A boutique talent practice for early-stage startups in KL. I run your hiring end-to-end, then build the performance systems that turn the people you hired into a team that performs.
Peep Lab treats organisational performance the way a sports performance department treats their athletes — selection, development, environment, output. Not a metaphor. The actual framework.
Selection first. Systems second. Engage either on its own, or both as one embedded engagement. The bundles below exist for startups that want both from the start.
Your recruiter, on your team for the whole search — not just the close. Peep Lab owns the brief, the sourcing, the screening, and the offer conversation. You make the final call. Everything in between runs through me.
An embedded talent lead on a monthly retainer — building the performance infrastructure your team needs, without the overhead of a full-time hire. A sports performance department, adapted for a startup.
Most founders weigh three options: a contingency agency, a junior in-house hire, or running the search themselves. They're built for different jobs. If your bottleneck is reach — not enough CVs coming in — a contingency agency is the right call. If your bottleneck is the whole function, from brief to close, here's how the three compare.
| Peep Lab | Contingency agency | In-house / DIY |
|---|---|---|
| One practitioner, end-to-end. The person on the brief is the person on the close. | Sourcers run several searches in parallel — built to generate reach, not to own one search start to finish. | Squeezed around the operator's day job, or a junior hire still ramping up. |
| Fixed monthly retainer. Predictable, contained, paid for the process. | 15–20% of annual salary per hire, paid only on close. Structured to reward close velocity — the right incentive when the job is pure pipeline. | Full HR salary on the books every month, whether or not roles are open. |
| Rewards the right fit, not the first acceptable candidate. | Fee paid on placement — the model works if you're running selection yourself and just need candidates in front of you. | Seat-filling pressure when a quarter is running out. |
| Deliberate time on the hardest parts — the brief, the market map, the closing conversations. | Volume model — each role gets a slice of a sourcer's week. Optimised for pipeline output, not for deep work on one brief. | Hiring competes with operations, fundraising, and everything else for attention. |
| Selection links straight into performance systems — cycles, frameworks, coaching. | Relationship ends at offer — by design. Onboarding, performance, and retention aren't part of the scope. | Junior HR capacity rarely extends past payroll and compliance admin. |
Peep Lab is a practice, not a framework — a service with a point of view about how team performance is actually built, and the hands-on work to run it.
The method comes from running people operations end-to-end inside a real company — selection, performance, development, the full stack — long enough to see what actually moves outcomes and what just looks good in a slide. Most of what gets sold as "people strategy" is either advice without delivery, or delivery without a point of view. Peep Lab is the combination.
The thesis is simple: treat selection as the single highest-leverage decision you make, and build the systems around it properly instead of patching them together later. Everything else on this page is downstream of that.
For engagements that commit to both services from the start. Linked work, combined pricing, one retainer.
Early-stage startups in KL — typically 15 to 80 people — hiring intentionally for the first time and serious about the people they bring on. If the founder or COO is the buyer, and "performance" is a word that actually means something in your company, the fit is usually clear.
A contingency fee buys pipeline — you pay on close, and the work ends at offer. It's the right tool when your only problem is reach. Peep Lab's retainer buys the full search — brief, sourcing, screening, interviews, close — with the time to do it properly rather than race to an acceptable-enough hire.
For anything beyond a single role, the retainer is also meaningfully cheaper than 15–20% per hire. The pricing logic is explicit, not magic.
Payroll, industrial relations, statutory compliance admin, and general HR operations. Those are commoditised, low-margin, and not where Peep Lab adds disproportionate value.
What is in scope — selection, performance management, L&D planning — connects back to one thing: building a team that performs.
Me. Every call, every interview, every closing conversation. I own the brief, the judgment, and every decision that affects your hire. Delivery is AI-augmented — sourcing, screening, research, and synthesis run through custom Claude and n8n workflows — so the output of one named practitioner holds to a standard that used to need a small team.
If Peep Lab grows, it grows into a small team of senior practitioners — never a hand-off model where you sell to a partner and get delivered by someone else.
Yes. There's a single-placement option — RM 5,500 for a professional/exec role, RM 9,000 for senior/head-of. Same process, no shortcuts.
If you convert to a retainer within 60 days, the flat fee you paid applies as credit toward the first month.
20 minutes, on a call. No pitch deck. A conversation about what you're hiring for, what's happening with your existing team, and whether the fit is real. If it is, a proposal lands within 48 hours. If it isn't, you'll know — and usually, a better-suited referral comes with it.
20 minutes, no pitch deck. If the fit is there, you'll know. If it isn't, you'll still leave with a clearer read on your people infrastructure.
Email work@alanantony.com →