How Vivid Theory brought order to rapid growth without slowing momentum

About the business 

Vivid Theory doesn’t operate like a traditional company. It’s a venture studio. Multiple businesses are built, tested and scaled under one umbrella, then spun out when they’re ready to stand on their own.

Inspired by the studio model used in entertainment, the team develops companies internally, providing shared infrastructure, talent and operational support. Ventures like HeyAuto and BigGeo move independently but rely on common systems behind the scenes. 

That structure creates opportunity. It also creates complexity. People move between ventures. Teams scale quickly. Processes need to work across multiple businesses without being rebuilt every time something grows. Momentum is part of the model. But growth without structure eventually becomes drag. 

The challenge 

As headcount grew, HR became harder to manage quietly in the background. Chief of Staff, Emily MacKinnon, needed a better way to keep everything in order. 

Recruiting, onboarding, time off and employee records were spread across Google Docs, Google Drive, Monday.com and a collection of custom workflows. It worked, until it didn’t. Permissions became messy. Handoffs were manual. Visibility across multiple ventures was limited. 

With one person owning HR end-to-end, the administrative load was increasing fast. Every new hire meant hours of coordination, follow-ups and document management. Scaling the business without scaling HR overhead became a real concern. 

There was also a bigger consideration. As a company building a Canadian spatial cloud, data residency and governance mattered. HR systems couldn’t just be convenient. They had to be trustworthy. 

The solution 

Vivid Theory brought HR into one connected system. Employment Hero replaced fragmented tools with a single platform supporting recruiting, onboarding, time off management, documentation and performance workflows across every venture. 

But what really stood out was the flexibility. 

“We were able to customize it all the way through, which is really important to us. Reference checks; being able to automate that. Sending emails to applicants, having that fully tracked in the system, is fantastic.” 

That level of customization mattered for a venture studio that does not operate in a one-size-fits-all way. The AI capability also played a role. 

“Being able to ask your chatbot AI questions and have it navigate through the system, as well as the knowledge base, was super cool. As we look to adopt more AI into our systems, that was really important to us and stood out quite a bit in the competition.”

For a company building technical products, AI was not a novelty. It was a signal. 

What changed 

The biggest shift was time. 

Recruiting became more structured and transparent. Hiring managers could see where candidates were at without chasing updates. Onboarding moved from a document-heavy process into a guided flow that new hires could complete independently. For HR, the savings compound with every hire. 

“I would probably say…all the way through recruiting and onboarding…four hours of my time, for one employee…has probably been nailed down to a half hour.” 

Instead of juggling tools and tracking down information, HR became manageable again. 

“It gives me a lot of transparency into what stage the applicant is in getting their onboarding stuff completed.” 

The impact 

As the business scaled from 16 to 45 employees, Vivid Theory didn’t need to add HR headcount. Employees gained clearer access to information, reducing interruptions and follow-up questions. Leadership gained better visibility across teams and ventures. HR stopped feeling reactive. 

Instead, Employment Hero provided the structure needed to support growth while keeping the operation lean. 

“In the last three months, what we’ve been able to accomplish in Employment Hero…has just dramatically helped me sleep at night.” 

That peace of mind is priceless. It meant less time spent worrying about what might break next and more time focused on building what’s coming next. 

Why it matters 

For a venture studio, momentum is everything. Employment Hero gave Vivid Theory a foundation that scales quietly in the background. HR systems no longer need to be rebuilt every time a new venture launches or a team grows quickly.

The result is a business that can keep moving fast without losing control. Growth stays intentional. People stay supported. And the work stays focused on what actually moves the company forward.