The Importance of Hiring a COO

MARIA GIUDICE: The smartest business decision I ever made was hiring Rajin Dev (?), my Chief Operating Officer. Having somebody like Rajin has made my life a little easier—I think I’m sleeping better at night, because I have somebody who really understands what it takes to run a business: the ups and downs, the quality of the product, the quality of the working environment, and the importance of making sure the company is healthy financially. All those things are really critical, and having somebody else share in that kind of oversight was really important. So I think that it’s a very hard decision to hire somebody who’s your peer, but it’s a very important hire—you have to hire the right person. But when you find that right person, it’s an incredible asset to the growth of the company. And I think a lot of small businesses frankly suffer because they don’t hire somebody to help offload the amount of work that they have to do from day to day.