Last month HubSpot cut nearly 660 people, about 7% of the company. Everyone assumed it was AI.
The CEO's memo read: "This is not driven by AI-related efficiencies." The goal was to "build a flatter organization with fewer layers."
Flatter means more people reporting to every boss who's left. Gallup says the average US manager already has 12.1 direct reports, up nearly 50% since 2013.
Here's the part nobody puts in the memo. When a 15-person company goes flat, the only layer left is the founder.
The enemy: the Flat Org Trap
HubSpot has layers to spare. A 15-person company doesn't. When a founder copies the playbook, or never hires a layer in the first place, the founder becomes the layer. Every question, hire and missed deadline routes through one inbox.
Call it the Flat Org Trap. The org chart looks lean. The founder's calendar doesn't.
Where founders go wrong
Earlier this year, the team at a PPC agency told us what this looks like. They had an ops manager on paper, but everyone still reported straight to the founder.
"We're trying to get people to stop directly reporting to [the founder] and have everything flow through that operations manager," one of them said. The founder was ready to step back, "but he can't right now because he's still having to do all of these things."
That’s the problem.
Gallup found managers already spend a median 40% of their time on individual work. A founder doing that and managing everyone is running every job at once.
What it looks like when it works
We placed an Operations Manager from Belgrade, Serbia with a paid-ads agency, someone with a background in workflows, SOPs and reporting.
Three months in, the agency hired again, and the Ops Manager ran the search: first interviews, then a skills test. They built the new hire's onboarding, down to 15-minute intros with every team member. Then they set up reviews: an annual one for everyone, and a check-in when each new hire's probation ends.
That's management work, the kind that lands on a founder when nobody else owns it.
Why we look to Eastern Europe for this seat
About three in four of the ops, project manager and EA candidates in our database are from Eastern Europe. Here's why:
The English is there. Serbia ranks #25 of 123 countries in EF's 2025 English Proficiency Index. Romania (#11) and Poland (#15) sit in the top "very high" band.
The region already runs back offices. Poland's business services sector employs about 500,000 people across 2,179 service centers. Serbia exported a record €4.55 billion in IT services last year.
The math works. The Ops Manager above was hired at $2,600 a month. The US median for operations managers is $105,770 a year.
The hours work if you set them. Belgrade is six hours ahead of New York. Agree on a day that runs until 8 or 9pm there, and your operator covers your whole morning.
The org on the other side
Your team brings you decisions, not tasks. New hires get onboarded without you. And when you take a Friday off, the work keeps moving.
Stay flat. Just make sure you're not the only one holding it up.
If this sounds like your situation, reply to this email or book a call with our recruitment specialists below.
>>>> Book Your Free Call <<<<
Until next time,
The Go Carpathian Team
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