Hiring a second in command too early

The plan is always the same. The founder is stretched, so the company hires an operations director, and in six months the founder is still stretched and now paying £70,000 for the privilege.

You cannot delegate a job that does not exist

If planning the week lives in your head, a new person cannot take it over. They can only watch you do it and ask questions, which costs you more time than doing it alone. Write the routine down first — badly, on one page — and the same hire has something to hold.

Hire for the week you actually have

Job adverts describe a company that does not exist yet: strategy, transformation, scale. The week that needs covering is usually rotas, suppliers, quotes and chasing. Advertise that week honestly and you get someone who is good at it and happy to do it.

Give them three of the ten jobs

Not all of it, and not the ones you enjoy. Give them three of the repeating jobs, completely — including the right to change how they are done — and judge it on the numbers those jobs produce.

The test at ninety days

Take a fortnight off. If the three jobs run without you, the hire worked. If they do not, the problem was never the hire.