Harry’s Newsletter — Lessons from Building & Scaling Startups
Every month, I tackle reader questions about scaling ops, talent, culture, performance, accountability, and anything else that’s keeping you up at night as a startup founder, CEO, COO, or CPO.
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Thanks for visiting,
Harry
Bio
I have a background in startups (as a founder and <10 employee), management consulting and law. I'm a business leader passionate about people, and I focus on building and scaling world-class teams primed for adaptability and growth.
At university, I co-founded a food subscription startup (MeatMail), scaling it to profit and a $1.5M+ run rate before successfully exiting in 2014. I earned degrees in Law, Economics and Finance; worked as a Lawyer at New Zealand's pre-eminent corporate law firm, Bell Gully; then moved to Management Consulting in Sydney, specialising in process improvement and revenue growth.
In 2015, I joined a US-based payments startup called Tilt as the first APAC employee. My role as Country Manager was a blend of strategy and execution, responsible for P&L, leading local growth, product, marketing and hiring. We raised over $67m from Andreessen Horowitz and were acquired by Airbnb in 2017.
Following the acquisition, I worked as Head of Business Operations & Strategy at Airbnb based out of the Sydney office. In this role, I developed Airbnb ANZ's 3-year plan, led Airbnb's largest global airline partnership, launched ANZ's Host affiliate program and supported the expansion of Experiences into APAC.
In 2016, I was named in the Forbes Asia 30 Under 30, and in 2017, listed as one of Australia's Top Emerging Leaders by the Australian Financial Review. Before the Airbnb IPO, I took time off to travel and work as a consultant and advisor to high-growth startups, helping them build and scale their culture and teams.
In 2020, I joined Partly as VP Operations & Growth as the first non-technical hire ~3 months after the company was founded. We've since scaled our team from 1-2 employees to a team of ~100 and raised $37M in the process. I've worn many different hats, including leading revenue operations and growth, however, I found my true calling in the People space, now acting as Partly's Chief People Officer.
Our people-mission is to make Partly the best startup in the world to work for. That means acquiring world-class talent and ensuring that once they're at Partly, they have maximum impact on the mission and can fulfil their potential.
Outside of Partly, I'm an active angel investor, syndicate lead and VC scout. I am industry-agnostic and invest at the Pre-Seed/Seed stage. If you're an ambitious founder, please feel free to reach out by emailing harrison.uffindell@gmail.com
