I F’in LOVE Recruiting for Homebrew Companies

How much faster would a startup progress if they were able to fill each new open role with a better-than-thought-possible hire in a quarter of the time they expected the search to take? That’s what I hope we can deliver to each company Homebrew backs.

How much happier, more productive, fulfilled and wealthier would we all be if we were working on the best teams on the right projects at the most innovative companies? That’s what I hope for each talented non-founder I meet.

One aspect of early stage venture that feels great is the opportunity to assist founders in building their teams. At Google and YouTube I played very hands-on roles in hiring across all functions during hypergrowth phases. While no Homebrew investment is (yet) growing as fast as Google did, across the entire portfolio there are dozens of open roles at any given time. On different teams. In different industries. For different experience levels. With different company cultures. So overall there’s a ton of variety to try and match the right person to the best opportunity for them. Satya and I both believe that people choose companies, not the other way around. That’s to say, the most talented men and women have a ton of options and are usually passive candidates. YOU need to convince them to work for your startup, not the other way around.

So how have we built this into Homebrew’s playbook and how can it scale as we invest in more companies? What a good question!

• We tend to constrain the geographies we invest in (SF, NYC, SoCal) so that we can leverage personal talent networks and find the right opportunity for a candidate.
• We commit to a 24hr Response SLA to help close any candidates?—?no matter how junior?—?if a Homebrew founder thinks speaking with an investor will move the discussion forward.
• We create resources guides on hiring-related topics which are available to all startups, not just the ones we’ve backed. Such as Diversity and Inclusion, What To Do When You Lost Your Job, Performance Management At Startups, and Compensation At Startups.

But most importantly we have Beth Scheer as our Head of Talent. Beth joined us mid-2015 after 12+ years in Recruiting/PeopleOps leadership roles at Google and Salesforce. Across teams as varied as Google’s Engineering R&D and Salesforce’s Executive Recruiting, Beth had responsibility for pairing with functional leads to develop human resources strategies in order to attract the best possible talent in competitive environments.

In her role at Homebrew, Beth partners with our founders, and their leads, to support the startup’s growth goals. From kickstarting initial hiring pipeline to that post-Series A scaling, she’s a trusted resource for first-time and fifth-time founders alike. Beth doesn’t own the search?—?we firmly believe in capacity building, not outsourcing to your VCs?—?but she sits atop a set of contingency and retained recruiters with whom we maintain close ongoing relationships, so you can be sure to get best-fit, best-job and best-price if you decide to hire an outside recruiter. And Beth will help coach founders about when to bring on a dedicated in-house recruiter plus partner with them for their success. CAN YOU TELL I THINK IT’S AWESOME TO HAVE BETH ON THE TEAM?

Anyhow, if you’re a founder who is (or will be) raising a seed round and our people-centric approach resonates with you, be sure to reach out. And if it’s only January 5th but you already want to escape your current gig, perhaps we can help find you a better one.

My Blog | Twitter | Snapchat | Medium | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram