A New Chapter

?? A quick read on 2 things ??

1) Why did InPerson fail? 

2) What am I doing now? 

We’ve slowly started to let our mentors, close friends, and others know that we’ve shut down InPerson. It was a tough decision, but describing the experience as anything other than fun would be widely inaccurate. 

Alex and I noticed 2 distinct problems after we left college. 

Problem 1: Companies spent a lot of money on recruiting college students for their early talent programs, but as soon as those students go back to school, the communication just stops with their soon-to-be hires. 

Problem 2: Every company wants to increase representation and their D&I numbers, but a lot of them were failing to make any meaningful progress towards building balanced teams.

Our vision was clear:

When properly trained, the company’s interns can be the quickest way to accelerate the company’s D&I goals. They’re the ones that can put the company in front of diverse student groups on campus that ease doubt in potential candidates’ minds when they ask themselves, "How do I fit in?" in creative and cost-effective ways. 

The vision was great. The idea was well-received, and our pilots with successful multi-million dollar companies aka our customers were successful on paper. 

So why did it fail? 

We offered vitamins instead of painkillers.

When a strategy is presented as a solution to a problem, people want an easy fix. But improving diverse representation takes more than a couple of meetings set up by former interns at their respective universities. The long-term solution requires buy-in from upper management and continuous self-reflection from the entire organization. Technology and a well-built campus ambassador program can certainly help here, but there’s no silver bullet — this took us longer to realize than it should have.

As a result, we had customers who liked InPerson but very few who loved it.

We never secured conviction. Specifically, securing the conviction that campus recruiting teams need to prioritize building a campus ambassador program that ties in with their D&I goals. 

There were glimmers of things that worked well, but they weren’t strong enough and we weren’t growing quickly enough. We were trying to fundamentally change early talent recruiting strategies at well-established companies, and that’s really hard to do.

Things That Worked Well: 

1) Ruthless sense of organization 

Since we didn't raise VC money and we were working with well-established customers (companies with 700+ employees), we knew we had to show up the right way. The way these companies were used to doing business was with other established companies and we couldn’t show up as “2 dudes and a dog” and expect to gain their respect. 

We couldn’t show up as “2 dudes and a dog” and expect to gain their respect. 

Therefore, we knew we needed to organize our processes in a way that made the customer feel like they were in great hands. We prepped for every meeting like our company depended on it (because it did) and chose to take on extra responsibilities during our onboarding process that made hand-holding feel like a passive approach. 

2) People enjoyed working with us

We built our program in a way that caused employees to share this experience organically. Different departments were aware of who we were, and what we did. Business can sometimes be a bit stale, but to hear our company’s name/process be right next to words like “fun” “cool” and “unique” was something we didn’t expect from departments outside of campus recruiting. 

3) Impact

We exceeded the goals set forth by our customers who took a chance on us. I’ll forever be indebted to these trail blazers who saw the value early on with InPerson. 

So, the lessons learned?

1) Audience first; product second

In the context of B2B (Business To Business) companies, buying decisions are generally made by two types of people. The ones who face the problem directly, and the ones who have the authority to buy the solution. 

Early on, we mistakenly viewed the problems faced by campus recruiters (people who face the problem directly) as problems HR leaders would pay to solve as well (ones who have the budget to buy the solution) (re: we offered vitamins instead of painkillers) 

I should’ve built a community of CHRO (Chief Human Resource Officers), and HR Leaders first. 

I should’ve engaged with the people who have the authority to sign off on new tools, and new projects, and should’ve approached each leader with the intent of solving their specific problem. 

I should’ve become a consultant before becoming a "founder." 

A great relationship where I agree to completely build this program for next to nothing, but in exchange, receive the company’s approval for case studies, as well as inviting the leader on external customer calls to share the impact our solution had on the organization would have fared a lot better. (We started doing this later in the game and hollllllllllly cow - this changed the way prospects viewed us) 

2) Detach from the outcome

The success of my business is not tied to my worth as a human being. 

The success of my business is not tied to my worth as a human being. 

The success of my business is not tied to my worth as a human being. 

You can be an incredibly passionate founder, who’s slingin' deals left and right, but still come across prospects who will say no.

Saying yes to something is scary. Change is scary. 

On the other side, executives are worried about their own lives, and one more unknown variable might be mentally taxing. 

Whatever the reason, focus on the systems, and not the outcome. 

In other words - detach. 

3) Get alignment on asking the right questions

Again, it’s obvious looking back, but it’s tough to gain clarity when you’re in the mud. Focus on alignment with your team on asking the right questions first. 

Simple questions that most founders can’t clearly articulate: 

How can I position my offer as a no-brainer with my customer? 

Costco and Car Dealerships have been doing this for a reason, but ask yourself, how can I give people a “taste” of what they’re buying? 

How can I indoctrinate the people who recognize the problem and serve them first? 

These may be obvious to some people, but holy shit, I feel like I got 3+ years of a kick-ass MBA jammed within a few months and this will forever change the way I think about building businesses moving forward.

And....now?

Well... the story isn't over quite yet.

You see, the problem we started to encounter repeatedly when connecting with students we worked with during InPerson was that either they had an insanely difficult time getting a job, or even if they did get a job, they hated the work they were doing. 

The “solutions” to fix these weren't great either.

Here’s what I mean: 

? Career Coaches - Everyone and their aunt/uncle claims to be a “career coach” but they just take THOUSANDS of dollars from people without even guaranteeing them the result that they promised. 

? Staffing Agencies - While yes, some recruiters are AMAZING at their job. Oftentimes, they are driven by an immense amount of pressure to meet their quota which impacts the way they connect with their candidates. Things I repeatedly heard from recent graduates when they engaged with recruiters: 

• “They don’t know anything about the jobs they’re recruiting for”
• “They say they’ll call back, but they never do!”
• “I know staffing agencies offer bigger commissions to recruiters for more highly paid jobs so I just talked to recruiters trying to persuade me to apply for jobs that were a poor fit.” 
• “Some recruiters told me to lie and embellish my credentials on my resume”

? Career accelerators/Boot Camps - Some of them are just focused on one specific track. For example: if you know you don't want to go into sales, the programs won’t accept you and it won’t be helpful. Similar boot camps exist but are just way TOO LONG and time-consuming as well. Most of them have you start on a cohort model meaning you have to wait for others to be in line with your schedule instead of going at a pace that makes sense to you. 

The question I started asking was if Joe and Sally are both in a boot camp, but Sally needs a job to pay for rent/student loans ASAP, why should she have to wait for Joe who has the luxury of staying in his parent’s basement to get the results she’s looking for? 

There had to be a better way right? 

*Drum roll please* 

Introducing Compound Career

Compound Career is a career development fellowship that helps recent graduates build real-world experience by pairing them with nonprofits for project-based work while teaching them how to launch their career to help them break into companies ranked insanely high for overall job satisfaction and employee happiness. 

If we fail to deliver on that promise, not only do they not owe us a thing, but we pay THEM for having wasted their time. 

What took YEARS with InPerson is taking WEEKS with Compound Career

Reminded me of the classic quote by Edison where he said, “I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” 

Huge thanks to everyone who helped us get to this point where I can show up as a founder who can provide results, and build processes and systems that last. 

Taking the valuable lessons from InPerson, I’ll be sharing the journey here on LinkedIn. My promise is to be incredibly transparent, build a community (more on this later), and take you along the journey. 

If it succeeds, that’s great. 

If it fails, that’s okay too. 

“The journey is part of the experience—an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.” Anthony Bourdain

Stay tuned for more updates. 

We’re not done yet :) 

Love,

Rishav