What to Look for When Hiring for a Hypergrowth Startup — and What to Avoid
One of the traps when recruiting for a hypergrowth startup is prioritizing deep market and domain experience above all else. The thinking is that someone who has done the same job before can do it again.
But there’s a big difference between doing a job in a disruptive startup and, say, a large and bureaucratic organization. If your company is innovative, nobody will have done things the same way before. So could anyone out there even have the exact experience you seek?
The best people I’ve hired came from adjacent markets. It never works when we hire experienced people from our industry. We’re trying to do things so differently, and they can’t make the switch.
When recruiting for a Chief Revenue Officer, one candidate said it best when I asked if he could sell to pharma, given he had only sold to academia, government, and hospitals before. “I have never climbed that mountain,” he said. “But I know how to climb mountains.” We hired him.
So what should you look for when recruiting for your startup?
Checklist for successful candidates
Over the past four years, we’ve hired over 200 people at our scaling startup. I’ve seen many come and go. That has shown me who succeeds in the intense and exciting startup environment and who doesn’t. Startups aren’t for everyone, and many people who crush it elsewhere fail because of the intensity, speed, and organized chaos.
Today, there are a few top characteristics that I look for when hiring a new team member, beyond their technical ability to get a task done:
- Creativity
- Adaptability
- Tenacity and strength of character
- High-quality standards
- Humility; check their ego at the door and say “we” more than “I”
- Willingness to get their hands dirty; don’t think anything that needs doing is beneath them
- Experience and Proven ability to execute, even if in a different industry
- Continuous learning; invest time every week in self-improvement
- Clear and direct communication
- Ability to simplify and not complicate
- Courage to speak their mind
- Commitment to DEI
I could even boil this checklist down to three key questions: Would I be willing to work for this person? Do I have to bring my A-game when interacting with them? Are they a solid reflection of the company’s leadership team and me?
No matter how much market and domain experience they have, I won’t hire them if the answer is no.
