investment in the future, we will work hard to define the metrics for success and have a process in place to measure it.