Hiring - Your single most important skill as a founder

@moritzplassnig - ceo/founder - @codeship

Startups are simple

1. Hire great people

2. Form an amazing team

3. Build a valuable product

4. Acquire customers

5. Repeat

G R E AT P E O P L E

VA L UA B L E P RO D U C T

S U C C E S S F U L C O M PA N Y

H A P P Y C U S TO M E R S

It’s all about the people* Yes, we’ve a diversity problem

I’m biased

• SaaS product selling to software engineers/teams (B2B)

• Headquartered in Boston/MA, another office in Vienna/Austria and several remote employees

• Paying customers in 70+ countries

• Raised $2.9M in venture capital

• Building a company, not an exit

Codeship’s hiring historyFu

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Q3'12 Q4'12 Q1'13 Q2'13 Q3'13 Q4'13 Q1'14 Q2'14 Q3'14 Q4'14 Q1'15 Q2'15 Q3'15

Team members total Team members added Team members lost

Fully understand your hiring funnel

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy Team Members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

Inbound won’t work

How Codeship found full time team members

30%

45%

10%

15%

Inbound Events Network/Referrals Outbound

Focus on what you can control• Inbound won’t work without a great, well-known brand

• Focus on Outbound but delegate (your time is too valuable)

• Hire a full time in-house recruiter • It’s cheaper than external recruiters (x hires with 20% cut vs. 1 FTE) • Better quality because in-house, better understanding of culture • Solely working for you

Hiring History

Full

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Q3'12 Q4'12 Q1'13 Q2'13 Q3'13 Q4'13 Q1'14 Q2'14 Q3'14 Q4'14 Q1'15 Q2'15 Q3'15

Team Members Total Team Members Added Team Members Lost

Hired an in-house full time recruiter

Data-driven hiring• It’s a funnel

• Sourcing = Sales funnel • X calls/emails per day • Result in Y opportunities • And Z hires

• Track, track, track • Every single funnel stage • Velocity • Conversion rates • Everything per role • Ideally per channel

A few more tips

• Understand which channel works for different audiences • Executive hires (VP/CXO) • Engineers vs. Business hires • Seniors vs. Juniors vs. Interns

• Channels work differently for different locations

• Use proper tooling • Google Docs, Trello, etc. is a good first step • Purchase an Applicant Tracking System like Greenhouse asap

Be really sure that you need to hire a specific role

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy Team Members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

!

– R A N D O M S U P E R S M A RT P E R S O N

“Hire people who are smarter than you are.”

Great people have a lot of great opportunities

• Sell first, convince them why it’s worth to go through your hiring process => they have to want the job

• Afterwards focus on evaluating (only works if you source the right people)

• Understand your talent pool • You have to sell harder for a CXO/VP hire than an intern • Make sure you have choice (hint: it’s like fundraising)

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy team members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

Evaluate candidates fast

• Define a process that allows you to move candidates through your hiring funnel fast: Don’t waste their or your time

• Understand what you don’t know and where you need help of other people (from your team or externally)

• Deal with different audiences differently (intern vs. senior executive)

• Follow the process

Finding a perfect hire is easy, defining perfect is impossible

Perfect depends on a thousand things

• Personal fit (yes, you have to like your hires)

• Phase of your company (1st hire vs. post Series C)

• Location (San Francisco/Valley vs. overseas)

• Role (Executive vs. Intern)

• Culture (remote vs. one office)

• Diversity (focus on it early on or you will fail)

• Team fit (great individual maybe won’t play well with your team)

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy team members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

Be ready to make an offer

• Make sure you have the budget

• Define compensation ranges (look at formulas from companies like Buffer)

• Understand market rates for your location

• Make sure your investors / cofounders / team is on board

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy team members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

Hiring doesn’t end with a signed offer

• You won’t know whether somebody is a great fit until you have worked with that person for a while

• This goes both ways, maybe you are not a great fit for the new hire

• Constantly be hiring and ready to back-fill positions

• Onboarding is crucial for Employee Happiness & Retention and therefore for Referrals

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy team members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

Referrals > All

30%

45%

10%

15%

Inbound Events Network/Referrals Outbound

Hiring is a team effort

• Great people want to work with other great people • Invest in your team • Work hard on your culture

• Update the whole team about your open positions constantly

• Make sure they understand the profile extremely well

• Give them helpful feedback regarding their referrals

The faster and better you hire, the faster you build a great company

Candidates

(3) Evaluation

(4) Offer/Closing

(5) Onboarding

(2) Selling

Happy team members

(6) Referrals(1) Sourcing

Take it seriously

• Hiring is your life blood - always be hiring

• Your hiring process should be an unfair advantage

• Speed is key, both for hiring & firing

Hiring - Your single most important skill as a founder and startup