Fighting for Human-Centered Startups: HR Lessons from the Trenches
In this insightful episode of Eye Openers, I sat down with Megan Pawlak, founder of Benandanti Consulting, to explore the human side of HR in the startup space. Megan shares how her career journey—from food service to founding a boutique consultancy—has shaped her passion for building better workplaces. You'll hear why early-stage founders need to think about culture from day one, how to build strong teams creatively (even on a tight budget), and why failure can be your biggest asset.
Whether you're a founder, future leader, or just someone who's been burned by bad bosses, this conversation is full of eye-opening takeaways for anyone who cares about people and wants to build something meaningful.
Eye Opening Insights:
⏱️ [25:33] "Culture starts earlier than you think."
Startups often wait too long to think about workplace culture—but the best time is now, even with a team of two.
⏱️ [38:00] "Hire for puzzle-piece fit, not just passion."
Founders need to look beyond their inner circles and hire people who complement their gaps—not just friends who think like them.
⏱️ [49:30] "Your best hire might be someone who’s failed."
Don’t overlook candidates who’ve been through failed startups—those experiences often make them sharper, scrappier, and more resilient.
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Fighting for Human-Centered Startups: HR Lessons from the Trenches
This transcript is auto-generated. Please excuse any typos!
[00:00:18] Brittany: Hello and welcome to Eye Openers. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Thank you, Megan, for being on the show with us today.
[00:00:42] Brittany: I am still using my typical caffeine to get my day started and lead to some eye-opening moments. In personal life and business.
[00:00:52] Brittany: So for today's episode, I'm so excited to have Megan Pollock with us today. Thank you so much for joining. And you have some caffeine to be eye-opening for you as well, correct?
[00:01:04] Megan: I do almost always.
[00:01:07] Brittany: Almost always, yes, I'd say that 99% of the time, for me as well. Now I know today I feel really lucky 'cause I got to venture outside of my house, which doesn't happen all the time.
[00:01:17] Brittany: And [00:01:18] visit a favorite spot brioche this morning. If you're local to Santa Barbara, it's such a good tasty spot, right? so that is where I am getting my day, my caffeine and my eye-opening moments today. How about you, Megan?
[00:01:31] Megan: Yeah, I. I had a past life in coffee, so I tend to be a bit particular. I am drinking this great roast from Coastal Coffee Collective, which is a direct to consumer coffee brand based in Ventura. They're excellent and they have a single varietal from Timor, so it's like very bright and fruity, and I make this hyper-specific.
[00:01:55] Megan: Iced coffee every morning. That is many steps that I have found through both years working in coffee and then also research. So, freshly brewed just a few minutes ago, and
[00:02:05] Brittany: Wow.
[00:02:06] Megan: I, it's like my zen every morning. It's like my very involved coffee process.
[00:02:12] Brittany: I feel like you are a kindred spirit of mine over there, just across town. I feel the [00:02:18] very same way. I don't have, a former life in coffee, so we definitely need to talk more about that offline. I need to understand, all your expertise, but. I'm the same way. I have a ritual in the morning. my sister-in-law was staying with us over the holiday and she's like, where's your coffee machine?
[00:02:34] Brittany: I was like, oh, we don't do that here. There's a whole process. so I feel you. I'm a pour over girl when I don't go to brioche. how do you make your iced coffee? 'cause that's like a whole different thing.
[00:02:47] Megan: Yeah, there's this really cool piece of equipment. You can find it online, but it's called the Clever Dripper. So it's just like pour over, but you steep the coffee very similar to tea. And so you weigh it out and there's like a whole ratio. And if you wanna put it in the show notes, I'm happy to share it, but, you essentially brew it strong.
[00:03:06] Megan: Straight over ice so it's hot and it immediately goes to cold. And the reason why that's different from like cold brew is you capture all the oils, which is where a lot of the brighter flavors [00:03:18] are. If you are a cold brew drinker, that's gonna be like a much more muted flavor. Some people who are snobby like me say it almost tastes a little stale.
[00:03:26] Megan: So if you, when you brew hot straight to ice, you capture a lot of the nuance of the bean. And I probably sound really pretentious right now, but this is like. One of my passion areas is like really good coffee.
[00:03:39] Brittany: I love this, and then maybe there's a future for us to do, you know, a people in coffee podcast.
[00:03:46] Megan: Oh, I would love that.
[00:03:49] Brittany: Stay tuned folks, who knows what's gonna come of that? Well, so not only are you apparently a coffee expert, but there's other reasons why we're having you on the show today than just to talk about coffee, which I'm super excited about. So I like to tell people how these things happen in real life because people always say to me like, how do you know everyone?
[00:04:07] Brittany: Like, you're new to town. I'm like, well, I love to talk to people. And we were at. A, kind of like networking event in town, and remind me the name venture.[00:04:18]
[00:04:19] Megan: It was ATech
[00:04:20] Brittany: yes, yes. Ven tech. which was really fun. And we were a handful of women there. And so I saw you sitting at the table and I was like, well, yes, I will sit next to my fellow female.
[00:04:30] Brittany: And you guys were so friendly. And we kicked off a conversation right away and then, didn't take as long to realize we're both kind of in the. People side of organizations, which made total sense because that's why we were outgoing and chatting with each other. but I'll give you a little formal introduction here to Megan so you guys can understand truly, um, why we should be listening and the value she's gonna bring to the show today.
[00:04:53] Brittany: So you are the founder of, oh, say the name for me. 'cause I don't like messing it up with people.
[00:05:00] Megan: Ben and Dante.
[00:05:01] Brittany: Ben and Dante Consulting boutique HR and recruitment firm specializing in pre-seed to series B startups, which is so exciting. And this is why I wanna have you on the show today because I really focus a bit more on the later stage.
[00:05:15] Brittany: And in this early stage [00:05:18] pre-seed to be series, there's just a unique, not problem set, but really you just. Things we're solving for that are different. And so we're gonna dive into that a bit more today. but you really offer these tailored solutions to assist organizations in scaling strategically and responsibly with a heavy emphasis on finding the right talent for the client stage of business and beyond.
[00:05:38] Brittany: And that's why, you know, people might say, oh, why is, how is these different stages? What's she talking about? But it's really. Is so specific to the stage, the problem that these organizations face and how they need to be strategic in how they meet that need and then grow beyond. There really is, you know, a, A science to it. So we wanna definitely hear more about that from you. and I just wanna add that, you believe it's possible to build a more human workplace by operating on the core principles of respect, clarity, and compassion. I love that. I love when you share about, you know, bringing these values [00:06:18] into the workplace and, and really, making it a more.
[00:06:22] Brittany: You know, a fully human experience that people can bring where their full selves to this experience as well. So thank you so much for being here today, Megan.
[00:06:31] Megan: Thank you so much for having me. thinking back on that. networking event we were at. I always joke that like vibe knows vibe, right? And the second we started talking, I was like, oh, I need to know her. need to talk more. But yeah, so appreciate being here and nerding out on all the things I love to nerd out on.
[00:06:49] Brittany: I like to ask, because people are always curious in, in my experience, how did you get into this where you're starting your own, you know, boutique firm? What led you there?
[00:07:00] Megan: Yeah, I'll give a little bit of a too long didn't read just because like, I, like most people have had many twists and turns throughout my career. But kind of to what I was referencing earlier, I actually came from a pretty unique background. I, I. Grew up in a low income home. I worked in food [00:07:18] service for most of my career.
[00:07:20] Megan: I realized I needed to pivot. And when I reflected on the things that I loved most about the work I did do, 'cause I was a general manager for mainly movie theaters and coffee shops, both private and chain. I just loved the people side. I loved hiring, motivating my team, celebrating their successes, promoting them when I could, advocating for them when I had to.
[00:07:42] Megan: And I was like, duh, I'll be an HR person. but wasn't the easiest thing to break into 'cause I didn't have a bachelor's degree, so I took a pretty windy path into many HR adjacent jobs until I could eventually land my big girl HR job. so I worked. For a startup. So that's where the startup bug bit me.
[00:08:03] Megan: Right. And then I also worked for, a well-known tech company and I had kind of reached the top of my mountain. I had a great career, a great title, a great pay, really [00:08:18] successful company. And I was fucking miserable. So I was told I could swear. and I realized that. I just wasn't going to be happy within kind of the corporate sphere, and I did a lot of self-reflection.
[00:08:36] Megan: I felt I, I really value the HR career and what HR brings to organizations, but I often feel like it's not leveraged or maximized to its full cap capability. I got tired of a lot of the politics and things like that, and so I decided to leave my job and. I wanted to do it for me this time, and where I felt I could add the most value was working with smaller companies that are figuring out who they are and helping plant the seeds of human-centric workplaces.
[00:09:10] Megan: So hopefully as these smaller companies continue to grow over time, they maintain those human-centric values [00:09:18] because I believe really strongly in a post covid world that. The future of work is changing. What people expect and need out of their employers has changed really significantly, and I think if you're not building your business with a human-centric approach, I. Somebody else is going to, and you are gonna miss out on your opportunity to attract and retain top talent and miss up, miss out on your opportunity to help make the world a better place. So that's a very condensed version of a much longer story that I could tell from much longer with a glass of wine in my hand.
[00:09:58] Megan: But really I just, I want to help businesses create great places to work, period. And I. Get to do that now every day, and it's amazing.
[00:10:09] Brittany: Hmm. I love that. yeah, I think we both share a similar story where you've seen [00:10:18] some of this stuff firsthand. And had these experiences and I'll just share for context of this episode that, and people have heard me tell this story before, if you're a longer time listener, I was fired from a job when I was trying to advocate for a certain amount of people in the organization who, were not favored and were, you know, being bullied and, and then it's hard to be the whistleblower.
[00:10:40] Brittany: And I was, I. Suffered from, you know, being identified that way and then ultimately being pushed out of the org. And it was so ironic because I thought that I was driving positive change in the organization. I thought I was doing it the right way. And it was one of those moments of like, so I have a different background in training where I went to too much school, but it taught me to do it the wrong way.
[00:11:03] Brittany: Like, I was like, oh, the. Book said, and my professor told me that like, this is how you affect change the right way. Right? And then in like real life, it's a different story. And in, and even though I thought I followed the rules in doing this right, [00:11:18] I was ultimately let go. and it was a real, I guess kind of like pivotal moment for me, but in the moment like really shocking and like, wild and had to like figure out how is I gonna navigate this in the real world way and,and really make these, More effective, but also psychologically safe places for people to show up as them full their full selves. So I would love to hear, examples of when, you've been able to come into organizations who are earlier stage and like, kind of tell us your favorite client story. Don't feel like you have to share names if you don't want to, but, I'd love to hear like, you know, where they started at and what you were able to take them through.
[00:11:57] Megan: Oh yeah, that's hard. I always say I don't have favorites. I love all my children equally. But, you know, I think one of the most interesting clients I've had the pleasure to work with is it's a venture studio. So they're Vera meta in the sense that they're a startup that built startups. And so a lot of the work I do with them is not only was it building their [00:12:18] internal team of.
[00:12:19] Megan: Just brilliant, diverse, fascinating people who care really passionately about what they do, but it's also as they come up with business ideas and portfolio companies, we need to go then find founders like to take over those business ideas and co-founders. And I will share my bias of, I love working with first time founders.
[00:12:41] Megan: I love working with. Early, early, early stage folks, and so to be able to do almost this partner matching of, you know, it's not their idea, right? I'm trying to find someone that's just as passionate about what the studio has built. But also someone who is so excited about the idea of building and can do that with like high energy and low ego.
[00:13:08] Megan: And then they get to come in and then I get to work with them again to say, okay, well, who's your first hire? Who's your second hire? One of the reasons I really love this early, early [00:13:18] stage building is I see every team like a puzzle, and you need to find the different puzzle pieces to really bring the whole picture together.
[00:13:26] Megan: And I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of, you know. Incredibly talented people who have the humility to understand they can't do it all and they're not good at everything and they shouldn't waste their time being good at everything. And so to be able to have those conversations of like, what's keeping you up at night?
[00:13:44] Megan: Where are you wasting your time? What task are you doing? I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And then we try to put those pieces together to like form a job. But then there's also the, I love that you talk about psychological safety because I think that's so important is how do we find someone you can feel safe with?
[00:14:04] Megan: What sort of experience or skills, but also values? What drives you at night? What are you excited? I. To build in your lifetime or your career, what do you want the culture of this company to be? And so [00:14:18] being able to pull to like weave people together in that way is just really special. And startups are hard and sometimes they don't work and sometimes they do.
[00:14:27] Megan: but it's, there's such like a passion and energy that is just like harder to feel. When a company gets bigger and they're more structured and there's more process and all of those sorts of things.
[00:14:40] Brittany: Yeah, that's great. So the, you're lit up by that energy of potential impossibility and all that. Yeah. I love that matchmaking component too, that you're kind of talking about of like the right people coming in because the earlier stage you are, the more important, that all of that placement has to be just not perfect, but like.
[00:15:01] Brittany: For the right time, in order to get to that next stage. So it's cool that you're looking at it that way. I find that, in my experience, and I wonder if this is the same for you, a lot of leaders are not even thinking about culture that early in the game. And I think a lot of people don't [00:15:18] even realize that they can, positively impact or effectively build culture.
[00:15:23] Brittany: For their companies, would you say you've had similar experience or has it shown up for you?
[00:15:29] Megan: Yeah, I would agree. I would say that, and I have had a lot of conversations with companies of we don't need you yet. And I'm like, eh, you probably do. my joke is that like most problems are people problems, right? not to say that people are problematic, but like, especially again in these early stages.
[00:15:46] Megan: You're going to have to have really, really hard conversations with people. Like conversations like, Hey, if we don't do X, Y, Z, none of us have jobs anymore. Right? Or, Hey, we've gotta make sure that we're all rowing in the same direction, even though we're all really passionate about this idea. But we're gonna have different perspectives.
[00:16:07] Megan: And I think finding. I would encourage early stage founders, first time founders, any founder to be like, what are my values? And how would that [00:16:18] translate to a broader company culture? And not to be too echo chambery about it, but to give yourself a north star to what you're building culturally. I might butcher the stat, but I can send you the research, but it's something along the lines of like.
[00:16:35] Megan: 20 to 30% or, yeah, it's like less than 20, but more than 15% of companies fail because of team challenges. So I'm not talking about product market fit, I'm not talking about funding. It's conflicts within either early stage executive teams or I find it's hiring the wrong people at the wrong time for too much money.
[00:16:57] Megan: And so being really thoughtful about who you're hiring, when and why. And being creative too. I think the other pushback I've heard from like founders is like, I can't hire anybody 'cause I can't afford to pay them. Right? I think that comes up a lot, but I think that's operating on the [00:17:18] mindset that you are the only one as passionate about what you're building. Like you wouldn't tell your investor that. Right? So I think it's about finding people who can rally around what you're building and you'd be surprised, if you find someone who recently took an exit, they might be willing to take a pay cut or work on equity only, or if you found someone who is like, I have a job, it's full-time, but I've got a couple hours a week, I could really help you build something like. If you build it, they will come. And I think that's truly, something people should keep in mind when they are building something that they ha have put a lot of heart into. There are people who will be just as excited as you to build it.
[00:18:03] Brittany: Mm-hmm. Yeah, those are really, really, smart ideas around being creative and how you can get other people on board. I find too, like people like you said, who have had great exits or even further along in their career, are able to be more [00:18:18] flexible around how they get paid because they might have more in their coffers and and can do that, which is great.
[00:18:23] Brittany: 'cause then you're getting someone who has all that experience, right? Or someone who you know, can. is so experienced or able to affect change and only be there 10 hours a week and you only have to pay them fractionally or delayed or whatever. I also encourage people to do it, in incentivize it based on milestones or certain phases of growth, where once we successfully close a series A or whatever, then you get paid and then you have people aligned moving towards the same mission, in a really committed way.
[00:18:51] Brittany: So that, that's a really great reminder. What would you say are some of the,the key themes or challenges that you see, again and again that maybe that ultimately hold startups back where they can't get to the next phase and it would fail, so to speak? Or what are the things that, yeah, that you see crop up like that?
[00:19:15] Megan: My joke is often like, please don't make your [00:19:18] best friend, your co-founder or your sister-in-law, or something like that. I think we are naturally drawn to people we know and we trust, but we also have a bias for people we know and we trust. And so again, being creative and not just going for referrals.
[00:19:37] Megan: I think the other thing I, I. Well, the value I feel like I bring to the table is like the ability to go out and find different humans outside of your bubble, because of course, your internal network are all going to be like cheering you on and celebrating you. But what you really need when you're building early is people who are comfortable telling you no. No, we can't do that. I don't think that's a good strategy. I don't think we have the budget for that. And so I, where I see thing, where I see cracks is when, and I'm sure you see this a lot later on, is when people are reticent to have really hard conversations. [00:20:18] I feel strongly that conflict is healthy. If it's done the right way, if it's done with psychological safety, mutual respect, compassionately and with like positive intent from both sides of the coin and. When things are hard and challenging and you're just going, going, going right. That's the other thing with like early stage startups is like you're constantly fighting for survival. It's easy to say, oh, we'll talk about this later, or, that wasn't that big of an I of an issue, or I can overlook that this time.
[00:20:54] Megan: All of these things start to feel like paper cuts that just build up over time. And then you have some kind of blow up where there's a complete lack of trust and then you gotta start all over. Oh, and don't forget that you just closed this big round of funding and you have all of these other goals you have to achieve and et cetera, et cetera.
[00:21:11] Megan: But I think that finding people you're comfortable disagreeing with [00:21:18] is the biggest piece of advice I would give any early stage company.
[00:21:22] Brittany: But see, so that one's a tough one, right? Because I think that people believe that they are comfortable disagreeing with their sister-in-law or their best friend. Oh, of course I'm gonna hire this person. 'cause I have that trust and that loyalty and like, yeah, we've had disagreements in the past and like we can get through them.
[00:21:39] Brittany: It's different though.
[00:21:41] Megan: Mm-hmm. It's different when money is involved.
[00:21:44] Brittany: Good point. Good point. So say more about that. Like, you know, when did someone believe that that was gonna work out, but then they saw that it wasn't
[00:21:54] Megan: Yeah, I think that, I'm trying to cite an example, but also my HR brain is like protecting, so I might speak a bit more generally, but I believe that when you have a really strong personal relationship with a co-founder or someone early on your team, there is this sense of. [00:22:18] You prioritize protecting the relationship over the delivery or what needs to get done.
[00:22:25] Megan: Like in a business, you do have to make tough choices. You have to make sure you have the right people around the table with the right either expertise or exposure or knowledge. And I think sometimes people prioritize comfort with experience. And I will contradict myself a little bit where I think.
[00:22:46] Megan: People who are more in the rising star of their career, like people with high potential, but maybe not a ton of experience. You throw them in a room, you say, Hey, go solve this problem. And you'll be amazed at what they come back with. But I think in general, when you're talking about an executive team or folks who are working really closely together, it's just natural.
[00:23:08] Megan: You wanna protect the relationship and you don't want to hurt somebody's feelings or have something come off the right way. And then that stops those harder conversations [00:23:18] that might need to happen about. Hey, like we really biffed it on product market fit. We need to go in a completely different direction.
[00:23:26] Megan: We need to completely revamp what we thought to be true. and that's the other thing. I think a trap that founders kind of fall into is being so passionate about their own idea, but then not taking the step back is like, am I. Am I truly solving the problem I'm looking to solve? Or am I just building the thing I wanna build?
[00:23:47] Megan: And so that's the other piece that is valuable to bring in outside perspectives who have seen other situations before. I often make this joke that we're all like big balls of trauma, that we just roll from one job to another and it's a bit dark, but it's really accurate. But. I think a lot of people learn from failure more than success, and finding people who have failed before and learned from it to be in your circle [00:24:18] is so incredibly helpful and not something I think we do enough because we see failure as a bad thing.
[00:24:24] Megan: Well, their last startup failed. Why would I wanna hire them? And I'm like, they probably learned more than the person who exited.
[00:24:31] Brittany: That's right. Wow. This is a really, really, really important point, that I don't think I've heard someone bring up on the show before yet. that there is so much learning that happens in the failure and that that might be the most valuable person to bring on. That's a really, really strong. Point. what are some trends you're seeing right now?
[00:24:50] Brittany: So like I, I think over the past year that, some of the venture capital has dried up a bit. I think some of the appetite is changing and evolving, but just beyond the investment side, like what are you seeing in your work as far as just how trends are shaping and where we might be headed?
[00:25:09] Megan: Yeah, I would definitely say. People are just getting scrappier. There's a big push to do more with less. [00:25:18] But it's fascinating 'cause it really butts up against a lot of the things you see in social media around like, again, these things I'm talking about the future of work and human-centric businesses. there's this tweet that went somewhat viral semi-recently.
[00:25:33] Megan: Do we still call them tweets now? Anyway, I'm gonna keep going. about how like urgency, culture is over. But for a startup, urgency is kind of always there. 'cause again, you're always in that fight or flight. And so what I mean by folks are getting scrappier is I think. A companies are just getting more creative about what they need for how much time and how long.
[00:25:57] Megan: I'm seeing a lot of companies, especially smaller ones, moving away from full-time employees more to fractional couple hours a week. I mean, it works out pretty well for me. I'm gonna be completely honest. But, Moving away from, yes, we need a full-time person here all the time to do this. So I think for folks out there, especially [00:26:18] folks who are unemployed, a I hear you, the, the market sucks right now, but consider fractional work.
[00:26:25] Megan: Consider temporary work, consider contract work. A lot of times those can lead to full-time jobs, but I think more employers are looking at that more. Often. I think the other thing too is I am seeing a lot of conversations about like the speed of scale. I think a couple years ago, every startup I was working with or knew was like,go.
[00:26:49] Megan: Hire as much as you can. Let's like chase it. Let's go. And I hear a much more pulled back. let's be very thoughtful in how we scale. Let's be very thoughtful about how many people we actually need a lot more attention to, like what a role will actually do. And so, I think those are. Both positive.
[00:27:10] Megan: I think you should never be lay handling layoffs is like the worst thing. Any HR person will tell you that it's [00:27:18] heartbreaking. A lot of companies do it wrong. and I think there's a lot more mindset around making sure you're not in that position where you have to make those choices.
[00:27:28] Brittany: Yeah. Yeah, I've definitely, I. Been around coaching teams that were going through reductions in force. And, it is, it's so unpleasant for everyone involved and if we're more mindful and strategic from the outset that hopefully we can avoid some of that, that need to right size later on. That's really, really important.
[00:27:48] Brittany: what about for you? What is, what does this year hold for you? Where are you headed? And I know that there's some maybe new offerings around that people could engage in.
[00:27:59] Megan: Oh, thank you so much for the tee up. Yeah, we had a, we are just about to hit our two year anniversary, which is really exciting. Thank you. and we've got a great client base. Been working with a lot of folks on both contract and like more retainer based engagements. But, for the last. I say the last [00:28:18] two years, but it's probably like my lifetime.
[00:28:19] Megan: I've been working on a leadership development course to talk about all the things you've often been told not to talk about. so I call it the deep end. It is a leadership training design specifically for startup founders and founding teams. Really rooted in the realities of a lot of the things we were talking about here, working in resource strapped environments that are highly ambiguous with passionate people that bring.
[00:28:44] Megan: A lot of emotion with them, both positive and negative. And so it is a six week program with 75 minute sessions over six weeks where we dig into these really sticky areas. What I've found is, especially startup founders never really get the space to theorize and practice their learnings around people leadership.
[00:29:05] Megan: So what happens when you are. Your only accounting person has a tragic death in the family. What do you do? Right. And they're the only person who does their job. And so I've [00:29:18] built it around these like real life scenarios and giving people a community to like. Dig into these problems and really think about how would I solve this?
[00:29:27] Megan: How would I handle this? How would I treat my employees, not just as my employees, but as humans. And so, we're kicking off March 4th. We have a couple slots left. I'm sure you'll link all my stuff, but it's basically blasted all over my LinkedIn. So, that's my real passion project. My hope is that we run a couple of those a year.
[00:29:47] Megan: and beyond that, we, I also have my podcast, we're taking a little break for a couple months, but we're gonna be relaunching in a new format in the spring, so excited about that as well.
[00:29:57] Brittany: Wonderful. Okay. Yes. We will ensure that all of that is linked up here, wherever you're seeing or listening to, this episode, because it's important to get those resources. And yes, I, being in this space, I can't say enough about how. It is really challenging for founders and early stage companies to get a hold of some [00:30:18] of this really important information.
[00:30:19] Brittany: Like I said, it's often like too late and there's already, but if I'm in there and it's series C, there's so much to unwind and that's incredibly expensive for so many reasons. And to be able to have access to this information this early and in such a, easily digestible format is really powerful. So thanks for bringing that to this community.
[00:30:38] Brittany: It's important work.
[00:30:39] Megan: Okay. Thank you.
[00:30:41] Brittany: Yes. And then, I just for fun, because I think you're a fun person, what's something that we haven't heard about you yet that makes you interesting?
[00:30:50] Brittany: Oh gosh. Fun facts.
[00:30:53] Megan: Fun fact. I can talk about my business name 'cause I think the story is pretty fun and I always get questions on it. so this is a story I heard, a podcast, a big podcast, both. Delivery and receiving a podcast I heard like many years ago from this podcast called Dark History, which is excellent.
[00:31:11] Megan: is a, it was about the Ben and Dante. They were an agrarian society that existed in northern Italy right around the time of the [00:31:18] Italian Inquisition. And the Ben and Dante had a shared. Community vision that the way they worked was they believed that every year they would fight witches in their sleep by riding into battle on animals with sorghum and fennel stocks.
[00:31:36] Megan: And so they had this shared vision as a community. That they fight the witches in their dreams, and if they defeated the witches, they would have a good harvest. If they lost to the witches, they would have a bad harvest. And this was their shared religion community. Some people call it the first cult, but the Italian Inquisition rolls in and they're like, eh, witchcraft bad.
[00:31:58] Megan: And they're like, no, no, no. We're on your side. We fight the witches in our sleep and. The short version of the story is there was very little ripple effect from that. The Italian Inquisition essentially was like, they're weird, we're just gonna leave them alone, went on to terrorize other communities instead.
[00:32:17] Megan: I [00:32:18] love this story. I love the story for so many reasons. There's one, Ben and Dante. Loosely translates to good walker. And so that's something I hold pretty dear. I try to walk a good path in life. I, like nobody am perfect, but I try to just be a good human and hope that good things come back to me.
[00:32:34] Megan: I love the idea of them sticking to their guns even though it was outside of, was what was considered traditional. I think that's something that resonates with me really personally, is. I hate hearing, but that's how we do things, right? I am an advocate for change. I'm a change junkie, and I always feel like there's a better way to do things that's more aligned with what you feel personally.
[00:32:58] Megan: I love the woowoo of it. I have a little bit of a woowoo past myself and a big nerd. Tarot cards, crystals, you name it, I've got it. And then lastly, I just think it's a good reminder to like. Stick to your guns and just be authentic. I'm also [00:33:18] Italian, so there's like, throw that in there too. But yeah, I have gotten fla, I got flack very early on from someone who was a coach mentor, saying like, but your business name doesn't even say hr.
[00:33:30] Megan: And I was like, who says we're stopping here? Right? And so. I guess I, I tell this story because I believe if you are, another thing I do on the side is I've talked to a lot of like entrepreneurs, especially female entrepreneurs, about going out and starting their own thing. And I just truly believe that if you build something authentic to who you are and you solve a problem mutually care about that success will come from that.
[00:33:55] Megan: And, I've done that and I love my job. I wake up excited to do what I do every single day. I love my clients and. So that's why my business name is weird and that's a little story behind it and I recommend looking into that community 'cause it's a very interesting story.
[00:34:11] Brittany: Yes. See, I knew that you would have a fantastic answer, that's why I asked it. And then there's this whole story. I love [00:34:18] it. but yes, that all ties back to just some beautiful example of authenticity and showing up in a way that's true to you, which also seems to be a pretty successful market differentiator.
[00:34:27] Brittany: So, works in both ways. Okay. Well, it has been a total pleasure to have you on. Megan. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for sharing your wisdom that you have just so nicely put together for founders and entrepreneurs out there looking to kind of show up and be those strong leaders. please do go through the notes wherever you're listening so that you can connect with Megan and, follow up on all those things she spoke about.
[00:34:53] Brittany: I hope you guys have. Had had some eye-opening moments today. I know for me, the one that I loved really, hearing about was that getting creative with who you can bring in and how you can hire people if you don't feel like you can afford them. So that's a nugget that I'm taking away today. Hope there have been many more for you, the audience as well.
[00:35:12] Brittany: Please share them wherever you're listening so that we can understand what's really resonating with you and deliver more [00:35:18] on that. Until next time, friends, please keep up, look out for those eye-opening moments, and we'll see you soon.
[00:35:25] Megan: Hi. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us for this eye-opening episode!
💬 What was your biggest eye-opening moment from this episode? Share in the comments!
Resources Mentioned:
Coastal Coffee Collective – Local D2C coffee maker with stellar beans
Immersion Iced Coffee Method – Megan’s hyper-specific morning ritual
CB Insights Study – 23% of startups fail due to hiring the wrong people
The Deep End – Leadership Training Program for startup founders
Clarity Note:
In the interview, Megan referenced that many companies are moving to more flexible employment models and wanted to elaborate futher on how to do that compliantly. Using Consultants, Contractors, Temps and Fractional workers can be a creative and cost effective route for smaller or resource-strapped startups, however, it is important to engage with these resources compliantly. Please refer to your state-specific laws for classifying independent contractors, and find the Federal rules here. Misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor can create costly challenges for both the individual and the business.
About Megan:
Megan is the Founder of Benandanti Consulting, a boutique HR and Recruitment firm specializing in pre-seed to Series B start-ups. She offers tailored solutions to assist organizations in scaling strategically and responsibly, with a heavy emphasis on finding the right talent for the client’s stage of business and beyond. Megan's mission is to help her clients build more human workplaces through her principles of Respect, Clarity and Compassion while enabling Founding teams step into their leadership roles with confidence and genuine care. Whether you're bootstrapped or closing you next round, people matter from seed to scale.
💼 Connect with Megan on LinkedIn
🌐 Explore services at Benandanti Consulting