In the midst of what many have dubbed “The Great Resignation,” many employers are struggling to fill job openings. According to one report, approximately 72 percent of recruiters are struggling to find relevant candidates. And startups in particular are seeing hiring delays. According to another report, it takes an average of six months to hire someone for a startup.

Fixing this issue isn’t easy. According to entrepreneur Gary Bolles, standard recruitment strategies are ill-equipped to handle the future of work. He says traditional recruitment pipelines are highly dependent upon poorly designed processes that usually don’t benefit the hirer or the worker. Instead, he says startups should focus on expanding their network. 

“What you’d love to have is a magic wand capacity that gives you access to a broad network of people,” Bolles says. “You want a high functioning network with a range of different people who can all solve a wide variety of different kinds of problems.”

Bolles is the author of “The Next Rules of Work”, a book that helps leaders understand why traditional notions about work inhibit their ability to address new problems. On Jan. 13, 2022, Bolles hosted a webinar for Founders Network members where he provided pandemic-era strategies for hiring and growing people.

“Instead of thinking in terms of metrics or some numbers or targets that we need to hit, we need to design systems from scratch.”
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To learn more about pandemic-era strategies for hiring and growing people, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from January 13.

DE&I recruiting

Each year, Silicon Valley Bank releases the results of a survey of startup founders around the world. In the most recent report, Silicon Valley Bank asked startups in the U.S., U.K. and Canada about the ethnic and racial minorities in their C-suites and on their board. According to the report, less than half of the companies had at least one member of their leadership teams who was ethnically or racially diverse. The same was true for the number of women in the C-suite and on boards.

While statistics like this illustrate diversity, equity and inclusion issues in the startup world, changing the status quo is more than a numbers game. In order to address DE&I in hiring, organizations often tack metrics on to their recruiting processes. However, according to Bolles, DE&I initiatives must be more than an afterthought.

“We need a mindset shift,” Bolles says. “Instead of thinking in terms of metrics or some numbers or targets that we need to hit, we need to design systems from scratch. We need  DE&I to happen automatically as opposed to a set of mechanics that we try to tack on to our recruiting processes.”

“ATSs are a mechanical approach to old rules processes.”
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The role of tech

Companies are increasingly turning to technologies like artificial intelligence to revamp their hiring processes. However, Bolles says AI can exacerbate recruitment issues because it often relies on historical data sets that are biased. Bolles is also critical of applicant tracking systems because he says they rely on outdated processes.

A recent study found that ATSs are contributing to hiring issues and preventing employers from filling open positions. According to the report, 88 percent of employers say qualified candidates are vetted out of the hiring process because they do not match the exact criteria in job descriptions. The report indicates that outdated metrics and software systems are causing employers to overlook overqualified candidates, resulting in approximately 27 million hidden workers in the U.S. 

“ATSs are a mechanical approach to old rules processes. That’s a model that works sometimes for some hirers, for some applicants, and for some work roles and for the most part doesn’t work very effectively for many,” Bolles says. “None of that means you shouldn’t have good data. You should have good data. You should be able to track information about the people in your sphere. But only focusing on this narrow slice is a miss for everyone.” 

“You have to be extra careful and extra sensitive about not creating systems that are just going to get you people that look like you.”
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Hiring in the pandemic era

The pandemic hasn’t just prompted employees everywhere to rethink their jobs. It’s also forcing employers to rethink how they work and how they hire. Remote work is more popular than ever and as COVID-19 continues to force some to work remotely for safety reasons, startups are having to change the way they do business.  

Part of this global shift to remote operations  involves a more virtual hiring process than ever before. More and more companies are increasingly turning to video interviews to fill open positions, but researchers are already detecting issues employers should be cognizant of.  According to one study, video conferencing for job interviews disadvantages both employers and candidates. Additionally, according to Bolles, video interviews can have unintended consequences in terms of bias. 

“I know that we have to do these things in a virtual world. But there are a whole bunch of aspects of video interviews that are biased against a wide range of applicants, especially people with diverse backgrounds and without the kind of exposure to these processes that gives them very low chances for success,” Bolles says. “You have to be extra careful and extra sensitive about not creating systems that are just going to get you people that look like you.”

Want to learn more about pandemic-era recruitment strategies? In his webinar Bolles covered:

• How work changed in “the Great Reset” of the global pandemic
• How these changes have affected founders and startups
• What founders need to do differently to effectively hire and develop workers
• What founders need to know about skills to grow their company

To learn more about pandemic-era strategies for hiring and growing people, see if you qualify for membership and check out the webinar from January 13.

Moderator:

Pete Crawford

Pete is a 7-year cannabis industry veteran as VP of Supply Chain, VP of Professional Services, and CEO. He is a named inventor on two cannabis industry device patents, and has held multiple technology company leadership roles prior to his cannabis journey. Bend Oregon resident, father, husband, traveler, live music lover, and SaaS enthusiast.

It’s often said that startup investors make decisions partly on the strength of a team. It takes strong talent people to build a great company — and for that reason, staffing decisions are some of the most consequential choices a founder can make.

Max Shapiro, founder and CEO of PeopleConnect, has been helping startups to land top talent for 20 years. In the wake of the dot-com bust of 2001, Shapiro created a unique recruiting model called Employees Without Paychecks that enables cash-strapped startups to pay in equity before raising capital. Over the years, he’s seen firsthand what it takes to build a successful startup team, and shares his insights with Founders Network. 

Firstly, it’s a mistake for founders to lean on a limited personal network to find and recruit talent in the early stages. Register to Max’s full webinar and see if you qualify for membership to Founders Network and get tips on:

• Sourcing a Talent Pool
• Working with Agencies
• Optimizing for Experience
• Asking the Right Questions
• Building a Team

“Most startup entrepreneurs don’t have the time or expertise or experience to find candidates.” - @Max_PplConnect
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“Most startup entrepreneurs don’t have the time or expertise or experience to find candidates,” Shapiro says. “But relying on friends, family or advisors for referrals naturally produces a much more smaller pool of candidates.” 

“When you’re working with an agency, like PeopleConnect, we’ve put together a list of 150 people, interview 20 of them, and present three well-qualified candidates within three weeks. Our universe is much larger,” he adds.

“There are a few characteristics that startup founders should be looking for in a candidate,” Shapiro explains. Prior experience working at a startup tends to be extremely helpful — those candidates are used to an environment that often demands long hours, versatility, and the ability to wear many different hats to get the job done. 

“The most important thing is you have to hire people with startup experience.” - @Max_PplConnect
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“You may be the product person, but you might be helping out in sales or marketing or making coffee. If you’re not used to that, it’s hard to make that adjustment,” Shapiro says. “The most important thing is you have to hire people with startup experience.”

Still, a resume can only tell you so much about a person. Other traits that tend to correlate with startup success are optimism, a team mentality, and the ability to maintain discipline even in challenging circumstances. A smart CEO or hiring manager knows how to ask the right questions to suss out what makes a person tick, and how well they’re likely to perform at your startup.

“You know you’re working at a startup when you’ve worked a 40 hour week, and it’s lunch on Wednesday,” Shapiro says. “I’ve seen mistakes made by startups when they hire people that don’t have startup experience.”

Asking open-ended questions — such as a simple “tell me about yourself,” or prompting them to discuss what they most enjoyed in school — is one way to learn about a candidate’s life and how they approach work. Even asking questions about their early life experiences can better reveal what challenges or adversities they’ve had to overcome, and how they learned to do it. Extracurricular activities that may not show up on a resume can also be revealing: Participation and success in team sports, or other group activities, that require collaboration and team building are a signal that a candidate can work well with others to overcome problems. 

“Team activities are a good indicator of the ability to work hard, have discipline, and work with other people.” - @Max_PplConnect
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“Team activities are a good indicator of the ability to work hard, have discipline, and work with other people,” he says. “For example, a college athlete who has gotten a scholarship shows they’ve been part of a team and can handle a lot of pressure.” 

Other illuminating questions include asking candidates to rate how lucky they consider themselves to be as a measure of optimism: “You have to get someone who is upbeat, positive, and has high energy,” Shapiro says. 

Above all, your startup’s recruitment process needs to be organized, methodical and uniform for every candidate — which is why the assistance of an agency like PeopleConnect is often so essential for the busy founder. 

“The recruitment process needs to be organized and the same for everyone; you need a level playing field to evaluate candidates.” - @Max_PplConnect
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“The recruitment process needs to be organized and the same for everyone; you have to put everyone through the same process and have a level playing field to evaluate candidates,” says Shapiro.

Register for Ilker’s full webinar and get actionable advice on: 

• Defining the Problem Well, Before Scale
• Building A+ Team and Board
• Setting Up the Right Culture
• Must-haves of Fundraising
• The Exit Road

Particularly for first-time founders, there are significant risks and unknowns in launching a startup, and some of the best resources you’ll find are other founders who have been through the process. 

Ilker Koksal is a serial entrepreneur, having most recently co-founded Botanalytics, a conversational analytics startup that raised $1.3 million. He’s also an advisor and investor to several startups, a fellow at Founders Network, and author of Founder’s FAQ, a guidebook to a founders’ startup journey.

According to Koksal, the most important initial hurdle is a mental one: Founders must understand very clearly why they’re doing what they’re doing before dedicating precious resources to the project. 

“One of the main challenges is knowing yourself as a founder: Who are you, why are you doing this startup, and what's the purpose of doing this?” - @ilkerkoksal
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“One of the main challenges is knowing yourself as a founder: Who are you, why are you doing this startup, and what’s the purpose of doing this?”, he says. “It’s a huge thing you’ll spend most of your time, energy and capital on, and the most challenging thing is understanding why you’re doing this startup.”

It may sound like a no-brainer, but the answers aren’t always simple. Not every founder is able to “match their own core values to the startup’s values,” Koksal says. And that dissonance can create problems and roadblocks down the road.  Alignment in values ties closely with “problem-solution fit,” Koksal explains — and if you’re clear on both, the easier the path to actually starting up will be. 

Then comes the other hard part: Startup survival. 

There are a series of typical challenges in building a startup: Creating your minimum sellable product and proving out your concept; recruiting a stellar team that adds value and contributes to a flourishing culture; finding your first set of foundational customers; sourcing investors and raising money. 

“In the first place, you need to define your risks, and then you need to define what’s the best possible path for your startup.” - @ilkerkoksal
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“In the first place, you need to define your risks,” Koksal says. “…and then you need to define what’s the best possible path for your startup. That process helps you set up your A+ team, and to evaluate that team constantly.”

For many founders, finding product-market fit is one of the most elusive milestones: It doesn’t matter how innovative your technology is, or how excellent your team is, if there isn’t a big enough market for what you’re hoping to sell. 

“At some point you believe in yourself and you believe in what you’re solving, but you need to get the product-market fit right,” he says. “After that, you can raise a round, you can get A+ team members, and you can sell your product to more customers. That’s the hardest part.”

Once you’ve raised money, putting together a board and figuring out how to best use it are critical to conquering what challenges lie ahead. 

“You have to leverage your board effectively -- to run the business successfully, to get scaled, and establish a really great, sustained culture.” - @ilkerkoksal
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“If one of the VC partners comes to your board, you have to leverage your board effectively — to run the business successfully, to get scaled, and establish a really great, sustained culture to keep things running smoothly.”

Having the right people on your board can also facilitate deals that help your startup to grow and provide a critical boost during key periods. Those board members can also help to navigate you and your executive team through those processes. It’s worthwhile to consider your exit strategies as well — or if you don’t wish to exit, how you’ll build a sustainable and self funded business for the long term. In most cases, some form of an exit is likely — whether it’s a merger, an initial public offering, an acquisition by a much larger company, or a private offering. Whatever the case may be, founders must consider and be prepared for multiple scenarios. 

“There are always ups and downs; it’s a rollercoaster,” Koksal adds. “In the end, you can make a soft landing, you can get acquired by a company, or you can quit the startup. Quitting is also an exit. But: Is it the right time or not? Should I exit the startup now as a soft landing? These are the hard decisions.” 

Join Founders Network to learn how to build the essential traits every founder needs, including:

• Cultivating self-awareness
• Building Resilience
• Finding Passion
• Exercising Persistence
• Practicing Detachment

It’s a well-worn cliche that 90% of success is mental. But for many startup founders, there is more than a kernel of truth to that. 

There’s little that can truly prepare a first-time founder for the mental and emotional roller coaster of launching, building and scaling a business. The rewards are high, but the lows can be lonely and failures devastating. That’s why one of the most important things a founder can do is to develop a strong sense of self— your strengths, weaknesses, motivations and ultimately your real worth and potential.

That’s according to Cam Kashani, an entrepreneur, executive transformational coach and global speaker, who — after launching a very successful startup, CoLoft, and earning the moniker “The Godmother of Silicon Beach” — reinvented herself as a mentor who helps others, particularly women, to stop doubting themselves and make their dreams happen. She calls it “Awakening your Divine Feminine Leader”. 

Kashani has the life experience, both in business and her personal life, to back it up. Her first tech startup, MedMinister, “was a complete failure,” she recalls. CoLoft, one of the first coworking spaces to open in LA, was virtually an overnight success — in part because of lessons learned from her first company. As a launchpad for Ziprecruiter, Uber LA, Fullscreen and other startups, CoLoft helped to burnish LA’s image as a growing tech hub. But her marriage suffered, and after a painful split, Cam reinvented herself yet again. 

“No doubt it’s hard to get someone to give you money. But are you allowing that to mean something negative about you if they say no?” - @CamSKashani
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“One thing that I’ve seen with people, especially founders, is what shows up when they’re raising money,” she said. “Often, it’s not about actually the process of raising money — it’s what you’re making that process mean about you. There’s no doubt that it’s hard to get someone to take out a check and give you money. But are you allowing that to mean something negative about you if they say no? Are you creating excuses in your mind and limiting beliefs and believing things that aren’t actually true?”

Self-awareness is key to guarding yourself against damaging thought patterns that can hamper growth –and founders must build  a clear understanding of their desires and motivations in founding a startup. Kashani recalls her own experience with her first company, realizing after all was said and done that she was never passionate  about the project: “It was boring,” she said.

Establishing a sense of purpose serves as the foundation for other essential traits in building a startup, and ultimately succeeding as an executive longer term. 

“If you want to build resilience, first become supremely self-aware — get really clear on who you are and why you're here.” - @CamSKashani
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“If you want to build resilience, first become supremely self-aware — get really clear on who you are and why you’re here,” she says. 

It also helps to cultivate the other skill you’ll need to overcome challenges that inevitably arise in building a startup or in any endeavor: persistence. 

It may not come naturally to every founder to view obstacles simply as temporary challenges to overcome, rather than as a negative reflection of your value. But it’s necessary to reframe your thinking that way if you want your company to go the distance. And it also helps in the essential functions of running a business, such as raising money, building relationships and developing longer-term strategies.

“You have to keep clear on what the truth of the matter is and not let your fear lie to you.” - @CamSKashani
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“You have to keep clear on what the truth of the matter is and not let your fear lie to you,” she adds. “Then every single challenge that shows up, instead of making it mean something about you, you’re going to look at it like: Oh, it’s a roadblock. How do I go around it?”

Finally, there’s a risk in becoming too attached to your startup — namely, to the specific outcome you envisioned at the outset. Not only can failures seem especially devastating if you’re too attached, but founders must remain open to a number of potential outcomes that can arise. 

“You have to be persistent and committed to the process, but detached from the final result -- you don't actually know which way you're going to be guided.” - @CamSKashani
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“You have to be persistent and committed to the process, but detached from the final result — you don’t actually know which way you’re going to be guided,” Kashani says. “You don’t actually know what’s going to happen. None of us can predict our own future; we can just do our best to create it.” 

1. We want to wish Micah Baldwin of Graphicly congratulations for raising $300,000 using MicroVentures P2P Funding Platform. Graphicly is where the story goes to get seen. Upload and enhance your visual stories, then distribute them to the Kindle, iOS, NOOK, Facebook, Web and more.

2. Congratulations to Samar Birwadker of Good.Co on the rebranding of Good.co and launch of their private beta. Good.Co has decoded the science behind workplace happiness. Discover your unique strengths, thrive in your job or find one that lets you shine.

3. We are really excited for Mat Ellis of Cloudability for winning “Startup of the Year” at Technology Association of Oregon. Cloudability is the first and only financial management tool for monitoring and analyzing every cloud expense across any organization.

4. Congratulations to Nitin Pachisia on the launch of Trymbl this week. Trymbl is a new and exciting way to discover, try and buy beauty and baby care products. It is a personalized and convenient online shopping, with store-like experience.

5. John Canfield of Nimbler announced that Nimbler SF is now live. Nimbler SF is a free app for iPhones that gives real-time transit and bike directions for San Francisco.

6. We would like to congratulate Andrew Boos on the launch of Appfuel’s new website.  Appfuel is simplified promotion and earnings from your app.

7. Oscar Pedroso of GradFly launches an online portfolio platform to let high school students showcase and explore technical projects. GradFly helps students build an online portfolio by highlighting their exciting experiences, inventions, and projects in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

8. Congratulations to Mike Galarza of Entryless on the release of limited private offering of it’s accounts payable as a service on GetApp and earning top ratings.  Entryless enables companies to import any style or type of bill into the cloud accounting systems accurately and efficiently. 

9. Lumeo founder Brian McDonough launched his online video education platform. Lumeo is starting in the creative space, initially teaching photographic and filmmaking techniques. At launch there are just five videos available, including an intro guide to taking better photos, and specific skill instruction on no flash photography, one light photography, surf photography, and short filmmaking.

To apply to become a part of Founders Network, contact us today!

Too often tech founders can get sucked into a never-ending vortex of networking events where everyone scours name tags for worthwhile people to talk to (‘please, not another service provider!’) before quickly exchanging business cards and sitting down to listen to panel of speakers. At the good ones you’ll hear an interesting talk or make some useful connections. More likely though, you’ll return home to toss those business cards you collected into a pile and never pick them up again.

While these types of events can be energizing and fun, the likelihood of forming game-changing business relationships at one can be too small to justify them. For tech founders, time spent networking is also time not spent getting your product to market. Striking the right balance between the two is critical.

Two years ago I started Founders Network, a private group for tech founders focused on becoming better startup managers through problem-solving and peer mentorship. The idea: a vetted network of founders helping each other through advice, introductions and moral support is a more effective way to build enduring professional relationships than, say, attending happy hours with strangers. Since no one is more qualified to advise founders than other founders, investing in long-term, trusted relationships with a peer group can pay dividends throughout the life of your startup career.

Today, we have over 350 “founders helping founders” who take part in our private member meetings and forums. Topics range from protecting IP (“How much about our technology should we disclose to investors?”), to immigration issues (“Finding a Visa for my CTO”) and even staying motivated (“Keeping Jazz Hands in the Face of a Tough Raise”). Like clockwork, one founder after another weighs in — helping turn ambiguous challenges into finite sets of tasks, helping them avoid expensive mistakes and saving time finding what they need.

As a result of all this common problem-solving, we’ve fostered a powerful culture of camaraderie. Members refer to the group as “team”, offering multiple responses to questions with a shared sense of urgency. They speak off the record about the real problems they face and get unbiased founder advice; problems which can’t always be discussed easily with investors, advisors and other key stakeholders. As one member puts it, “There’s something wholesome about the experience that brings out the best in people.”

The foundation that Founders Network is built upon is an approval process which only admits experienced tech founders who make an express commitment to the success of the group. We are now adding a new cohort of tech founders each month, so if you’re ready to stop networking and start solving problems, check out our approval process and fill out an application before our next deadline on the 21st of the month.