Building the right platform team can make or break a fund’s ability to win the best deals, support founders, and deliver exceptional returns. But getting it right requires you to make sure that your ultimate resourcing approach aligns with your fund's most pressing priorities and broader strategy.

In my last newsletter, I introduced the Platform 360 framework - a systematic approach to diagnose where your fund's platform function can drive the most value. By now, you've hopefully identified your fund's key opportunity areas and know where you want to focus: whether that's enhancing deal flow, streamlining portfolio support, strengthening your market position, or another strategic priority for your fund.

The critical work now becomes how to effectively execute on these opportunities.

While some funds may already have members of their existing platform team who have the expertise and capacity to lead these efforts, most funds need to look beyond their current resources. This typically means bringing in new talent, whether through full-time hires, consultants, or external partnerships, to drive these strategic initiatives forward.

But how do you determine the right combination of talent and resources to tackle these opportunities effectively?

Let’s dig in…

Define Your Platform Function Structure

Before jumping into hiring, you need to make a fundamental decision about what your platform function will ultimately look like.

Even if you've already built a strong team, it's worth questioning your current model. Whether you're organized into distinct departments like marketing, talent, and go-to-market, or operating with a squad of versatile generalists, yesterday's structure may not serve tomorrow's needs.

My recommendation here is to take a step away from where you are today and ask yourself what feels right moving forward based on your funds needs and evolving priorities.

You're essentially choosing between two paths:

The Generalist Approach: 

This means building a team that can handle multiple functions simultaneously: think community, content, events, and talent all under one roof. It's the Swiss Army knife of platform teams. This approach works particularly well for smaller funds or those just starting their platform journey, as it allows for maximum flexibility and the ability to test different initiatives before committing to specialized roles. However, it comes with a significant challenge of finding the right talent. True platform generalists who can effectively operate across multiple functions while maintaining high quality across each are exceptionally rare. Many funds learn this the hard way, discovering that "jack of all trades" often means mastery of none.

A standout example here is Inspired Capital, with a platform team of three led by Annie Shapiro.  Inspired is by no means a small fund, with over $800M in AUM, they’ve taken an approach of hiring exceptional generalists that often spike with skills around operations and marketing, but who have a ‘get shit done’ mentality that can cover the portfolio’s needs across hiring, marketing, sales and managing the firm’s brand and events strategy.

The Specialist Approach:

This involves building a team where each member brings deep expertise in their specific domain, whether that's talent, marketing, content, or business development. While you might still build a multi-person team covering various functions, each individual focuses solely on their area of expertise. This approach shines when you have clearly defined needs and scope, as it allows each team member to drive maximum impact in their domain. However, it requires a crystal clear role definition. Nothing deteriorates platform effectiveness faster than asking your talent expert to run the firm’s community or your sales specialist to manage large-scale events.

Larger firms, such as Sapphire Ventures, often do this very well. They split their platform efforts into their Portfolio Growth team, led by Rami Branitzky, with dedicated specialists focused on portfolio business development, engineering excellence and talent, as well as a team of marketing and events experts focused on managing the firm’s platform and brand efforts.

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Your choice here will fundamentally shape everything from the budget you'll need to the type of talent you'll hire, so it's worth spending time getting this right.

What to Own vs. What to Outsource

This is a crucial distinction that shapes how you resource your platform function. Certain platform capabilities will require dedicated in-house talent and deep integration with your firm's operations, while others can be effectively managed through external partnerships or service providers. The key is identifying which elements represent your firm's "secret sauce", the unique, proprietary, or highly specialized functions that drive competitive advantage, versus those that can be commoditized without compromising quality or impact.

Let's break this down with some detailed (but by no means exhaustive) examples:

Proprietary: Community Building

Your community is a proprietary asset that must be built and resourced in-house, with every piece carrying your firm's fingerprint. These relationships represent one of your most scarce and valuable assets, requiring careful alignment with your firm's unique value proposition. The community you build needs to be fundamentally shaped around your firm's specific DNA and investment thesis, as these relationships directly impact both deal flow and portfolio success. 

Commodity: Executive Coaching

When it comes to leadership development, the core principles and methodologies are relatively standardized across the industry. External providers often bring broader experience and well-established methodologies to the table, making this function particularly well-suited for outsourcing. It's frequently more cost-effective to develop strategic partnerships with established coaching practices, allowing you to provide comprehensive founder support without building the infrastructure internally.

Commodity: Compensation

Compensation data is now a standardized offering, with most firms leveraging partnerships with Pave, Sequoia, or Radford to provide portfolio companies with market benchmarks. Having access to compensation data is no longer a differentiator, it's table stakes for most venture firms. While outliers like A16Z maintain internal compensation experts for proprietary analysis and advisory, 99% of firms treat this as a commodity service. The value lies in access to reliable data rather than custom analysis, making external partnerships more efficient than in-house resources. When specialized guidance is needed, firms typically engage consultants rather than maintaining dedicated headcount.

Can Go Either Way: Event Planning

The decision between in-house and external event management largely depends on volume and uniqueness. If you host frequent events or require a distinctive approach, a dedicated FTE makes sense. Otherwise, external agencies or contractors typically deliver comparable results with more flexibility and reduced operational overhead.

Define Constraints & Expectations

Before deciding how to resource your platform team, you need to nail down these three critical factors: budget, operational capacity, and realistic expectations.

Let’s dig in:

1. Budget

Your platform ambitions need to align with your overall fund economics. This isn't about what you'd like to do in an ideal world; it's about what you can sustainably afford to do quarter after quarter, year after year. Consider not just direct costs like salaries, but also tools, technologies, and resources your platform team will need to succeed.

The challenge here is that management fees are largely fixed, as we covered in our previous post on VC platform compensation. This means expanding platform capabilities often requires careful trade-offs, including potentially adjusting partner compensation to create budget flexibility. Some funds have found creative solutions to this constraint. While I advocate for the purist approach: platform services funded through management fees and exclusively focused and dedicated to the unrestricted needs and support of the portfolio, smaller funds sometimes need to explore alternative models. 

These range from strategic event sponsorships that maintain integrity (here’s a playbook on how to do that well), to more controversial approaches like fee models which require payments from portfolio companies to access platform services.

Remember, at the end of the day, VCs are paid by our LPs to deliver one thing and one thing only: outsized returns.  If what you're doing feels aligned with that goal and you have the budget to pull it off, then do it (and do it well). If not, you may want to reconsider additional revenue models and keep your focus on your one ultimate goal.

2. Operational Capacity

When evaluating platform hires, the often-overlooked challenge is management bandwidth. Most partners either lack the time or inclination to manage direct reports, which creates a critical decision point. With a single, experienced hire, light-touch management might suffice. But as teams grow, you may need structural solutions like bringing on a COO or Operating Partner to provide proper oversight and prevent platform talent from becoming directionless.

Beyond management, every new hire, even a junior event coordinator, becomes a full member of your organization. They'll be at your holiday party, need IT support, generate expenses, and likely want to participate in portfolio reviews and annual meetings. The true cost of an FTE extends far beyond their salary in both time and resources. These hidden operational loads should be weighed carefully against the potential value they'll create.

3. Realistic Expectations

There's a fundamental limit to human capacity that needs to be acknowledged in your planning. For example, consider what "building a strong content engine" actually means in practice. Are you aiming for weekly thought leadership pieces? Daily social engagement? Regular market analysis reports? To do it well, each of these outputs requires not just time for creation, but for research, editing, design, and distribution (yes, even in a post-ChatGPT world). Assuming one person can maintain the output of a full team inevitably sets both the hire and the firm up for disappointment.

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These three elements, budget, operational capacity, and expectations, need to be considered holistically. Think of them as interconnected dials. You might need to dial back expectations if budget is constrained, or increase operational support if you're maintaining ambitious goals. The key is finding the right balance across all three factors rather than optimizing for any single dimension. Only by viewing these elements together can you design a platform function that's both ambitious as well as sustainable.

Define Your Resources

Once you've worked through these considerations, you'll need to decide how to resource each specific platform function you're building. Let's look at the four main approaches and examples in action: 

Full Team Approach:

When evaluating budget, capacity, and expectations, some functions demand multiple in-house resources to achieve your goals. This approach typically makes sense for highly proprietary functions where you have a significant budget allocation, strong management capacity, and demanding output expectations. 

For instance, if you're aiming to build a comprehensive talent engine providing hands-on recruiting support, talent advisory services, and a range of workshops and resources for your portfolio, you might decide to build a dedicated in-house talent team consisting of multiple recruiters, talent experts, and an operations coordinator to support the team’s efforts.

Single full-timer:

This model works when you need dedicated ownership of a proprietary function but have expectations that could realistically suit one well-chosen hire. The key is finding someone senior enough to be strategic but junior enough to get their hands dirty - capable of both crafting strategy and executing day-to-day tasks. 

For example, if your community strategy is focused on running and engaging an online community of your founders with a small number of monthly dinners and workshops, a single experienced community manager could drive this while selectively leveraging freelancers when needed. 

External individual:

This approach works best for periodic needs or when testing new platform functions before committing to a full-time hire. While an external contractor may not always be cheaper than a full-time hire, they offer flexibility without the operational overhead of adding headcount. 

Events are a perfect example - you might need expert execution for your annual LP meeting or quarterly founder gatherings, but don't require (or can't justify) a dedicated events person on payroll. 

Service provider:

This model fits standardized functions that require expertise but not differentiation. The key is identifying areas where high-quality execution matters more than customization. It also suits experimental initiatives or short-term needs where you want specialized expertise without a long-term commitment. 

Consider media relations - most funds need similar services: press release distribution, reporter relationships, and coverage around key announcements. An established PR firm already has these capabilities and relationships standardized, making it more efficient than building an in-house function. 

Another area where service providers are many times the best bet is when needing a team of software engineers to build a product for your team. Whether you’re building a data-driven sourcing platform or extending your portfolio management tools, external development team can efficiently deliver projects with more flexibility and less operational management required.

Consider Hiring Profiles

1. Determining the right seniority level to hire at

The seniority level you choose for your platform hire should align closely with your fund's needs and resources. 

Questions to ask yourself when deciding on the seniority of your platform hire include: 

• How developed is your platform strategy - do we have a clear playbook already and just need someone to execute it, or do we need someone to help design the approach?

• What level of portfolio company interaction will this role require?

• How much direct management oversight can you provide?

Junior professionals (2-7 years of experience) can excel in supporting roles or specific functions within larger platform teams. They're well-suited for executing clearly defined processes and programs where management structures and strategies are already established. While they require more oversight, they bring energy and fresh perspectives to established platform functions.

Mid-level professionals (7-12 years of experience) often make excellent generalists at smaller funds, bringing enough experience to work independently while remaining hands-on with execution. They can typically interface effectively with portfolio companies on operational matters and manage day-to-day platform initiatives with minimal oversight. This level works particularly well when you have a clear vision for your platform function but need strong execution horsepower.

Senior professionals (12+ years of experience) are essential when you're building a platform function from the ground up or leading large teams. Beyond just execution, they bring strategic depth and pattern recognition. This becomes particularly crucial if your platform strategy is still taking shape - they can help architect the right approach based on direct experience, often having been founders or executives at companies similar to those in your portfolio. Their ability to engage credibly with CEOs and senior stakeholders, combined with their strategic mindset, makes them invaluable for funds that need both vision and execution.

2. The diversity of platform professional backgrounds

One of the most fascinating aspects of the platform role is just how incredibly diverse successful backgrounds can be.

Take marketing professionals, for instance. The instinct might be to hire someone with B2B SaaS experience, but venture capital is fundamentally a brand play, not a demand generation game. Listen Ventures is a great example of a firm that leaned into this strategy with Nika Longo and Joelle Cosmas leading their platform and brand efforts having both come out of elite advertising agencies. Brand-minded marketers that may have come from luxury brands or ad agencies know that the goal isn't to gate content and generate leads, it's to build enduring brand equity and establish differentiated thought leadership.

Journalists too bring unique advantages: Josh Constine at SignalFire and Melody Hahm at Harlem Capital leverage their extensive founder networks, expertise around storytelling, and sharp eye for differentiation that comes from years of experience in the startup ecosystem.

Former founders often make exceptional platform leaders, as they intimately understand the challenges and needs of your portfolio companies. Take Cuco Vega at Leap Global Partners or Cherae Robinson at Flybridge. Their founder experience brings authenticity and deep pattern recognition to community building at their firms.

Some of the most innovative platform approaches come from seemingly left-field backgrounds. Consider Joel Connolly at Blackbird, who applied his arts and music background to reimagine a founder summit at a scale that rivals Burning Man. Former teachers like Jim Conti at Hyde Park Venture Partners bring valuable experience from their experience supporting and developing emerging talent. Product managers, like Drew Moxon at Fifty Years, excel at treating platform as a product, while data scientists, like Anna Jacobson at Operator Collective, can bring valuable skills to areas like deal flow analysis and portfolio company benchmarking.

Of course, there are many common backgrounds that you’ll see in the platform world, such as former executive recruiters, recovering consultants, startup accelerator program managers, and startup operators of all shapes and forms. 

This breadth of backgrounds is precisely what makes platform roles both exciting and challenging to hire for. The key isn't finding someone who checks traditional boxes, but rather identifying a professional whose unique experiences align with your specific platform vision. 

3. Should you hire someone who has VC experience?

There's also an important consideration around venture capital experience itself. While bringing fresh perspectives from other industries is valuable, the reality is that venture capital can be uniquely challenging to grasp from the outside. The industry operates on different rhythms and metrics than most. Success isn't measured in quarterly revenue targets or marketing qualified leads but in relationships built and value created over decades. It's about balancing long-term substance with near-term impact, and being comfortable with uncertainty while still driving measurable progress toward distant goals.

This learning curve means that sometimes, hiring someone with prior venture experience can accelerate your platform function's impact. They come already understanding the nuances of the industry, the unique dynamics of founder relationships, and how to measure success in the venture's longer time horizons.

While personally, one of my core missions is making the platform function more accessible to talented professionals from diverse backgrounds, it's worth acknowledging that this transition requires intentional support and patience.

The Bottom Line

Building your platform function starts with pinpointing exactly what your firm needs and flows through a series of strategic decisions: generalist versus specialist structure, proprietary versus commodity functions, and the delicate balance between budget, capacity, and expectations. Each of these choices shapes how you ultimately resource your platform initiatives - whether through full teams, single hires, external talent, or service providers.

The key is maintaining focus on your identified opportunities while being realistic about constraints. A small fund might achieve significant impact with a well-chosen generalist hire handling proprietary functions, while a larger fund might need a specialized team across multiple domains. Some functions may be better served through external partnerships, preserving resources for areas that truly differentiate your firm.

Remember, every decision in your platform structure should trace back to your fund's strategic priorities. The most effective platform functions aren't necessarily the most expansive, they're the ones precisely built to address your specific challenges and ultimately drive returns.

This post is brought to you with the help of Yaffa Abadi of Abadi Brands, a premier personal branding firm for leading executives and VCs.