00:04:24 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:04:24] S1: That's amazing. So walk us through kind of your founding story. I think so many of us in the room have that aspiration. Like, how did you... Everything kinda clicked together for you? [00:04:34] S0: Absolutely. So it ties to the question earlier of thinking a lot about hiring growing up in companies I was building. And initially, I was working with my best friends from high school who I met when I was 14, and we were building a lot of software for fun. And so we wanted to do that faster, and we would hire engineers internationally in India. We partnered with the Code Club at IIT Kharagpur, to hire people, build projects, and match them with our friends because our friends asked to, hire engineers as well. And as we saw ChatGPT taking off, we realized that there were all of these processes that we were doing manually and how we would manually review resumes, manually decide who to hire, and manually conduct all of the interviews that went into that, that we could automate with LLMs. And so we did that iteratively, while we were scaling the business, dropped out of college, and then, scaled up from there. [00:05:31] S1: If you have any advice for people who are maybe... They have some product market fit, there's some semblance that things could work out, and they're considering, should I bet at all?
00:05:31 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:05:31] S1: If you have any advice for people who are maybe... They have some product market fit, there's some semblance that things could work out, and they're considering, should I bet at all? [00:05:42] S0: I think go for it. I mean, maybe I'm a little biased because I didn't wanna go to college in the first place. So that's why I tend to be very against a lot of the well defined career tracks. But I just think that what framed it for me and I think should for many people here is that now is the most exciting time in history to build a company. Like, the difference between what's possible with AI and what's been actualized in the economy is so large, there's so much to do that it would... If there's any time to do it, it would be now. And I think that many more people should chase after that, choose the thing that they love doing and wanna do for the next ten years and commit to it. [00:06:24] S1: It's that level of obsession. [00:06:26] S0: Absolutely. Right. And in fact, one thing that I always felt is I've never been super disciplined. Like, I was I was not great at, like, you know, always doing my, like, college homework on time and all of that or holding myself accountable to whatever exams I need to study for. It was much more about obsession, about, like, find the problem that you can't stop thinking about, where even when you're, like, hanging out with your friends, your mind just, like, comes back to it because you need that level of commitment and longing to spend the next ten years on it. And so it's all about finding that.
00:06:26 · Brendan Foody, S1
[00:06:26] S0: Absolutely. Right. And in fact, one thing that I always felt is I've never been super disciplined. Like, I was I was not great at, like, you know, always doing my, like, college homework on time and all of that or holding myself accountable to whatever exams I need to study for. It was much more about obsession, about, like, find the problem that you can't stop thinking about, where even when you're, like, hanging out with your friends, your mind just, like, comes back to it because you need that level of commitment and longing to spend the next ten years on it. And so it's all about finding that. [00:07:02] S1: Some of the founders I've supported say, like, find a problem you can be obsessed about twenty four seven. Why was that hiring for you? [00:07:10] S0: I think it's because it feels like it's the most important problem in the world, what everyone does every day. Right? Of, like, how we spend our time. Yet at the same time, it's so under addressed. Right? Like, there's so few companies that are actually working on this problem of talent allocation. And so it felt like there was this big divide in that way, and correspondingly an enormous opportunity to solve so much of the inefficiency that we saw in the market. [00:07:42] S1: What advice do you have with those first, let's say 10 hires that you make?
00:07:42 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:07:42] S1: What advice do you have with those first, let's say 10 hires that you make? [00:07:47] S0: I think for the first 10, it's keep as high a bar as possible. Like this advice is redundant intentionally. Don't compromise. I remember we were incredibly patient for our first 10. And that is because those people will shape the next 100. Right? And will be the most important decisions that you make in scaling your company. And so I think especially for the first 10, I think you get to a point as we were discussing where you do... There's always a trade off between speed and quality and you should always keep a high bar, but eventually, like, you need to build the team. And so... But I I think for the first time, the highest bar is possible. [00:08:31] S1: Can we talk about your most recent fundraise? [00:08:33] S0: For sure. [00:08:33] S1: You had a big one. [00:08:34] S0: Mhmm. [00:08:34] S1: Congrats. [00:08:35] S0: Thank you. [00:08:35] S1: Very fast growth. [00:08:36] S0: Yeah. [00:08:37] S1: What, were some lessons that came from that experience?
00:08:37 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:08:37] S1: What, were some lessons that came from that experience? [00:08:41] S0: Yeah. Well, we've had a fortunate fundraising history because when we first dropped out, we... It was sort of like the only time we somewhat ran a process. And then our series a and our series b, the investors just saw the business inflecting. And so they... At our series b, I think they talked to some of our customers. They heard some of the numbers and then it moved moved pretty quickly from there. But I think, one thing I've learned to your question is that a lot of people treat fundraising as like an outcome and that's totally wrong. It's an input to building valuable products and experiences for users. And so trying to spend as little time as possible thinking about fundraising and getting back to spending time on customers as much as possible is is definitely one of the largest takeaways. [00:09:41] S1: I'm a huge believer in controlling what you have control over. Absolutely. And a lot of that is staying centered on who you're building for and why. I wanna bring us back to a few... Maybe like a few months ago. That's how quickly his business is growing. It's absolutely insane. A few months ago and you're kind of crossing that 100 person threshold. You're up to one forty? [00:10:00] S0: Exactly. [00:10:01] S1: What has changed as you've evolved and grown the culture and the company?
00:10:01 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:10:01] S1: What has changed as you've evolved and grown the culture and the company? [00:10:07] S0: Yeah. I think that you get to a point where... I think initially it feels like a friend group almost. Right? You're hiring very slowly and you have a lot of time to get to know everyone, right, and interview everyone and all of this. And eventually, you get to the point where you don't know everyone, you need to have the processes that a business would have. And so it feels a little a little bit unfamiliar, and certainly takes some some getting used to, but it's it's a process and it's obviously an important part of growing up, so to speak. [00:10:42] S1: As a founder and CEO, how have you thought about scaling yourself?