Performance evaluation and appraisal at early-stage start-ups

1. Set your benchmark of performance early in cycle.(setting this later in cycle creates recency bias and expectations mismatch)
2. Note down all major advances in your org and point it attach the relevant credit to each of your employees who directly report to you.
3. Evaluate the highlights and lowlights and assign each pointers to each personal.
4. Always keep time in mind, if a team had to deliver something in very small time and product has short comings in some ways they should be credited for making product rather than penalised.
5. Look at market how people are paid and evaluate your manpower with respect to that and pay as per that.
6. Always give constructive feedbacks on the go and don’t make feedback’s for personal who did all well just for the sake of giving feedback.

Most early-stage companies do not have a Criteria of Elevation that is DEFINED for all the roles and AGREED WITH THE EMPLOYEE at the start of the assessment cycle. For your next cycle, you can refer to this 30-minute discussion where Rajinder, MD of Matrix Partners India, has shared some recommendations.
https://youtu.be/dZqupSAQ4zo?si=dJMQJ7DRdTtn7K5_

For the current assessment year, try to get valuable employees closer to the market pay. Refer to Market-Pay data published by Elevation Capital. Here's the link:

https://online.fliphtml5.com/ulkoj/pvkd/#p=1

Hope this helps.

Is there a simple system you can recommend? OKRs don't really work due to lack of clarity in each person's role and lack of data availability

Measure performance in quantitative terms, and reward accordingly