Babbling VC

How We're Hiring at Receeve

Michael and I have been at this game quite a while at this point. Nevertheless, one thing I realized is that I often repeat myself to both people whom we are hiring or whom we are telling about what we do. We have a very specific type of person whom we like to hire. Further, both Michael and I have our very own styles of management (or in my case, lack of management) and we compliment one another greatly. It still remains though that it takes a special type of person to gel with us when it comes to a working environment. 

It seemed easiest to put this in a blog post and if you're reading this down the road after I pointed you here, thanks for understanding that I rather summarize this once than explain it over and over again. So, who is that type of person that we like to hire? In summary, independent is probably one of her or his strongest characteristics. We have hired almost exclusively for people who were able to think for themselves. Our favorite comment to most potential hires is that we do not run a kindergarten nor do we want to have that type of behavior in our respective organizations. We also make clear that we like to give direction and not orders. We are happy to lead but we do not want to micromanage. If you are able to work independently and self-motivate, you will fit in wonderfully with us. This doesn't mean that we do not take on management tasks when necessary or that we leave people alone and lost. What it means is that we want people to feel free to make decisions and get things done without us being in the way. At the same time, we want to be able to trust our teams blindly and let them learn by making mistakes if necessary. 

We also don't adhere to conventional work environments. I couldn't care less whether you're in the office or working from Tanzania. There are times when the team needs to be together but we completely understand when someone has a specific type of environment from which they deliver their best performance. You want a home office? Go for it. You want to go for two weeks to some remote part of the world and work from there? Be my guest. On the flip side, we expect everyone to live near the office. This may seem contradictory to what I just wrote before. What I mean though is that there are times when you need to be in the office, a lot. Days or weeks in a row you may need to be with your team getting things done. Therefore, having your family in Berlin for example and working in Hamburg isn't going to work for us. We don't expect nor require people to be in the office every day for a set number of hours. What we do demand though is that people are flexible for us just as we are for them. Is the workload light? Work in your underwear from home. Is the workload heavy? Please be in the office working with your team. So many tasks in software startups require that people are together, cranking things out, at times day and night. This doesn't allow for a distributed team, or at least not at the beginning. Once the companies get larger, say 50 employees or more, you can also have distributed teams but that in our case means one office here with a team and one office there, with a respective team. It's not 50 people working exclusively from home offices. 

We also like to hire up. I can imagine nothing better than my direct reports all being able to replace me. As much as it sucks to have a boss who does nothing, that's my goal. I want to lead my company....on the fundraising front.....recruiting the best people........and giving the team direction and motivation to reach our mutual goal. Obviously, I do not stop working but I want the people working for me (and Michael) to be able to run the business without us. In every startup you yourself at the beginning do everything. This is the case now at Receeve. But if you want a company that can scale to greatness, the CEO of the company needs a second layer of employees all able to replace him. I am fine with this. I have done my job well if everyone working for me is better than I am. Are they out for my head? Hopefully not initially but I really enjoy having people work for me who ultimately go on to start their own businesses or become C-Level executives elsewhere. This is the reality of hiring the best. And if they ultimately replace me as CEO, I hope it is because it is best for the company and someone who replaces me makes sure that my shares are worth far than they would have been had I stayed on. 

Finally, and this may seem like it's paying lip service to the current situation in the job market, we like a multi-cultural team with both women and men. For us though, it's never been for show. We truly feel that multi-cultural teams with a goal of having as many women as men are a healthy approach to hiring. In software, it's really hard to get enough woman applying for development roles but we've made it work in the past and want to continue doing our best to push this in the future. Teams just work better when they are diverse and everyone brings something different to the table. It also leads to a company culture that we enjoy and have repeatedly created. 

One thing you'll notice is that I haven't given much attention to skillsets. Obviously, we presume people are applying for roles for which they are qualified. At the same time, we rather have someone who is less experienced and willing to learn versus know-it-alls. One way or another, we really look at a person's skillset last. We far more prefer figuring out who the person is and how they will fit into our team. We also want them to be making as much a decision about working for us as we are about having them work for us. If in an interview you aren't asking as many questions about us as we are about you, we get concerned. We like to be interviewed back when we have someone in for a role. The questions you ask show us what you care about and how you think. I also like to be challenged. If you don't have the willingness to challenge me in the interview process, why would you ever do so down the road? 

If you are considering a role with us, I hope the above helps to give you a sense of what we are looking for before applying or interviewing with us. If you just read it to see how we work, thank you for your interest and I hope there is an insight or two in here that help you in your approach to hiring. 

 

Only 20 Years to Raise a Round

20 years....that's one way of saying it. You could also see it differently....about two weeks of work. We're finalizing our round at Receeve. It's been quick outside of the admin and we were able to raise more than we need. Therefore we asked some folks to wait for a further financing round. I don't want to jinx anything but I remain confident that we will have together a pre-seed round which sufficiently funds us to the next round and allows us to get a team, a product and initial POC's in place. 

But this isn't a post about fundraising and instead, about expectation management. Why could it be written that it took us twenty years versus two weeks? Well, it's simple enough. Michael and I have been in business for a long time. We have put in the hard work of learning the ropes, showing track record and building our networks (as well as saving money to be able to invest a large chunk of the round ourselves). It still took each of us over twenty years to get where we are. If you don't know the backstory, you could be misled to think that it's possible to raise a financing round in two weeks. 

You will see this all the time when reading the news and blogs or listening to podcasts. Tim only works a four-hour workweek. The Basecamp guys hardly ever work, their product builds itself and really, they don't even have offices or employees at that. On the other hand, Gary V. is working all the time, 24/7.....hustle, hustle. Jack, of Twitter fame, hardly sleeps and eats one meal a day....sometimes. The Rock......work, business, social media, movies, workouts....maybe soon even a presidential campaign......day in/day out. All of it......it just leads to silly expectations. 

This is nothing new but maybe a good reminder. You write your own story.....as it evolves.....and you will hardly ever know exactly how things turn out. In hindsight, you can tell whatever story you want. You can make it seem easy or you can make it seem hard. It's a matter of perspective. But when you are setting out on your path or are already on the way and aren't satisfied, revisit your expectations. 

Case in point: we may be about to finalize a round of funding but I am looking at least 7 to 10 years out into the future, preparing for the hard work. Raising the round is usually the easiest part (even when it's hard). Everything that comes thereafter is where the real work begins. Seed, Series A, Series B.....it only gets harder as expectations grow. In our case, we are in no way thinking much about exits right now or potential acquirers. The day-to-day is salaries, rent, biz dev, partnering, etc. My expectations are aspirational but realistic. We are excited about getting a great pre-seed round together with angels and investors whom we really like. But there is so much to do. I do not foresee any 4-hour workweeks soon and this is fine. Nothing about where we are going is attached to expectations of a similar path. Nor should be yours.