The Hottest Market In Startups?

Hey y’all — any assistant can help you make it through your todo list.

But, no matter how effective you are at delegating, actually getting your time back requires more than just someone filling a seat.

And, maybe surprisingly, it turns out that what one founder needs from their assistant is likely very different than what another looks for.

That’s what I learned from Ash Ravi, co-founder of HireHarbour recently (grab his playbook on how to save 10+ hours each week for free here).

And it’s why his team is able to use bespoke matchmaking to gain traction in the hyper-competitive EA hiring market.

We also chatted about:

• His journey from oil rigs to founding HireHarbour

• Why and when he’s willing to lose margin

• Why AI isn’t replacing EAs anytime soon (quite the opposite actually)

Here’s Ash’s founding journey:

The Hottest Market In Startups?

For the past year or two, while AI has been getting all the headlines, another market has been equally hot: remote hiring (particularly for executive assistants).

It’s become extremely competitive, but there’s still considerable upside.

I even say to my team that I should have started a company in the space — the demand is just wild. (Yes, this is your sign to hire an EA if you don’t have one 🙂)

Your first instinct might be to think that LLMs could automate a lot of the tasks that EAs have historically done, and that’s partially true.

But what you’d be missing is that they’ve also unlocked an even larger number of new tasks that founders can delegate to EAs.

AI isn’t replacing these roles, it’s actually widening their scope (and therefore increasing demand for them).

A simple example: if you’re using an AI-workflow tool like Gumloop to automate various processes and tasks, you can train an EA to do troubleshooting for when things break.

Before, automating and maintaining these types of workflows would have required engineering time. Or, at best, hours of ops time.

Now it can be an EA, quickly.

But with that widening scope comes unique needs and responsibilities. A one-size-fits-all approach where EAs are looked at interchangeably won’t result in value-generating, longterm partnerships.

Think about it. Your startup is unique. Even something as standard as managing your calendar almost certainly has meaningful nuances which are specific to your preferences.

Ironically, many companies in the space tout the speed with which they can find you an EA, rather than the personally-tailored fit that EA will have with your company (they also typically require you to hire the EA for full-time hours, unlike HireHarbour).

This is because traditional placement agencies have a different incentive than you do. You want to find the right person for your startup, whereas they just want to fill the role so they can get paid and move onto the next one.

We’ve all heard the classic startup adage “hire slow, fire fast” and this doesn’t feel like an exception to it to me.

Your EA is someone you’ll work directly with on a daily basis. Finding the right fit is at least as important as it is for other roles you hire.

Simply put: Ash and his co-founders see this as a gap in the market, and it’s what they’re solving for with HireHarbour (along with training your EA on how to use the AI tools that will actually enable you to get those 10+ hours back and build leverage).

Here’s Ash to tell you himself:

They take this to the extreme and, from what Ash told me, they’re even willing to lose margin for the sake of their 7-stage EA vetting process to ensure their matches work for the longrun.

That type of focus on the customer is exactly what you need to build a lasting business.

There’s a universal lesson here for founders:

A hyper-competitive market isn’t necessarily a bad one to enter if you have a unique and differentiated angle.

In fact, it can work to your advantage and help you stand out.

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