Embedded selection, onboarding, and performance systems for growth-stage startups. Done-for-you, not consulting. The system stays when I leave.
Peep Lab treats organisational performance the way a sports performance department treats their athletes — selection, development, environment, output. Not a metaphor. The actual framework, productised for a growth-mode startup.
Hire rigorously. Onboard deliberately. Coach continuously. One tier per line — each extends the one before it. Embedded delivery, done-for-you, no consultancy decks. The system stays with you when the engagement ends.
An embedded talent acquisition lead in your team. We build the selection system — calibrated briefs, structured interviews, decision-quality scorecards — and hire 2–3 people through it together. The system stays after I leave. Pairs with a contingency agency, an in-house recruiter, or just you.
Selection plus the first 90 days. We design how new joiners ramp — 30/60/90 plans, manager check-ins, early-signal scorecards — and run it for the hires made through The Selection. Onboarding stops being something managers improvise the week someone starts.
Selection, onboarding, and the performance loop — the full lifecycle. Performance cycles, manager development, comp linkage. The only tier where the claim "we build teams that perform" is testable end-to-end. Six months minimum because a real performance cycle takes that long to run properly.
Most founders weigh three options for getting people in: a contingency agency, an in-house recruiter, or running the search themselves. Different tools for different bottlenecks. If your problem is reach — not enough CVs — an agency is the right call. If the problem is the decision quality, 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 fee. Predictable, contained, paid for the system being built — not paid on close. | ×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. |
| ■Pairs with — doesn't replace. Stack on top of an agency, an in-house recruiter, or just you. | ×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 onboarding and performance — same engagement, same practitioner. | ×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 almost half a decade as an HR generalist, running selection, performance, development, and operations inside growing companies. Recruiting roughly 30 hires a year, end-to-end. Designing performance cycles that managers actually use. Coaching team leads through the conversations nobody trains them for. Long enough, and broad enough, to see what actually moves outcomes and what just looks good in a slide.
The thesis is simple: performance is a system, not a hire. Selection is the foundation, but it's one of several inputs — onboarding, cycles, coaching, environment all compound. Build them properly the first time, or rebuild them at fifty people. Peep Lab is built to do the first.
Growth-mode founders running post-PMF companies of roughly 15 to 80 people, asking some version of "how do we become the best in our category?" rather than "how do we fill the next seat?" If performance is a word that means something specific in your company — and you're willing to build the system that makes it real — the fit is usually clear.
A contingency fee buys pipeline — paid on close, work ends at offer. That's the right tool when your only bottleneck is reach. Peep Lab is paid for the embedded work: building a selection system that stays, running it for real hires, and (in higher tiers) extending it into onboarding and performance.
The pricing is intentionally low at the start — RM 2,000 / 3,500 / 5,000 a month depending on tier. Underpriced because the practice is new and the first cohort of clients is more valuable than the margin on them.
Selection is tier 01 — the foundation, and the entry point. The Selection tier is selection-only: we build the system, hire 2–3 people through it together, and you keep it. From there you can extend into onboarding (The First 90) and the full performance loop (The Full Stack), or stop at tier 01 and run the system yourself.
What Peep Lab is not: a contingency agency, a volume sourcer, or a recruiter-for-hire. Sourcing is an optional add-on (RM 1,000 first role, RM 500 each subsequent) for tiers that need top-of-funnel covered. The rigour is in the selection, not the reach.
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 design, onboarding systems, performance cycles, manager coaching, L&D — connects back to one thing: building a team that performs.
Me. Every call, every interview, every closing conversation, every cycle calibration. I own the brief, the judgment, and every decision that affects your team. 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.
20 minutes, on a call. No pitch deck. A conversation about where your team is, what's working, what isn't, 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 performance system.
→ Book a 20-min call