Why Every Founder Needs a VA (and How We Found Ours)

Before I started using a virtual assistant, administrative tasks like uploading customer data and formatting Excel spreadsheets consumed half my day. As a small team with limited funding, this was a real problem. I was spending hours on low-value tasks instead of focusing on growth and strategy.

Enter Kate, our VA, who has completely transformed how we operate at Chezie. She doesn't just save me time - she gives me back roughly two hours every day that I can dedicate to exploring other ventures like real estate and content creation.

Today, I'm breaking down exactly how we work with Kate, what tasks we've delegated, and how we maintain an efficient system for collaboration. If you've hesitated to hire a VA (I definitely was), this is for you.

What Kate Helps Us With

Kate has become an essential part of our team, handling four key operational areas:

Customer Onboarding

One of the most time-consuming aspects of growing a saas business is setting up new customers properly. Kate has taken over this entire process, which includes facilitating training calls with new customers and attending technical implementation calls with customer IT teams.

She manages our entire onboarding pipeline through our Linear board and follows up with customers who have incomplete onboarding steps. This systematic approach ensures no customer falls through the cracks during the early stages of onboarding and that our customers have a human to contact with questions who isn’t named Toby 😊.

Customer Support & Email Management

Customer support is essential but can be a massive time sink. Kate handles most incoming requests by monitoring our support inbox and Slack messages.

When a question comes in, she checks our help center to see if it's already documented, then provides personalized responses that maintain our brand voice. We initially tried using AI for this, but it lacked the human touch. Having Kate respond personally makes our customers feel valued in a way that automation can't match.

Here’s an example from last week of a conversation that Kate handled very well:

Scheduling Coordination

This might seem minor, but scheduling meetings used to eat up anywhere between 10-30 minutes daily.

When someone asks for a meeting, I loop in Kate, and she coordinates times that work for all parties. She sends calendar invites with proper context and handles rescheduling if conflicts arise.

It’s easy to think that you, as the founder, can handle scheduling meetings, and you probably can. But even scheduling four sessions a week could eat up 1 hour in back-and-forth that you could probably use to focus on more important things.

Content Creation

As you probably know from this newsletter, I create a lot of content. Kate helps bring my ideas to life by:

• Managing the publishing schedule for this newsletter

• Creating visual assets in Canva for LinkedIn posts and other content

She's exceptionally skilled with Canva, so I can focus on the content strategy and messaging while she handles the visuals.

For example, I wrote a recent post about how many people you need to talk to when fundraising. I gave Kate a rough concept, and she returned with multiple design options.

I’ve tried to make designs like this myself and… let’s just say it’s not pretty. Kate saves me time and does the designs better than I ever could.

Our Process for Working with Kate

Working effectively with a VA isn't just about having the right person - you also need the right system. After some trial and error, we've developed a workflow with Kate that maximizes productivity while minimizing the need for constant check-ins.

The backbone of our collaboration is a Notion database we created explicitly for Kate's tasks. The database includes several key fields for each task:

• Who submitted the task

• Priority level (low, medium, high)

• Current status

• Estimated time required

• Whether it's recurring with a set cadence

• Due date

• Any related files or media

This structure gives us both clarity on what needs to be done and when. Kate receives an automatic notification in Slack whenever a new task is created. She works through tasks based on priority, and when something is complete, she moves it to "In review" status, which triggers a notification for me.

The beauty of this system is that it works asynchronously. I can add tasks anytime without interrupting her workflow, and she can complete them without needing my immediate input. For tasks that do require back-and-forth, I leave comments within the task and move it back to "In Progress" for her to address.

Beyond the task database, we have a regular communication rhythm. I check-in Kate via Slack on Mondays and Thursdays, specifically for customer support and onboarding tasks. These check-ins help ensure we don't miss anything critical as we're constantly bringing new customers onto the platform. With the long list of steps required to onboard a customer to Chezie fully, these regular check-ins keep everything on track.

Kate is online during our core working hours (11 am-5 pm ET), which means there's enough overlap for real-time communication when needed, but most of our work happens asynchronously through our task system.

This level of organization might seem like overkill, but it enables us to work efficiently without falling through the cracks. Kate knows exactly what needs to be done, and I have complete visibility into her workload and progress.

How to Find a Great VA

Not all VAs are created equal. Kate is actually the third virtual assistant we've worked with, and our experience has taught me some valuable lessons about the hiring process.

Our first VA was a college intern, and our second came from Upwork. Both were fine but required far more direction than I had time to give. They were priced similarly at around $10/hour, but the time I spent explaining tasks often negated the time savings I hoped for.

The main challenge with platforms like Upwork or Fiverr is that there's no formal training or management structure behind the VAs you find there. Anyone can market themselves as a virtual assistant on these platforms, but that doesn't mean they have the skills or experience to take work off your plate. Without proper vetting, you might end up with someone who speaks limited English or doesn't understand some of the foundational tools they’d need, like email or Excel.

After these experiences, I strongly suggest using dedicated VA services. These services typically provide their assistants with training, oversight, and quality control.

My go-to recommendation is RemoteHire. I've had a great experience with them and have recommended them to several other founders, who all had positive feedback. Their VAs typically cost between $10-15/hour, are proficient in English, and can work entirely in your timezone – three critical factors for effective collaboration.

The slight premium (we pay Kate $12/hour for 30 hours/week) you might pay for a service versus finding someone directly on Upwork is well worth it. You're not just paying for the VA's time; you're paying for the reduced friction in getting them up to speed and the confidence that they've been adequately vetted.

When you're evaluating potential VAs, look for:

1. Previous experience in similar roles or industries

2. Comfort with the specific tools you use (in our case, Notion, Slack, and Canva were key)

3. Communication style that matches your preferences

4. Ability to work during your core business hours

5. Problem-solving skills and initiative

The goal isn't just to find someone who can follow instructions – it's to find someone who can truly take ownership of tasks and free up your mental bandwidth.

The bottom line

As founders, we often fall into the trap of thinking we must do everything ourselves. The mental calculation feels simple: "It'll take me longer to explain this task than to do it myself." And for a one-off task, that might be true.

But you probably have several items on your plate that aren’t one-off tasks; they're recurring time drains that prevent you from focusing on what moves your business forward.

Every time you format a spreadsheet, schedule a meeting, or spend hours creating visuals for content that someone else could handle, you're making a choice. You're choosing administrative work over strategic thinking. You're choosing to be busy instead of being effective. If you can't delegate to a virtual assistant, how will you ever build a team that can truly scale your vision?

Working with Kate has transformed how I operate. Those two hours I get back daily compound over weeks and months, allowing me to explore new ventures and opportunities while maintaining momentum at Chezie.

Your most valuable resource isn't your money or team – it's your time. A good VA doesn't just execute tasks; they create space for you to think bigger and move faster.

Stop hesitating. Start delegating. Your future self will thank you.