Edlyft co-founder and CEO Erika Hairston never imagined herself as a “techie,” but was drawn to computer science while at Yale University—not that it was a cinch for her. “I actually really struggled through the major and almost dropped it,” she says. While she ultimately persevered and graduated with her computer science degree from Yale in 2018, she also built appreciation for what it’s like to be truly intimidated by a subject matter.</p>\n<p>Hairston went on to become an engineer at Facebook and a product manager at LinkedIn. While at the latter job, she developed her first app, Zimela, which crowdsourced career resources for underrepresented groups based on industry. Her old high school classmate, Arnelle Ansong—a computer science graduate from Stanford, who was working in the Bay Area as a consultant—also had a huge passion for the problem, and the pair joined forces in 2018 on the emerging app.</p>\n<p>There was just one issue. Zimela was designed to help underrepresented groups discover role models and mentors, but the duo’s earliest customers pointed them toward a larger, more pressing problem. “A lot of the people who were using that app were actually college students, who kept telling us, ‘This app is really inspirational and nice. But if your true goal is to help us, you know, reach great jobs and great careers, I need help getting through my really tough computer science classes,’” Hairtson says.</p>\n<p>Through Hairston and Ansong’s first startup experience, Edlyft was born. Launched in 2019, the platform helps STEM students excel in their toughest classes through mentoring and group tutoring sessions. After Y Combinator, the pair went on to nab a spot on <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/2021/education/?profile=edlyft\%22>Forbes 30 Under 30</a>, and raise <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/edlyft/company_financials/">a seed round</a> in 2020 from investors like YC, Kleiner Perkins, Backstage Capital, Kapor Capital, and former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner (during the pandemic, no less). Here’s just how far they’ve come—from idea to reality.</p>\n<p><strong>Building a (Real) Business in YC</strong></p>\n<p>When Hairston and Ansong decided, yes, they were going to turn Edlyft into a fully-functioning business, they did a lot of research to determine how to make their venture successful. Did they need MBAs? More time in school? They did some research. “We realized the common thread around a lot of successful startups was Y Combinator,” Hairston says. “And it was almost kind of like the Harvard stamp of approval for your career, but for your startup&#8230; this is the best way we can set ourselves up to be successful and our company to have the support it needs to be successful.”</p>\n<p>After they were accepted, they feared they might not be far enough along with their idea to start the program—that you have to have it all figured out going in, know your exact business model, and be charting a path to become a $1B business. Thankfully, they discovered that wasn’t the case. “On day one of YC, I think the group partners do a really good job of demystifying that by saying, ‘We all know, you don&#8217;t really know what you&#8217;re doing and that&#8217;s okay.’ I just remember feeling a collective sigh of relief in the room.”</p>\n<p>Hairston and Ansong immediately began drilling down on Edlyft through YC mentorship and good, old-fashioned problem-solving. Through meeting with their partners in the program, they’d come to each session with a problem and the ways they’d tried to solve it, get feedback, solve it, and repeat the next week. They continue to do workshop solutions with mentors to this day, because it was a “method we had learned in YC that kept us hyper-focused on the most important parts of our business,” Hairston says.</p>\n<p>The pair also continues to find support with the YC community. They coordinate a monthly call with other founders from their batch to maintain their motivation, and aren’t afraid to ask for help. “Whenever we have a problem, we know that there’s someone in the YC community that we could reach out to and they would help us. There’s never anything that feels unsolvable because we have the YC community that we could reach out to.”</p>\n<p>Following their time at YC, Ansong and Hairston’s vision for Edlyft is crystal clear today. “It&#8217;s the fact that everyone has that one subject or field that really intimidates them,” she says. “For a lot of people, that might&#8217;ve been orgo chemistry in college, or a really hard STEM class. And our vision for Edlyft, when it is wildly successful, is that we want to create a world where you thought it was absurd that you could ever not do that field because Edlyft exists.” Hairston says she and Ansong want people to feel mastery over complex skills, and help people “realize their potential” in difficult, in-demand fields.</p>\n<p><strong>Find Your Community</strong></p>\n<p>Hairston was lucky. She comes from a legacy of entrepreneurship &#8212; her father was a serial entrepreneur &#8212; and her family was fully supportive of her journey to found Edlyft. “They were just super-excited to see me pursuing something that they knew I was the best person to solve,” she says. “There was no, you know, ‘how dare you?’ kind of moment. It was pure, ‘We believe in you, and we know you&#8217;re the person to do this.’”</p>\n<p>For founders who aren’t as lucky, she still believes support is everywhere. “The first step is to find someone who&#8217;s in the position you want to be in, and see if you can get in touch with them,” she says, noting she Googled “great Black female founders” a lot in the early days of her company. Hairston says she’s found a lot of great communities on Facebook and Clubhouse for support. But so much is internal, too.</p>\n<p>“The most important process in deciding if you want to start a company is the self-reflection around what&#8217;s important to you and what things will help you feel confident once you take that step,” she says. “For me, that was having six months of expenses saved up in the bank. That was finding the advisors who I could go to, or who filled gaps in terms of my knowledge.” Make a list, she says. Design a cushion that will allow you to fly.</p>\n<p>Technology, she says, isn’t going anywhere; it’s in everything we do and create. Starting a tech company is scary, but, mostly, Hairston doesn’t want any potential founders to be deterred. “The more people who get involved in creating the future of technology, the more diverse solutions we will have to solve so many problems that are going unsolved now,” she says. “And my hope for the future of tech is that we invite more people into the boardroom&#8230; to create new solutions and solve more niche, unique, and important problems that are constantly going unsolved.” Through Edlyft, Hairston is manifesting tech’s future everyday.</p>\n<p><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"/blog/content/images/wordpress/2021/02/Edlyft-scaled.jpeg/" alt=\"Edlyft co-founder and CEO Erika Hairston, Edlyft co-founder and CTO Arnelle Ansong\" /> <em>Edlyft co-founder and CEO Erika Hairston, Edlyft co-founder and CTO Arnelle Ansong</em></p>\n<!--kg-card-end: html-->","comment_id":"1104723","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Edlyft-scaled.jpeg","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-02-25T00:39:18.000-08:00","updated_at":"2022-02-01T16:08:23.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-02-25T00:39:18.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"tags":[{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116f","name":"Female Founders","slug":"female-founders","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/female-founders/"},{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a71152","name":"Founder Stories","slug":"founder-stories","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/founder-stories/"}],"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a7","name":"Lindsay Amos","slug":"lindsay-amos","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Lindsay.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Lindsay Amos is the Senior Director of Communications at Y Combinator. In 2010, she was one of the first 30 employees at Square and the company’s first comms hire.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/lindsay-amos/"}],"primary_author":{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a7","name":"Lindsay Amos","slug":"lindsay-amos","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Lindsay.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Lindsay Amos is the Senior Director of Communications at Y Combinator. In 2010, she was one of the first 30 employees at Square and the company’s first comms hire.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/lindsay-amos/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116f","name":"Female Founders","slug":"female-founders","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/female-founders/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/edlyft-on-community/","excerpt":"Edlyft [https://edlyft.com/] co-founder and CEO Erika Hairston never imagined\nherself as a “techie,” but was drawn to computer science while at Yale\nUniversity—not that it was a cinch for her. “I actually really struggled through\nthe major and almost dropped it,” she says. While she ultimately persevered and\ngraduated with her computer science degree from Yale in 2018, she also built\nappreciation for what it’s like to be truly intimidated by a subject matter.\n\nHairston went on to become an engin","reading_time":5,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},"mentions":[],"related_posts":[{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c00","uuid":"97054c2c-02ab-42bd-9eeb-19a4567bf9d4","title":"Aspiring Founders Forum for Women Globally","slug":"aspiring-founders-forum-for-women-globally","html":"<p>On November 17, we are hosting our second <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://aff2021.ycombinator.com//">Aspiring Founders Forum</a> for women who aspire to become a startup founder. The event will be online, and whether you are curious about launching your own startup or are in the early stages of building one, you’ll walk away with the knowledge to define your own path.</p><p>Attendees will meet YC partners, our alumnae, and other entrepreneurial women. The one-day event will feature talks and panels (agenda <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://aff2021.ycombinator.com//">here), followed by breakout rooms with experts. Speakers will share their honest accounts of entrepreneurship, as well as essential startup advice.</p><p>Speakers include:</p><ul><li><strong>Jessica Livingston</strong>, Co-founder at Y Combinator</li><li><strong>Diane Green</strong>, Co-founder and former CEO at VMware</li><li><strong>Surbhi Sarna</strong>, Group Partner at YC and Co-founder at nVision</li><li><strong>Holly Liu</strong>, Co-founder at Kabam</li><li><strong>Kerry Wang</strong>, Co-founder and CEO at Searchlight</li><li><strong>Stephanie Simon</strong>, Head of Admissions at YC</li><li><strong>Carolyn Mooney</strong>, Co-founder and CEO at Nextmv</li><li><strong>Anu Hariharan</strong>, Continuity Investing Partner at YC Continuity</li><li><strong>Kat Mañalac</strong>, Head of Outreach at YC</li><li><strong>Erika Hairston</strong>, Co-founder at Edlyft</li><li><strong>Vivian Shen</strong>, Co-founder and CEO at Juni Learning</li><li>And more!</li></ul><p>If you’d like to attend, RSVP <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://aff2021.ycombinator.com//">here by November 10. This event is for women who are curious about starting a startup or have just started one. It will be particularly useful for women with science, engineering, or product management backgrounds, or with specific domain expertise that could turn into a startup.</p><p><em><em>At YC, we use an inclusive definition of “women” and welcome trans women as well as genderqueer and non-binary people who identify as women or femme in any way to include themselves in these listings.</em></em></p><p>The Aspiring Founders Forum is an evolution of Y Combinator’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.femalefoundersconference.org//">Female Founders Conference</a>. Since 2014, the Female Founders Conference has helped women who want to start and run their own startups. We believe creating a platform where successful women can share their stories and advice with founders who are just getting started is one way to bring about even more successful women-led companies.</p><p>We need more women-founded startups, and we hope to see you on November 17. If you have questions, please reach out to Events Director Lindsay Selvitelle at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/\"mailto:ls@ycombinator.com\">ls@ycombinator.com.

","comment_id":"618c0a02cf1ec1000121a52c","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/11/YC-AFF-Email.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-10T10:05:54.000-08:00","updated_at":"2021-12-01T14:36:33.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-10-28T10:06:00.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"The world needs more women-led companies. 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Selvitelle","slug":"lindsay-selvitelle","profile_image":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/content/images/2022/02/Lindsay-S.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Lindsay Selvitelle is the Director of Events at YC — primarily focusing on running Demo Day, the iconic three-day event where YC startups present to select investors.","website":null,"location":null,"facebook":null,"twitter":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/author/lindsay-selvitelle/"},"primary_tag":{"id":"61fe29efc7139e0001a7116f","name":"Female Founders","slug":"female-founders","description":null,"feature_image":null,"visibility":"public","og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"canonical_url":null,"accent_color":null,"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/tag/female-founders/"},"url":"https://ghost.prod.ycinside.com/aspiring-founders-forum-for-women-globally/","excerpt":"The world needs more women-led companies. On November 17th, join YC for the second Aspiring Founders Forum, a virtual event for women globally and learn how to start a startup from inspiring entrepreneurs.","reading_time":2,"access":true,"og_image":null,"og_title":null,"og_description":null,"twitter_image":null,"twitter_title":null,"twitter_description":null,"meta_title":null,"meta_description":null,"email_subject":null,"frontmatter":null,"feature_image_alt":null,"feature_image_caption":null},{"id":"61fe29f1c7139e0001a71c04","uuid":"137bef50-c46e-42ab-9496-bd321c54e3fa","title":"Does co-founder matching work? It did for these three YC companies.","slug":"does-co-founder-matching-work","html":"<h3 id=\"%E2%80%9Cco-founder-matching-saved-my-life%E2%80%9D\"><strong>“Co-founder matching saved my life.”</strong></h3><p>In August of 2021, Christina Czap, co-founder and CEO of <strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.helloseer.com//">Seer (YC W21), found herself badly in need of a technical co-founder. Seer, which raised $2.3M to help retail salespeople create shoppable Lookbooks, was receiving incredible customer interest and couldn’t keep up with the inbound demand.</p><p>At the suggestion of her group partners at YC, Christina made a profile on YC’s <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"http://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">co-founder matching platform</a>. Three months and many calls later, Seer had a new CTO: Gal Vered, a former PM at Google.</p><p>Gal had been using co-founder matching since July. Although he was initially skeptical of the platform, he eventually met up with 46 potential co-founders, and found the perfect fit with Seer.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/asdfasd.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>The co-founders of Seer (YC W21), Gal Vered and Christina Czap.</figcaption></figure><p>We launched the co-founder matching platform earlier this year to help founders find their co-founders. When you sign up, you tell us about yourself and what you’re looking for, and we show you profiles that most closely match your ideal co-founder. If you message a candidate and they accept, we match the two of you.</p><p>Co-founder matching has also seen success with brand-new companies. Three pairs of co-founders met through the platform earlier this year, worked together on trial projects, became fully committed co-founders, applied to YC, and were accepted into the Summer 2021 batch!</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.sequincard.com//">Sequin (YC S21) is one of these companies. Vrinda Gupta had left her job after launching credit cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve at Visa to work on a product to help women build credit. She spent a year working as a solo founder, and, in that time, raised a pre-seed and built an MVP. She knew she needed a technical co-founder who was mission driven, had fintech expertise, and was in it for the long haul.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Sequin.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Sequin (YC S21) co-founders, Vrinda Gupta and Mark Thomas.</figcaption></figure><p>That person was Mark Thomas. He had ten years of engineering experience at Paypal, cared deeply about gender equity, and spent six years as CTO of family-oriented startups. They had an instant connection and arranged to meet in person soon after. Vrinda recalls, “We met the day after we matched, and the day after, and then the day after that.”</p><p>Together, they went through YC’s batch this summer and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.forbes.com/sites/geristengel/2021/09/15/debit-card-startup-builds-credit-for-women/?sh=6283b60b3c67\%22>raised $5.7M</a>.</p><p><strong><strong><a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.kiwibiosciences.com//">Kiwi Biosciences</a></strong></strong> (YC S21) has a similar story. Anjie Liu started the company to solve her own pains with irritable bowel syndrome. She had a founding scientist to tackle R&amp;D, but wanted a co-founder to help her build a consumer brand and commercialize the product.</p><figure class=\"kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption\"><img src=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/kiwi.jpeg/" class=\"kg-image\" alt loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption>Anjie Liu and David Hachuel, co-founders of Kiwi Biosciences (YC S21).</figcaption></figure><p>When Anjie saw David Hachuel’s profile on YC co-founder matching, she knew that he was “exactly what [she] was looking for.” David had previously sold a startup in the same space, and was immediately interested in her idea.</p><p>They took a very structured approach to co-founder matching. Both founders answered all 50 questions posed in <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://proof-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/firstround/50 Questions for Co-Founders.pdf/">First Round’s co-founder questionnaire</a>. They found deep alignment on “all the important things” (conflict resolution, vision for culture, etc.). When their month-long trial ended and it came time to say go or no-go, the decision was easy.</p><p>Anjie and David worked remotely for four months and finally met in person after getting into YC. They went through YC and <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/14/kiwi-bio-aims-to-free-irritable-bowel-syndrome-sufferers-from-restrictive-diets//">raised $1.5M</a>.</p><p>We’re ecstatic about the companies who met through our co-founder matching and we’re excited to see the platform continue to grow and support more awesome founders in the future!</p><p>Looking for a co-founder? Check out the platform at <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://blog.ycombinator.com/does-co-founder-matching-work/www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching/">www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching.

","comment_id":"61a505fbcf1ec1000121a57c","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2021/12/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--11-.png","featured":false,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2021-11-29T08:55:23.000-08:00","updated_at":"2021-12-30T11:27:19.000-08:00","published_at":"2021-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00","custom_excerpt":"Read about how the founders of Seer, Sequin, and Kiwi Biosciences used YC’s co-founder matching platform to complete their founding team.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a71081","name":"Catheryn Li","slug":"catheryn","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/catheryn.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Catheryn (Cat) is a Product Engineer at YC focused on Startup School. Before that she was an engineer at Instagram and Facebook. 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You can read previous editions <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/blog?query=learnings%20of%20a%20CEO\%22>here.

Pave helps companies plan, communicate, and benchmark employee compensation. Today, the company has 160 employees, more than 3,500 customers, and is valued at $1.6B. Founder and CEO <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://twitter.com/matthewschulman?lang=en\%22>Matt Schulman</a> has created one of the most comprehensive and thorough recruiting processes, which has made him one of the most successful recruiters in the YC community. We sat down with Matt to hear his insight on <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/pave-2/">building a team</a> in the early stages of his company and today as a CEO of a growth-stage company. </p><p><strong>Many of the first Pave employees were hired as a contractor before converting to a full-time employee. Would you recommend this strategy to founders? </strong></p><p>I strongly recommend the contract-to-hire setup in the early days of a startup, as it led me to have a 100% close rate with the candidates we wanted to convert to full-time. This strategy worked for two reasons: </p><p>1) By the end of the contract, the contractors had poured weeks of energy into the work – learning the code base and investing their time – and getting to know potential coworkers. This escalated their sense of commitment.</p><p>2) I was flexible on working hours – open to them working nights or weekends. This made it easier for the candidates who were busy with full-time employment to say yes to working with Pave and earn extra income on the side. </p><p>To convince people who were employed to work for Pave as a contractor on top of their current job, I framed the process as a mutual evaluation. This is an opportunity to evaluate the company and come to a mutual decision at the end of 2, 4, or 6 weeks together – no pressure. We paid them a fair market rate, and as mentioned, we were flexible on working hours. One contractor worked their day job until 5:00pm and then on Pave from 6:00pm-2:00am, for example. They were excited to be able to build something from the ground up and work closely with me at the earliest stage of the company – which is another strategy I used to encourage people to work with us. </p><p>Before Pave, I was an engineer at Facebook and regularly worked on side projects. These projects were my fun, guilty pleasures because when I built something from the ground up, I felt an emotional attachment to the work. Usually engineers at large companies feel part of a machine, but when they build something full-stack from the ground up, there’s a magical allure to that work. I gave those contractors ownership over the work and often jammed out with them – working side by side at all hours. (One note: I did not have the contractors touch customer PII.) Within weeks, we’d both know whether Pave would be a good fit, and if so, we were already committed to each other.</p><p><strong>What were you looking for in early employees? </strong></p><p>When starting to build out the team, I was given a tip that the first 10 hires would set the tone for the next 100. Because of this, I personally recruited 100% of the early Pave employees. I sourced people, took phone screens, went to dinner, coffee, and on walks with candidates, and spoke with them for hours on Zoom and Facetime. It was an all-encompassing process. But I found that early advice to be accurate: The first 10 employees are the most important aspect in the company’s life cycle – other than finding product-market fit – and recruiting has to be the founder’s priority.</p><p>When recruiting for the first ten employees, I wasn’t looking for experts in specific areas but generalists with rapid career growth, passion for our mission, and a hunger to work. Those early employees readily tackled whatever fire we were facing that day from engineering work and sales to back office and HR. I also had a deep level of trust with those first ten hires, as they were all in my network. </p><p>Today, I still look for mission alignment and hunger but there are times I need to hire a specialist. I identify the tightest set of criteria for the role and only talk to people who fit that criteria. This is very different from the early days when I was solely looking for generalists who could fill multiple roles.</p><p><strong>How did you convince those early employees to join Pave? </strong></p><p>I always found ways to continue our conversation even when I could sense the candidate wanted to turn down the offer. I would do this by scheduling future conversations – saying that I needed to share something new with them – and then I would get to work writing a Google Doc that showed how I planned to invest in their career. We still use this strategy at Pave today, but it has evolved and is now affectionately called the collaborative Google Doc.</p><p>The collaborative Google Doc is shared with the candidate and used throughout the entire interview process. The document outlines expectations for the role and frames the interview process in stages, communicating which stage the candidate is in at any given time to ensure we are working within their ideal timeline. We encourage the candidate to comment and add their thoughts to the document, including feedback for me and their thoughts on the interview process.</p><p>As we get further into the interview process, I get more specific about what I’m looking for in a candidate. And when we get even deeper, I write multiple pages on what I’ve learned about their career aspirations through our conversations and backchanneling, and how I’m going to support them. </p><p>When it comes to backchanneling for potential executive hires, I try to talk with at least 10 people and ask, “If I have the privilege to be this person's manager, I want to set them up for the utmost success. What are your specific recommendations about the best ways to set this person up for success and unleash their full potential?” This 360 review is shared with the candidate right before I deliver the compensation package. I outline what I learned about their strengths and weaknesses, and specific ways that I’ll push them and support them.</p><p>When I communicate compensation, I lay out all the facts, including cash amount, equity (shares and dollar amount), and the benefits package. In addition, we also share:</p><ul><li>The salary band for the role (and implicitly their position in it).</li><li>The level that the employee will be in the organization, along with more information on our leveling framework and what each level means.</li><li>The methodology for determining the compensation, like the market data we use (75th percentile for similar stage companies).</li><li>Broader information on compensation philosophy, including how someone moves through the band, gets promoted, etc.</li><li>Additional info on equity: current preferred price, current post money valuation, details on vesting, PTE window, 409A price, and more – essentially everything they need to determine the actual value of the grant.</li></ul><p>We’re ultra transparent about compensation because compensation should not be a guessing game; people deserve to understand every aspect of their compensation package and how it was derived. I then offer to meet live to answer any questions or discuss feedback – or ask them to leave their comments in the Google Doc. Most candidates will ask questions in the document, as it can be more approachable.</p><p><strong>For every open role at Pave, a Slack channel is created to drive urgency and ensure no detail goes missed. Tell me about this process. </strong></p><p>As a seed-stage company, I was creating Slack channels for every role. Today, Slack channels are created for roles that I’m involved with – like hiring a head of finance or VP of engineering. The process still looks the same, however. </p><p>I create a Slack channel for that role and add relevant stakeholders. Every morning I ask for an update. What’s the movement? Have we sourced any more candidates? Have we talked with candidates X, Y, and Z? I do this to keep the process moving forward every day. I also post updates – sharing with the team when I spoke with a reference, for example. When we extend an offer, I use this Slack channel to encourage stakeholders to reach out to the candidate through text messages or Loom videos. </p><p>Loom videos are an interesting medium. If you’re a candidate and receive six Loom videos from different people at the company, it may feel bizarre and a bit overwhelming. But the videos show we are excited about the candidate and also gives insight into our energetic culture. </p><p><strong>You also review email copy and do drip campaigns for candidate outreach. Tell me about this. </strong></p><p>We have a pre-written email sequence that is sent from me or the hiring manager depending on the context, and then we use <a href=https://www.ycombinator.com/"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/gem/">Gem to automate this. The response rates for these campaigns are much higher than if the emails were coming from a recruiter. Before the emails are sent out, I’ll spend 30 minutes personalizing 30 emails (one to two sentences at the onset of the email) that will be sent to target profiles. And then it’s important you do a drip. If you only send one email, most of the time the candidate won’t respond. I find sending a third email with a short message like, “Hey, any thoughts?” leads to the most responses. </p><p><strong>How do you think about where your job ends and your team begins when it comes to recruiting?</strong></p><p>Today, if I’m not the hiring manager, I delegate and come in only at the end of the process for a sell call. The process looks vastly different if I’m the hiring manager. I spend a lot of time reviewing resumes and identifying the top 25 profiles in the space. Every outreach to them is very personalized, and I have time to do this because I focus on quality over quantity of candidates. Quality over quantity was a big lesson for me, actually. At first, I would look at all inbound resumes and thousands of applicants. But I have come to realize that I have more success when I map out the market and find the top 25 candidates in the space. Then I'll find a way to get one of them in the door.</p><p><strong>Describe the ideal candidate for senior-level positions when Pave was a smaller company. </strong></p><p>As a company of 35 people, we didn’t need managers who delegated – which has merit at a later-stage company. We needed people who would personally take on the hard work. Often, first-time founders hire someone senior for optics reasons. Instead, you should look for someone earlier in their career who has grown at a crazy high slope – often referred to in the tech industry as a high-slope candidate versus a Y-intercept candidate. There is a time and place for both types of hires, but as a 35-person startup, almost always go for the slope, not the high Y-intercept. And in some cases, you may meet exceptional candidates with both high slope and high Y-intercept. This is the dream case!</p><p>Another mistake first-time founders can make is rushing hires by trying to squeeze them in before a term sheet. Don’t try to meet some arbitrary deadline or cliff date. If it takes six months or a year to hire an executive, that’s ok – wait for the right person.*<br><br><em>*This answer has been updated to clarify the founder’s intention behind the statement.</em></p>","comment_id":"6348578e2184dc0001eebf80","feature_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/10/BlogTwitter-Image-Template--8-.jpg","featured":true,"visibility":"public","email_recipient_filter":"none","created_at":"2022-10-13T11:23:10.000-07:00","updated_at":"2022-10-26T08:44:29.000-07:00","published_at":"2022-10-17T09:00:11.000-07:00","custom_excerpt":"Pave Founder and CEO Matt Schulman has created one of the most comprehensive and thorough recruiting processes, which has made him one of the most successful recruiters in the YC community.","codeinjection_head":null,"codeinjection_foot":null,"custom_template":null,"canonical_url":null,"authors":[{"id":"61fe29e3c7139e0001a710a7","name":"Lindsay Amos","slug":"lindsay-amos","profile_image":"/blog/content/images/2022/02/Lindsay.jpg","cover_image":null,"bio":"Lindsay Amos is the Senior Director of Communications at Y Combinator. 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