TalentLayer is a spec and fit system for B2B SaaS founders making their first senior product hire after PMF. Not search. A decision protocol.
For founders who care about the cost of the wrong hire. View pricing →
These are not abstract risks. They show up in your runway, your roadmap, and your board conversations.
You are still the de facto product leader. Every hire takes 10 hours of your week you do not have. The role stays open because you cannot run search and run the company.
Without a structured spec you end up hiring for "vibes". The scorecard becomes a list of nice-to-haves that no single person could satisfy.
A VP of Product resigned 6 weeks ago. Your CTO is covering product. The board is asking. You are about to make a panic hire you will regret for 18 months.
Four dimensions that actually predict whether a product leader will work at your stage, with your founder, under your constraints.
Does this person thrive at your stage? A 0-to-1 operator in a Series C with 40 engineers will drown. A process builder in a 12-person startup will suffocate. We score the match between the candidate's pattern and your actual constraints.
Has this person actually shipped the right things? Not "shipped at scale" — shipped the specific things your stage requires. We look for evidence of shipping the right thing at this stage, not just shipping anything.
Will this person actually work with your founder? We measure how someone will work with this specific founder and board under pressure — not just "they seem sharp".
Does the candidate's compensation expectation match your band? We flag mismatches early so you do not lose a candidate at the offer stage.
Before we search, we write the hiring thesis. Three steps. No shortcuts.
We run a structured intake with founders and key stakeholders. We name the actual decisions the hire will own and the constraints they will operate inside.
We produce a Product Leadership Spec: the role scope, the success criteria, the evidence we will look for, and the risks we will test for.
Interview exercises, scoring rubrics, reference framework. Every interviewer knows what they are looking for and how to weight it before the first call.
Concrete artifacts. Not slide decks and shortlists.
The actual scope, decision rights, constraints and success criteria for the first 12–18 months.
One page per candidate. Four scored dimensions with evidence, risks and a clear recommendation.
Structured, attributable references from people who have seen the candidate do the job.
Exact exercises, questions and scoring rubrics for your process.
Structured check-ins at 30/60/90 days. Early signals, not post-mortems.
Offer framing, compensation realism and negotiation support.
We track the hire's first 12 months against the Spec. We publish results when we have enough data.
Candidates receive a real brief from your company (sanitized). They produce a 30-minute work sample: prioritization, trade-offs, and stakeholder communication. Every interviewer knows what to look for and how to score it.
After the hire starts, we run structured check-ins at 30, 60, and 90 days with the new leader and key stakeholders. Early misalignments surface before they become expensive.
From first call to signed offer. Four steps. Partners own the hard calls.
We run a structured intake with founders and key stakeholders. We produce a Product Leadership Spec that names the actual decisions the hire will own.
We map the market and score every credible candidate against the four dimensions that matter for product leadership at your stage. You receive Fit Cards, not CVs.
We run deep references and produce a Reference Dossier. We design the interview process and give you the Interview Kit. Partners sit in or debrief after every round.
We support offer design and negotiation. After the hire starts we run a 90-day loop with structured check-ins so early misalignments surface before they become expensive.
Tied to the outcome: a percentage of first-year CTC. No surprises.
Fit Cards, dossiers, interview design, partner involvement through close and 90 days. Typical timeline: 6–12 weeks to signed offer. Minimum engagement: £15k.
Same evidence layer (Spec + Fit Cards + Dossier) without full retained close support. Useful when you have internal capacity or a narrower brief. Minimum engagement: £8k.
A CPO at a Series A is a different hire than a VP Product at a Series C. Tying our fee to CTC means our incentives align with yours — we are motivated to find the right person at a realistic compensation, not just fill the seat.
One page per candidate. Four scored dimensions with evidence, risks and a clear recommendation. Designed to be read in five minutes and argued over in ten. No CVs, no "they seem sharp."
6–12 weeks from signed brief to signed offer. We move quickly because the evidence is ready before the interviews start. The 90-day loop after hire is included in the retained engagement.
Our primary markets are UK and EU. We occasionally take mandates in the US for companies with a strong European presence. Tell us your situation and we will be honest about whether we can add value.
We include a 90-day structured loop precisely because early misalignments surface before they become expensive. If the hire leaves within 6 months, we run a replacement at no additional fee for the retained engagement.
Traditional search gives you CVs and "they seem sharp." We give you scored Fit Cards with evidence, a Reference Dossier with attributable references, and an Interview Kit with scoring rubrics. Plus a 90-day loop after hire. Our fee is 10–12% of CTC vs. 25–35% for traditional retained.
Tell us what you are trying to solve. This is the beginning of the Spec, not a sales form.
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