When your vegan business starts growing: How to know it’s time for an assistant and how to find the right one

There comes a moment for almost every vegan business owner where you realise you can no longer hold everything together on your own. You keep saying you’ll catch up tomorrow, then the next day, then the one after that. Your inbox grows, your plans sit half-finished, and the work that once felt inspiring now feels scattered because your attention is pulled in twenty different directions.

Most of us reach that point quietly. We keep pushing through, hoping the pace will ease. Then one day, we notice that the work that really matters, the work that supports our mission for our animal kin and the wider world, is slipping behind. That’s usually the moment you start wondering about getting some help.

This is exactly where Ethical Globe’s founders, Shailen Jasani and Laila Kassam, have found themselves at different points in their journeys. Hearing their experiences can help you figure out whether it might be time to bring in support, too.

When Shailen realised he couldn’t do it alone

In the early days of establishing The Ralph Veterinary Referral Centre, when everything was new, and the workload grew by the week, Shailen found himself getting further behind despite his best intentions. 

He kept hearing people say that any founder in his situation should hire an assistant. He agreed in theory but hesitated in practice. It felt like a leap, both practically and emotionally. What would he ask this person to do? How would onboarding work? Would it take even more time to hand over to an assistant than to do specific tasks himself? Nevertheless, knowing deep down that it was the right thing to do, he took the step and recruited full-time in-person support.

In the month before his assistant started, he began writing down everything he did. Every task, every small process, every repetitive job that broke up his day. Seeing it all written down made something abundantly clear: a sizeable number of the things he did daily did not need to be done by him. They needed care and consistency, not his direct involvement. By the end of that month, he could picture exactly how an assistant would help

Now he says that, once the assistant settled in, he wondered how on earth he had managed without help for so long!

Laila’s growing project and the idea of a virtual assistant

Very recently, Laila has found herself in a similar situation while developing a new project, Project Phoenix. The team is small, but the list of ideas and tasks keeps expanding. She keeps running into the same questions. What could someone else take on? How would you organise training when your schedule is already full? Would in-person help make sense, or would a virtual assistant be a better fit?

Her situation highlights something many small vegan organisations face. You may not need someone in the room with you or someone full-time. You may simply need reliable, values-aligned support for a few hours a week so that you can focus on the work only you can do.

How to know it is time to bring in help

Most founders already know the answer in their gut, but these signs can help you recognise when it’s time to enlist help more clearly:

• You have important tasks you keep moving to the next week
• Your energy is going into admin rather than mission-led work
• You’re doing tasks that feel outside of your skillset because there is no one else to do them
• You miss opportunities because you do not have time to follow up
• Your vegan project is growing, yet you are stuck at the same level of capacity

If these feel familiar, support may not be a luxury. It may be what allows your organisation to keep growing without compromising your wellbeing or your purpose.

What an assistant can take off your plate

An assistant can support you in many ways. You don’t have to hand over everything at once. Think of it as choosing from a menu.

Examples of tasks you could hand over include:

• Sorting your inbox and handling routine enquiries
• Keeping your calendar organised
• Managing social media posting
• Updating your CRM or customer records
• Research
• Supplier follow-up
• Preparing simple graphics or documents
• Helping organise events, webinars or launches
• Managing order queries
• Tidying up website content or uploading blogs
• Scheduling newsletters
• Creating or updating spreadsheets

When engaging an assistant, the idea isn’t to lose control, but instead to protect your time so that you can focus on strategy, relationships, and the work that furthers your mission for our fellow animals.

You can, of course, also consider how you can use AI to handle some of your repetitive tasks if you are ethically at peace with using this technology.

Preparing to hire using Shailen’s month-long record method

Shailen’s simple approach of recording every task he completed for one month would work well for any vegan founder or small team. Here’s how to use it without adding to your workload:

• Spend two weeks or a month noting every task you complete – nothing is too small
• Identify what only you can do
• Highlight the tasks that repeat often
• Circle the ones that can be taught
• Add a note about what a new assistant would need to know to complete those tasks
• From there, you can decide whether in-person or virtual support makes more sense

This preparation makes hiring far less stressful because you already know what you need and what you’re happy to hand over.

Where to find a good assistant

Values alignment matters in vegan work. Someone who understands why you do what you do is far more likely to thrive in the role.

You can start by:

• Asking other vegan founders whom they recommend
• Checking Ethical Globe’s listings for VAs and assistants (for example, Chaos into Calm or Chew Valley VA)
• Reviewing anyone you find online through a values lens (try Googling “vegan virtual assistant” as a starting point)
• Asking for a short video introduction or “discovery” call (many Virtual Assistants offer the latter as a matter of course)
• Offering a small paid trial before committing

What to talk about during the first conversation

Your first chat sets the tone for the whole relationship. Rather than feeling like an interview, we prefer to think of it as a conversation between two people who want to work well together.

Useful things to explore include:

• What kinds of clients they’ve supported
• What tasks they enjoy most
• How they prefer to communicate
• How they organise their time
• What helps them produce their best work
• What boundaries or conditions they need to thrive

You’re not looking for someone who can do everything perfectly. You’re looking for someone who is dependable, learning oriented, and aligned with your mission. Even if an assistant hasn’t completed a specific task before, what matters is that they’re unfazed and proactive when faced with something new.

Your assistant may also already be adept at using AI for task execution and enhanced productivity. You should explore this with them if you are ethically at peace with using this technology.

Getting the relationship to work long-term

Once you’ve chosen your assistant, the real relationship begins. A thoughtful start helps everything unfold more smoothly. You might find these points helpful for onboarding:

• Create a simple onboarding document that explains your tools and daily rhythms
• Give clear examples of what you consider good work
• Start with small tasks and let trust grow
• Keep communication open, especially during the first month or so
• Allow them to take ownership in their own style as confidence builds
• Review the first few weeks together so you can adjust anything that feels unclear

Assistants tend to flourish when expectations are transparent and when they feel able to ask questions. It’s sensible to set aside time for short but regular check-ins during the initial transition period.

One word of caution – you may need to resist the urge to hover!

Most founders are so used to doing everything themselves that letting someone else take over a task feels strange at first. A good assistant will often approach things in a slightly different way, sometimes because they have more experience with that type of work than you do. Giving them room to use their own methods is usually where the real magic happens. You still set the outcome and the boundaries, but they get to choose the route. That balance tends to build trust on both sides and leads to better systems than you could have created on your own.

Training an assistant without overwhelming yourself

For many founders, the handover is the part they fear most. Not the cost, not the idea of hiring, but the training. 

It’s easy to imagine that you’ll need a long manual, perfectly documented systems and endless hours to explain every tiny step. That fear alone is often what keeps people from bringing in help, even when they’re exhausted.

The truth is that training an assistant rarely looks like that. It’s far more human and far more informal.

A simple screen recording while you carry out a task can be enough to get your assistant started. Two or three examples usually give them the full picture. You don’t need to polish anything; you just show how you currently do it.

Everything can be kept in one central place, so both of you know where to look. It might be a shared folder, a simple checklist or a short guide you build together over time. Many VAs use tools such as Trello, Notion, or Google Workspace to manage tasks or share documents.

When your assistant begins taking on tasks, try reviewing the first few pieces of work together, not as a critique but to agree on what “good” looks like for your business. They learn your expectations, while you start to see their strengths. It becomes a partnership rather than a transfer of instructions.

A steady, gentle approach is more than enough. Most assistants settle in quickly once they have a few early wins, and many end up improving the very processes they learn from you. The handover doesn’t need to be perfect. It only needs to be clear, kind and manageable.

Understanding costs and choosing a structure

Costs vary depending on the type of support you choose.

• In-person assistants often cost more because of hours, travel and proximity (full-time in-person roles also come with standard employer duties such as contracts and paid leave)
• Virtual assistants usually charge hourly or offer retainer or package rates (the latter sometimes covering specific tasks), working with you in a freelance capacity
• Some founders start with just a few hours a week and grow from there
• Others prefer longer blocks of time because it reduces having to stop and start tasks and gives the assistant space to think ahead

It also helps to agree on the practicalities in writing before you begin. Clarify how retainers work, what happens to unused hours, whether hours can roll over and how any extra tasks will be handled. A little clarity early on prevents surprises later and keeps the working relationship steady.

Whatever you choose, it’s worth remembering that your own time has value. Freeing even five hours a week to work on revenue or audience-generating activities often pays for the support many times over.

That moment when everything clicks

As Shailen discovered at The Ralph, a good assistant becomes part of the business heartbeat. They hold the operational threads together so that you can focus on the bigger picture.

You may begin by thinking you are only handing over a few tasks. Over time, you may find your assistant taking on more responsibility, improving processes and creating space for you to work in a calmer, more purposeful way.

Many founders eventually ask the same question. How did I ever manage without help?

If your vegan business is growing and you feel stretched thin, it might be time to bring someone else into your world. It takes courage to hand over tasks that you’ve held tightly for a long time, but the right support can refresh your energy and focus, enabling you to place it where you can make the most difference.