Joining a promising startup, tasked with building the business in a new country. Most of the HN universe blogs/books are particularly focused on very early stage struggles (building an MVP, securing founding, etc.). Luckily enough, these dilemmas are solved already or not applicable for my case.

I turn to you in an attempt to consume any material (advice, anecdotes, failure stories, success stories) pertaining to the less discussed problems that immediately follow the very early stage, such as:

- What does a comp package incentivizing retention and growth look like? For instance, what would be wrong with (my naive opinion) packages that grow every 3/6 months?

- How should a small team that incentivizes retention operate? (Actual culture, not FAANG TGIT and no meeting Fridays)

- When do you pick which office space (i.e. open space offices with other startups vs. renting an apartment vs. actual office rental)?

- When do you hire? When do you stop hiring?

- When do you get an inhouse lawyer vs. renting by the hour?

I'm happy to read discussions, blogs, books, or whatever format; I lack wisdom on such topics. I would also love to hear conflicting points or anecdotes; clearly there's no one size to fit all, so I'm moreso interested in forming an intuition than copy pasting others' solutions.