I don't often post here, but this is close to my heart. A few years ago, my team started making noises that we needed a company secretary and I needed an assistant. That rang true to me, but I had zero concept of what this person might do, what our relationship would be, or whether there would be a clear benefit. I hired one, employee #10, the first person on our team who would never be expected to write code.

In 6 months, this person had doubled my productive output (at a fraction of my salary, for right or wrong), and built clean, useful, stable systems for our company's information management (bookkeeping, correspondence, recruiting, health insurance, tax matters, and far more) where previously there was a lot of duct tape and bailing wire. I quickly lost the ability to imagine how we could be running this company without bonafide, competent, secretarial support.

Since then, I have lavished extremely well-earned raises on this person, with zero thought of "market rate admin salary," after two years I trust this person with my life. We have hired yet another office secretary who is also great. Our company has 15 in the local office and another 10 working remotely. Dollars spent on a good secretary are some of the best dollars you can spend: they can return to you one of the most productive, positive, and important relationships you have in your professional life. If I could go back, I would have hired one in the first year of business (as opposed to year 5!).