Hiring a growth partner is one of the highest-stakes bets a founder makes — get it wrong and you burn a quarter of runway on decks and dashboards nobody uses. This hub covers how to evaluate agencies, embedded pods, freelancers, and in-house hires: what to look for, what to ask, how pricing and engagement models actually work, and the red flags that show up before the first invoice. It's written for founders, growth leads, and product or ops leaders who need to make the call and defend it internally.