{"id":17930,"date":"2019-11-07T16:53:30","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T00:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foundersnetwork.com\/?p=17930"},"modified":"2021-10-06T23:56:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T06:56:22","slug":"how-startup-founders-should-be-hiring-their-c-suite-from-handy-founder-oisin-hanrahan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foundersnetwork.com\/how-startup-founders-should-be-hiring-their-c-suite-from-handy-founder-oisin-hanrahan\/","title":{"rendered":"How Startup Founders Should Be Hiring Their C-Suite: From Handy Founder Oisin Hanrahan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hanrahan discusses the pitfalls that startups face in hiring for leadership roles, and what he wishes he\u2019d known earlier as a founder. Handy raised $110 million and was acquired by ANGI Homeservices, a $4 billion company, last year.<\/em><\/p>\n

Plenty of executives hail the importance of a strong culture, but it takes firsthand experience building a startup from scratch to understand how culture permeates everything from hiring to decision-making.<\/p>\n

Oisin Hanrahan<\/a> saw this up close in co-founding and scaling Handy<\/a>, a marketplace for home cleaners, repairmen, and other household services. Within a few short years, Handy raised $110 million and gained widespread recognition as a consumer brand. In using Handy, customers can hire household services at the click of a button, and professionals have a new place to connect with clients. <\/p>\n

Hanrahan, along with co-founder and then-roommate Umang Dua, began working on Handy while being a student at Harvard Business School. But the idea wasn\u2019t an immediate hit among investors. They needed to work on development and networking opportunities. When they set out to raise money in 2012, the notion of a marketplace for household services was met with a good deal of skepticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first raised capital, the number one pushback we got was: I don\u2019t think people are going to go online and book services at the touch of a button and trust someone going to their home,\u201d Hanrahan recalls.<\/p>\n

Those doubts were ultimately proven unfounded. Determined that Handy would be a success, Hanrahan dropped out of Harvard Business School to dedicate himself full-time to building the platform. He wasn\u2019t a first-time entrepreneur \u2014 he started his first company, Clearwater Group, a real estate development firm at 19 \u2014 and he saw a major shift in consumer behavior underway.<\/p>\n

Handy was part of a wave of online marketplaces: Uber, Airbnb, and others were also gaining steam during that time. That wound up remaking the way consumers hire services, whether it\u2019s booking a car or a plumber. @oisinhanrahan<\/a> <\/blockquote>\n

Handy was acquired<\/a> by IAC-owned ANGI Homeservices, a $4 billion company, in October 2018. Hanrahan recently assumed the role of Chief Product Officer at ANGI, where he\u2019s tasked with transforming the company\u2019s 12 brands, which do $1.1 billion in annual revenue.<\/p>\n

The startup journey<\/h2>\n

\u201cIf you do this right, you\u2019ll take a journey that should take 15 or 20 years. If you\u2019re running a venture-backed company and a trusted network, you\u2019re going to compress that whole journey down to 5, 6, 7, maybe 8 years\u201d, Hanrahan says. \u201cAnd if you do all the unexpected things that would normally happen over 10 or 15 years, it\u2019ll happen in 5 or 7 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

So you\u2019ve got to almost expect the unexpected and be okay with it, because it\u2019s normal if you\u2019re operating at a really fast pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to almost expect the unexpected and be okay with it, because it\u2019s normal if you\u2019re operating at a really fast pace.\u201d @oisinhanrahan<\/a>\u00a0 <\/blockquote>\n

If it\u2019s typical to operate at lightning speed as a startup founder, then it\u2019s critical to establish a culture that can meet those demands early on. It\u2019s common for startups to encounter difficulties in hiring for the C-suite, even having handy a C suite network, however. Some level of trial and error is inevitable, and Handy was no different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first went out looking to bring on more seasoned executives onto the leadership team, it was a challenge for us; we weren\u2019t quite sure what the fit profile was and weren\u2019t quite sure what we were looking for,\u201d Hanrahan says.<\/p>\n

Which criteria to use when hiring executive roles?<\/h3>\n

According to thought leaders, like Oisin, you need to establish a consistent set of criteria that applies across the whole organization, whether you\u2019re hiring at the executive level or for other roles.<\/p>\n

In Handy\u2019s case, Hanrahan and the suite leaders sought out people who are smart and hardworking: they are no-brainers for any company seeking to hire, but who were also open to compromise and collaborative thinking in determining the best path forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking for people who are incredibly analytical, who work smart, who work hard, and we\u2019re looking for people who want to win, and who appreciate that what we\u2019re doing helps customers and helps professionals,\u201d he said. \u201cLastly, which is particularly important on the leadership team: We\u2019re looking for people who are not super wedded to their own idea as being the best idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding any company can take years, but startup founders must balance long-term goals with shorter-term thinking that complements the pace at which the startup operates,\u201d Hanrahan adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of the mistakes that early founders make is falling into the trap of: Oh my goodness, what do I need two years, three years, five years out?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A better approach, particularly for executive-level hires, tasked with executing the startup\u2019s vision. It is determining at the outset what the person \u201cneeds to do in the first 90 days and in the first 12 months to be incredibly successful in their role,\u201d according to Hanrahan.<\/p>\n

If a hire isn\u2019t successful in the first three months to a year, it\u2019s unlikely that they will succeed over a span of years, Hanrahan added.<\/p>\n

By nature, fast-growing startups can\u2019t tolerate candidates who will flounder for a year or more before finding their way. And founders must consider what\u2019s a reasonable time frame for a hire to \u201cscale\u201d into the role. That may vary a bit, depending on what stage a startup is in, but successful startup founders will hire with the awareness that it\u2019s a totally different cadence than a larger, more established organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay you hire someone who\u2019s been with their organization for 10, 15, or 20 years, and they\u2019re a seasoned executive at a Fortune 500 company. The timeline to be successful in an organization like that is much longer than the timeline to be successful in a Seed Stage or a Series A startup,\u201d business leader Hanrahan points out. \u201cIt\u2019s an important cultural gap that you need to reconcile before you go down the path of hiring somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some advice from Hanrahan to founders<\/h3>\n

Asked what he would tell his earlier self racing to build and scale Handy, Oisin Hanrahan pointed out that it\u2019s important as a founder to trust your instincts. On top of that, work tirelessly to test the hypotheses and beliefs that sparked the idea in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ve got to figure out what you believe to be true, and spend all of your time dedicated to proving or disproving it,\u201d he says. \u201cOurs was that idea of people would book home services online\u2014 just write it down and spend as much time as possible trying to prove, or disprove, that concept.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hanrahan discusses the pitfalls that startups face in hiring for leadership roles, and what he wishes he\u2019d known earlier as a founder. Handy raised $110 million and was acquired by … <\/p>\n

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