London-based Index Ventures' "Scaling Through Chaos: The Founder's Guide to Building and Leading Teams From 0 to 1,000" is a book-length primer for entrepreneurs keen to know what successful startups have in common. That data- and anecdote-filled document was created by analyzing 200,000 pertinent career profiles and 210 companies that Index has been involved with, as well as many others. Its major finding: the critical task company builders wind up spending most of their time on without even realizing it.

"(F)ounders are often shocked to discover that, once you have a minimum viable product and venture funding, the majority of your time quickly becomes absorbed by hiring, HR, and people management," the document's first chapter says -- noting the shift from the early priorities of building a product to later goals of creating a team to promote it won't eliminate that personnel focus over time. "Your overall time commitment to people-related matters will come in waves rather than being constant, but it won't drop away as you scale."

As part of its research, Index reviewed both famous founders and companies like Wiz, Discord, Figma, Slack, Robinhood, and Dropbox, as well as less known startups. While the exact challenges and complexities that each one faced differed according to their respective areas of business activity, the primary time demand on each to assemble and grows their staffs remained constant throughout.

"Regardless of the size of the team -- it can be 10 employees or 1,000 -- founders will spend the same amount of time, just about 50%, on people," Index Ventures partner and "Scaling Through Chaos" project leader Martin Mignot told the Wall Street Journal. "In the early days it is all about hiring and onboarding. Later on, it's all about organizing the team, and all of the process around that. What stays constant is the amount of time you spend on people matters."