How I Hire Employees For My Startup - Building a Billion $ Company - Episode 9
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the founder of Stan shares the challenges and strategies involved in hiring the first employees for a startup. Key steps include sourcing great talent through personal networks and social media, vetting candidates based on core values and technical fit, and convincingly selling the company's vision to potential hires. The founder emphasizes the importance of persistence, thoughtful hiring processes, and genuine passion in attracting top talent. The video also features interviews with early hires, highlighting what motivated them to join the risky but exciting startup journey.
Takeaways
- 📈 Hiring is one of the hardest challenges when starting a company.
- 💼 Convincing someone to join a startup requires selling the vision and determining if they're a good fit.
- 🔍 Step 1 to hiring: Finding great talent through various methods like personal connections and online communities.
- 📱 Using social media and creative methods like viral videos can help attract talent.
- 🔗 LinkedIn is a key tool for reaching out to potential hires, especially from successful late-stage startups.
- 📝 Step 2 to hiring: Vetting candidates thoroughly to ensure they are a perfect fit and align with company values.
- 🎯 Defining core values and technical requirements helps streamline the vetting process.
- 🚀 Step 3 to hiring: Convincing great talent to join by selling the company's vision and potential.
- 🤝 Personal connections and mutual introductions are valuable in the hiring process.
- 🌟 Successful hires are often motivated by the opportunity to make an impact and take ownership in a startup.
Q & A
What is the primary challenge mentioned in the script for starting a company?
-The primary challenge mentioned is hiring. It's difficult to convince people to join an early-stage idea and to determine if they are the right fit for the company.
What are the three key steps to hiring as outlined in the script?
-The three key steps are: 1) Finding great talent, 2) Vetting great talent to determine if they are a good fit, and 3) Convincing great talent to join the company.
What is the 'friend method' mentioned for sourcing talent?
-The 'friend method' involves asking smart friends or mentors for introductions to their smartest friends, vetting them to see if they are a good fit for the company.
How did the speaker initially scale their hiring process?
-The speaker scaled their hiring process by posting about job opportunities on various online communities, joining Discord chats, and telling their story on social media.
What is the significance of posting job opportunities on engineering subreddits and Discord chats?
-Posting on these platforms helps reach out to a community of engineers who might be interested in job opportunities, increasing the chances of finding the right talent.
What was the speaker's approach to using social media for hiring?
-The speaker used social media by making a video standing around New York City with a cardboard sign saying they were hiring, telling their startup story to attract candidates.
What is the 'trid andry method' mentioned for sourcing talent?
-The 'trid andry method' involves reaching out to employees of competitors on LinkedIn, specifically targeting late-stage startups where employees might be looking for their next early-stage opportunity.
What is the speaker's advice on targeting companies for talent sourcing?
-The speaker advises targeting late-stage startups like DoorDash or Airbnb, as employees there might have already made their money and are looking for their next early-stage opportunity.
What are the three components of the interview process mentioned in the script?
-The three components are: 1) Values fit, 2) Technical fit, and 3) Baking the candidate into the decision-making process through vetting their talent.
What is the importance of having a hiring rubric in the interview process?
-A hiring rubric helps define the core values and qualities the company is looking for in a candidate, allowing for a more thoughtful and structured hiring process.
What was the reason Alyssa, the head of Creator success, decided to join Stan?
-Alyssa decided to join Stan because she enjoyed talking with the founder, felt reassured by the founder's financial background, and connected with the mission and passion during the interview process.
What is the speaker's final advice on convincing candidates to join a startup?
-The speaker advises focusing on the opportunity to make a significant impact and the excitement of building something from scratch, as opposed to the stability of a larger company.
Outlines
🧑💼 The Challenge of Hiring for a New Startup
The speaker discusses the difficulties of hiring for a new company, emphasizing the challenge of convincing talented individuals to join an early-stage, risky venture. They outline a three-step process for hiring: finding talent, vetting candidates, and convincing them to join. Initially, the speaker relied on personal networks and friends for introductions but eventually turned to broader methods such as social media and LinkedIn outreach. They share experiences of using various online communities and affinity groups to attract potential candidates and describe the importance of effectively selling the company's vision to attract great talent.
🔍 Vetting Candidates Thoroughly
The speaker highlights the importance of thoroughly vetting candidates to ensure they are a perfect fit for the company. They discuss their initial mistakes of hiring out of convenience and stress the need for a thoughtful, deliberate process. This includes defining core values, establishing job responsibilities, and using a structured interview process to evaluate candidates. The speaker introduces Lauren, who helps outline their interview criteria, focusing on values fit and technical skills, and shares insights into what they look for in a dream hire, emphasizing passion, enthusiasm, and a deep understanding of the role.
💼 Convincing Talent to Join Your Startup
The speaker explores the challenge of convincing talented individuals to leave stable jobs and join a risky startup. They interview Alyssa, their first business hire, to understand what convinced her to join the company. Alyssa cites the speaker's financial background, genuine passion, and the opportunity for significant impact as key factors. The speaker reflects on the importance of making a strong personal connection and providing candidates with a sense of ownership and excitement about the startup's mission. They conclude with a quote emphasizing teamwork and the speaker's ongoing journey to learn and improve as a leader.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Hiring
💡Sourcing Talent
💡Vet
💡Vision
💡Friend Method
💡Social Media
💡Values
💡Technical Fit
💡Mission Alignment
Highlights
The hardest part of starting a company is hiring, especially convincing others to join an early-stage idea.
Three key steps to hiring: finding talent, vetting talent, and convincing talent to join.
The 'friend method' involves asking smart friends or mentors for introductions to potential hires.
Networking through mutual customers can lead to meeting co-founders and other candidates.
Utilizing online communities and social media to source talent and tell the company's story.
Posting job opportunities on engineering subreddits and joining Discord chats to attract engineers.
Creating viral content on social media to attract attention and applications for job openings.
Reaching out to employees of competitors on LinkedIn as a strategy for hiring.
Targeting late-stage startups for potential hires who are looking for their next early-stage opportunity.
Evolving as an entrepreneur from selling products to selling the company's mission to attract talent.
The importance of vetting candidates thoroughly to ensure they are the perfect fit for the company.
Using a hiring rubric to evaluate candidates based on values and technical fit.
Conducting multiple interviews to ensure a thoughtful and intentional hiring process.
The challenge of selling the company to potential hires, especially in the early stages.
Sharing the founder's financial background to instill confidence in potential hires.
Creating an emotional connection during the interview process to demonstrate genuine passion for the mission.
The appeal of joining a startup for the opportunity to make a significant impact and have ownership of projects.
Learning to lead and build a successful company through the journey of starting a business.
Transcripts
so what's been one of the hardest things
about starting Stan oh definitely hiring
without a doubt yeah why was that you
have no idea what you're doing when you
first started a company and to try to
convince another human being to join you
on this really early stage idea and then
also vet if they're even the right fit
for the company is just insanely
difficult so I figured actually today as
we head into the office I'm going to
teach you guys step by step how I made
my very first hires as well as we're
actually going to interview some of my
very first hires and ask them what on
Earth convinced them to quit their
stable well-paying jobs to come join me
when my startup idea was just a very
early stage idea and super
[Music]
risky so there are three key steps to
hiring step number one is actually
finding great talent so like where do
you actually Source great people from
and then how do you actually convince
them to talk to you and then that leads
you to step number two which is how do
you actually vet great talent
specifically the hard thing about
interviewing is figuring out how you
tell the difference between a good
candidate or a solid candidate and a
really great seller candidate and then
the last step is how do you actually
convince great talent who can have any
job they want to come join you because
your number one job as a founder or an
entrepreneur is to learn how to sell the
company's vision and get people behind
you so let's dive into step number one
so there are three main ways that I get
in contact with really great talent and
the third one that I'll actually show
you is probably the one we use the most
but the first one is how I started which
is what I call the friend method which
basically is you ask all of your
smartest friends or mentors for
introductions to their smartest friends
and you vet those people on whether or
not they're a good fit so I actually
found my co-founder this way where I was
talking to so many people about the fact
that I was looking for my first hires
that one of our mutual customers
introduced us and through that process
basically I got to meet so many other
great candidates because every person
you meet is someone who's vouched for by
someone who's smart or capable and if
you don't end up vibing with that person
they can still introduce you to even
more people and so what I did when I
first started was I took my phone I just
started scrolling through my contacts
and I just started writing a message of
like hey like you know I'm working on
this thing I'm looking for these kinds
of people do you happen to know anyone
out there and I basically just sent that
to hundreds of people I knew and just
begged them for some sort of connection
and over time if you persist on that you
actually end up meeting really fantastic
people but one thing that I realized as
we were trying to hire more people was
that in this first method I wasn't
thinking about scale and basically what
I mean by that is you can either spend
your time messaging one person or you
can spend that same amount of time
trying to figure out a way to
communicate to 100 if not thousands of
people so basically to get the word out
about Stan I just started posting about
all of our job opportunities on like
every online community I could possibly
think of so when we were making our
first engineering hires I started to
think about where do engineers hang out
online so I started posting on different
engineering subreddits I started joining
Discord chats I started working with
affinity groups like women and Tech and
through that process I actually found
something that I found even more fun
myself which was actually telling our
story on social media so y'all look at
this video I made that that went like
decently viral where I just started
standing around New York City with a
cardboard sign that said we're hiring
where I told our story as a startup and
who we were actually looking for and it
actually ended up being a fun way to get
people to actually know about Stan and
we got tons of inbound applications from
this and so when I think about y'all
going out and using social media to
build your Brands and to build your
company Mission it's really going to be
about just raising up your phone telling
your story like hey I'm on this Mission
if you're interested at all like come
join or like come DM me and that in and
of itself just like putting yourself out
there is going to help you get exposure
to lots of great candidates now all of
that leads me to our last method which
is our trid andry method that we do the
most which is actually just going Buck
Wild on LinkedIn AKA I just put together
a list of all of our Legacy competitors
and started reaching out to all of their
employees and this is actually how I
made my first ever business hire Alyssa
who's our head of Creator success where
I basically just sent a ton of
connections on LinkedIn where I gave a
short intro to who I was and what I was
doing and then I said hey we're looking
for this kind of role does this excite
you if it does I'd love to chat and
that's actually how we've made most of
our recent hires is actually sending
hundreds of outbounds by the way you get
ghosted a ton or rejected but eventually
you're going to meet the right person
also quick Pro tip some of the best
companies to Target are actually late
stage startups so successful ones like a
door Dash or an Airbnb because the
employees there that have been there for
a while since the early days have
already made their money and are looking
for their next early stage opportunity
so one really cool mental model to think
about is how in this process you're
actually evolving as an entrepreneur
where when you first start your company
you're actually you're just trying to
sell customers on your product right
you're trying to get people to actually
use your business and over time as
you're more successful now in order to
scale your business you're not selling
customers so much in this case you're
selling people on joining your mission
to actually go sell your customers for
you to scale your business over time so
now you actually have a couple people
responding to you potentially interested
in getting to work with you but you
can't actually take your foot off the
gas just yet because this is the place
where a lot of people start slipping up
and making mistakes and this brings us
to step number two which is how do you
vet if a candidate is truly the perfect
fit for you and when I think about the
number one mistake that I was making
when I first started hiring was I was
hiring out of convenience AKA I was so
desperate for I was like please someone
help me as opposed to being super super
thoughtful about whether or not this
candidate was truly the best fit for the
job AKA whether or not they were truly
even better than me and so I'm actually
just going to walk you through our
entire interview process of how we truly
vet a candidate and really discern
whether or not that candidate is a top
1% talent and this process actually
breaks down to three components that
actually matches up with three different
documents so that first component is
your values AKA what are the qualities
you care about in a candidate and that
matches up with your hiring rubric
because then on top of that you then
need to establish your needs AKA what
does this job actually need to be
responsible for and then lastly you have
to bake the candidate into this
decision-making process which is vetting
their Talent OR coming up with a
question list and so I figured the best
way to actually show you this process is
live because we're actually bringing in
a candidate for a final round interview
in just an hour so I'm going to pull in
one of my teammates Lauren who's
actually running this process and we'll
walk you through how we're using all
these different process
documents come in go in come in go in
come squeeze in okay we are here with
Lauren hi everyone I'm the Creator
Partnerships manager here at Stan
awesome um Lauren we're about to make a
huge hiring decision today what are we
hiring for um we are hiring for someone
else to join the Partnerships team
they're responsible for um activating
ambassadors bringing them onto the
program and yeah maintaining them
through throughout their time cool so
basically like taking care of our top
graders exactly so basically what we do
here is we just have two sets of
different criteria in which we're
evaluating new candidates so we have the
values fit the warmth the depth the
mission alignment and then the other
part here is is the technical fit like
the functional fit right so basically
what we do before we even set out on
this interview process is we Define
these core values around what we want to
look for and this higher we also Define
like how do you exemplify that core
value and like there's like a score with
that totally and then that allows us to
go thoughtfully into this hiring process
to know what we're looking for
especially because we did this last part
is we just like sit here and visualize
like what a dream hire looks like so I'm
curious for you what does the dream hire
for the CPM rooll look like passion for
the Creator space with that a deep
understanding of what creators need and
that every creator that you meet here at
s is going to be different always say
that we're like a mosaic of a ton of
different types of creators um and a ton
of enthusiasm and just excitement that
you can relay to them on the phone and I
also think two key values is just having
warmth and depth U being excited and
warm showing up for them in a great
capacity on the phone and then also
having like a deep understanding of what
they need and really understanding that
having that empathy I love that the
other things I would add for this one is
like they love coaching people they love
seeing people succeed totally and they
also I think the thing we've been
looking for and hopefully we'll find it
today and making our final decision is
like someone we sit down with and you
just like immediately get good energy
from 100% you want to get along with
them that' be
awkward sorry what are some red flags
around interviews they don't make eye
contact with me on the phone yeah they
don't have an understanding of what San
is
oh yeah do your research before Y and
just overall excitement and enthusiasm
if I can't tell that you're excited
about this role then how are you going
to relay that excitement to the folks
that we're chatting with on a daily
basis totally and Lauren what else
should people do like and subscribe yeah
I didn't pay her to say that whatsoever
so as Lauren heads into this final round
interview what she's done is she's
listed out all of our values and all of
our technical requirements as well as
sub questions per value that she can
actually ask this candidate to D whether
or not this candidate actually meets our
bar the other thing about this interview
process is we've really lived by the
truism of higher slow Fire fast where
we've actually met with this candidate
now five times because we just want to
be super super intentional about anyone
else we bring on because what we
recognized is like you're not actually
just hiring this candidate you're hiring
not only them but the 30 to 50 people
that maybe they hire over time as well
but the hard part here is even if you
find someone that you end up being sold
on you actually have to sell them on
joining you and this leads us to our
last step which is how do you pitch your
company and in the beginning this is so
hard cuz you're just this tiny startup
and you have no idea if you're going to
make it you're also struggling to keep
everything afloat and now on top of that
you've got to convince someone to join
your vision to to take a bet and so I
figured the best way to teach you on how
to sell a candidate and what a candidate
actually cares about is actually I'm
going to pull in Alyssa our head of
Creator success first ever business hire
and actually ask her what about Stan
back in in the early days when we were
nothing was so exciting for her that she
left her stable job at a larger
competitor to actually come take a risk
on us there she is she's feeling nervous
I can tell I just saw her move her
seat
iing hi Lissa how are you how are you so
Lissa what do you do here at Stan um I
am heading up the Creator success team
so when when we first started
interviewing Stan was nothing yeah right
it was just like hey come join so what
possibly convinced you to quit your
super stable job to come take a bet on
St I think there was a couple of things
okay one was I just like enjoyed talking
with you um two was your Finance
background to be honest oh interesting
that was really important because I feel
like you hear about startups failing and
it's really risky like even going
through interviews right now that's one
of the top like concerns of candidates
and knowing that you could talk through
the financials and that I know that like
you wouldn't get us in a bad position
was huge so that was honestly like one
of the big ones um and I think the last
one was I think we like during our
interview process like shared a moment
like I'm pretty sure I got emotional and
I think it was like talking about like
helping other people and I could sense
that like you had that same passion it
wasn't like a fake salesy conversation
like it was genuine so I think those
were like the top ones for me oh that's
wonderful so Mission alignment also
sounds like drisking the business so
it's like almost like the opposite of
like think about startup upside is like
obvious so it's drisking and then the
first one is we just like we just vibed
vibed yeah other than what you said I
think the main thing that I'm realizing
a consistent thing for anyone who wants
to join a startup and how you win
against like a bigger company that's
more stable is like bigger companies are
kind of boring yeah you don't have a lot
of ownership either where it's like here
you come in you own our entire custom
sucess experience and you get to you get
to build you get to like make real imp
and I think that's probably the common
theme that unites all our most
successful hires there's just been like
this desire to just like go make an
impact run fast so
yeah so as we head out for the day I
want to leave you guys with one of my
favorite quotes that I've been sitting
with recently which is if you want to go
fast go alone but if you want to go far
go together and this has actually been
one of the toughest growth areas for me
where I'm actually weakest is and
learning these like soft skills of like
what does it mean to manage a team or
lead an organization like these things
that feel really abstract and so I'm
honestly just kind of learning as I go
and so if you're at all looking to learn
how to lead an organization or I guess
build a billion dollar company then I'd
love to have you follow along the
journey and we can just learn together
so I'll see you
[Music]
later
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