Owen Healy - Finding The Right Talent

[music] [applause] [applause] Hi everyone. Hope all is well and yeah pleasure to be here in Cluge and I'll try and speak English. Um yeah. Um okay. So yeah um the goal of my presentation today is how to help or how early stage founders can go about finding a players for their business.

And yeah I guess somebody who I found as an inspirational person in that regard has been Steve Jobs. And this is a quote that he's known for. Um, A players hire A players, B player, B players hire C players. And ultimately, I guess, um, when I guess using his philosophy, and I'd highly recommend you watch some of his videos on YouTube with regards to recruitment. If you're an early stage entrepreneur looking to build a team, just watch some of the early stage short videos from Steve Jobs.

So yeah, this was his playbook effectively when hiring out the start. Um, ultimately your first 10 hires are crucial because that defines the quality of your next um 100 hires basically and then this the hiring process becomes self-p policing. Again, A players hire A players and they don't want to be surrounded by B players and C players. So yeah, effectively, yeah, just to reiterate, your first hires are crucial. Um, self-p policing when you hire a players, hire a players.

Um, get consensus. So when when you're an early stage founder and there's a contributor or somebody working with you or a couple of people working with you, try and get consensus among the team because the last thing you want is a core contributor or a co-founder or even a volunteer. um um have frequent disagreements or differences in direction with that hire coming into the organization. Um so yeah um be pass you want someone that's passionate obviously because I guess yeah well that kind of goes without saying really because it is early stage it will be a lot of early mornings and late nights um yeah so when you identify the right person um be persistent try and make them an offer they can't refuse effectively using the line from the godfather and yeah hire doers so again one of the hiring mistakes that Steve Jobs made early on was hire management consultant type individuals who basically knew how to manage but didn't know how to do anything and he referred to them as a bunch of bozos. So do not hire them and yeah be patient.

So, there's a well-known phrase in the recruitment game called hire slow and fire fast. And that couldn't be more applicable in a web tree context because what we've been accustomed to over the last couple of years is projects raise a bunch of money. They hire these marquee signings and very soon into their journey they realize that they're not a perfect cultural fit. So there's been a lot of wrong marquee signings made that shouldn't have been made over the last couple of years within this industry. So yeah, t hiring tips for web three founders.

This will be all very basic stuff. So be clear um understand your deal breakers and this is just get very being very simple. understand what are your key requirements in the first 30, 60, 90 and 180 days. And I would even say that with a lot of job descriptions being written by by AI now, um almost frame your job description in that regard, especially if you're an early stage founder, um allow them to see what road map you have for them starting out. So if you can carefully articulate in the job description the first 30, the six first 60, the first 90 and the first 180 days, well then that helps um not only does it give the candidate a clear picture of what to expect, but it also avoids psychological contract violations um later on because the last thing you should do when you're a founder is promise the world to somebody at coming into your project because ultimately trust breaks easily and the relationship turns sour.

So yeah, be attentive, get the story, not the glory. So I guess a lot of hires in crypto um are done through word of mouth and that's completely understandable and it's great. It's a tight-knit community, still very much a global village, but yeah, you also kind of can't hire on blind trust alone. So, you want to get to understand, I guess, a bit more about how they've achieved something, not what they've achieved. Were they a one-man team?

Were they a 10-man team or woman team? Of course. Uh, be honest. Again, this comes down to avoiding psychological contract violations. as previously alluded to.

So again, explain your challenges. Explain why you the person should be proactive in the role and why they can add value to the role and why they're needed starting out. Um, don't promise somebody the world because I can't tell you. Um yeah, I can't tell you how many times projects overpromise and underd deliver in this industry when trying to attract um what often is a marquee signing rather than somebody that is right for your business at this current period of time. And with that as well as a side note as well, I would say to avoid conflict later on, I would make sure to be very careful with what title you're assigning the person coming into the project is as well because you might require a marketing person that may be great and suitable for now, but if you give that person a CMO title and that company scales and gets traction, that person may not necessarily be the right person in a year's time or two time, two years time.

So you could be avoiding um you're avoiding if you for example title that uh marketing lead well then you're avoiding friction later on. So just be very careful as to how titles are distributed um early on when hiring your early team members. So yeah, be connecting. So whether you're laid off or looking for your um first hires, ask yourself a very simple question and almost write down on a piece of paper, who are 10 people that can help me find the right person or find the next role and reach out to them. And again, the great thing about this industry is is that a lot of people like to help each other.

And yeah, again a lot again I can't I would say that probably 80 to 90% of jobs in this industry are still filled via word of mouth. Um especially now with a lot of these job boards being just absolutely plowed by AI applicants which is becoming quite annoying for recruiters. Okay. Sorry. Um yeah yeah yeah so um be connecting so yeah understand who can help me get consensus and treat recruiters as business partners as well.

So if you're working with a recruiter um just give them a clear understanding of what they're looking for explain to the recruiter equally the first 30 the first 60 the first 90 and first 180 days and yeah being clear communication with them. So again, give clear feedback on candidates as to what you like about them and what you don't like about a particular candidate and that then the recruiter will know better going forward as to what you actually like and dislike and what's suitable and not suitable. And oftentimes when regardless of how many calls you have with a company looking to scale a team at the early stages, you do get a much clearer picture after the first five or six applicants as to what they like and don't like. Um, and the more the more you invest in a recruiter and provide them with good feedback, the more that recruiter will reciprocate and invest in you. So yeah, be open-minded.

So again, I can't emphasize this enough. Rockstars are contextual. And again, early stage, early mornings, late nights, you hire the person, not the resume. Um, do they give a Basically, is kind of what I'm trying to say here. And are they passionate?

Do they identify with the road map? Are they asking thoughtprovoking questions? Have they ask the right questions? Have they asked hard questions? Sometimes if a candidate is asking hard questions, well, that's often the candidate that you want because they've invested the time in the interview in advance and they want to know more to see if it's worth them investing their time.

Um, so yeah, um, are they suitable for your stage, current stage culturally? Um, yeah, are they culturally aligned after the skills required and do they care? So again, just coming back to the point I made earlier, a lot of crypto projects would have raised seven figures, um, even eight figures in years gone by and they hire these teams. um they go straight into hiring a head of BD, uh CMO and they effectively often times hire generals when what they actually needed at that particular time was soldiers. And often times you have these serious A projects that hire these generals that have previously led teams of 20 and 30 people before and then when they're on their own, they don't really know what to do.

So you want somebody in the trenches often times when you're an early stage to really kind of um yeah get get yeah they need to pull themselves out of the trenches and that's where you really do need to be careful as a founder early on to get the job titles correct. So again you don't want to create friction earlier on uh later on rather. So if you hire a marketing person, a big mistake you could do is give them the title of CMO straight away. Um if if because potentially they mightn't be the best person for the job as if as the company scales and grows in a year or two years time. So yeah, be flexible on compensation.

Just be open-minded regarding equity if you really want the person. Um yeah, who knows? Um again a good trick is obviously to if you really really want the person give them co-founder status um as well and yeah again there's so many different ways and means as to how deals can be done in this industry in terms of vesting schedules and whatnot as well. So yeah, um be prepared. Again, as I said earlier, all common sense stuff.

Good candidates ask hard hitting questions. They've done their research beforehand. They've looked at the road map. They've looked at the online literature. Um yeah, and they are often the best candidates.

So yeah, um be chill. Um again, it comes back to the philosophy of hire slow and fire fast and don't hire for hire sake. And again that comes back to what a lot of projects made the mistake on in previous years. It was like when mainet mentality we need to hire we when TGE um yeah and yeah I guess what I've seen from a recruiting perspective is that um a lot of projects obviously got way too much money way too quickly and it was akin to it was akin to putting rocket fuel in a Vespa. It made the project go faster but not in a straight line.

So yeah, be assured reference check and have a clear and fair interview process. Again, can't emphasize enough all very common sensical stuff, but um yeah, get multiple reference checks. Um if it's a somebody that is a referral, just don't rely on that one reference alone. Get a second reference, get a third reference if need be. And have a clear and fair interview process as well.

So make sure that um there's consensus among the other team members if you're very early stage with regards to who the um hire is because again culture is obviously cannot be un it's like obviously massively important at early stage and maintaining harmony and yeah um with regards to the interview process as well as I alluded to earlier get the story not the glory and again what is a good way of getting um context with regards to somebody's particular achievements or previous work is by asking competency based questions in interviews as well. So again that yeah so then they have to think in their feed and then you get context and you get the you get the story you get how they achieve something not what they achieved. So yeah, be supportive. Um, have a good onboarding, consistent support and again just with the phrase as well, all managers are HR managers. So if you are spearheading a project and a founder, assume you're a HR manager as well, check in with the the person on a regular basis.

Likelihood is you'll be doing that anyway. But if you're um I guess if you're a founder with a marketing background or a business development background and you hire a founding or lead engineer, um just check in with him or her on a daily basis to see how they're doing, what challenges are they anticipating, what extra resources they may need and things like that. So yeah, um be smart. So again, as you grow and scale, identify who you can't afford to lose. And with that as well, always remember coming back to the philosophy of hire slow and fire fast.

Um, one bad hire means making two hires effectively and the cycle can continue, trust me. Um, so yeah. So um again again yeah like when you have somebody showing huge potential in the organization um or project as they grow and scale again make sure you identify quickly who you can't afford to lose because again replacing a rockstar is tough work and often times impossible. So that can for early stage teams especially that can create a plethora of problems, downtime, lost tribal knowledge, lost relationship, um potential knowledge with the code base. For example, um vendors, costs, potential customers as well.

So that's why you really do need to identify your rock stars and who you cannot afford to lose as you grow and scale. So yeah, any questions, let me know. But um yeah, a lot of it was common sense. So um no appreciate it. Great being include lovely place, lovely people.

Thank you.

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