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?
00:10:42 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:10:42] S1: As a founder and CEO, how have you thought about scaling yourself? [00:10:47] S0: Yeah. I think that the most important thing is how many people you have in your team that you really trust, where it's like they can quarterback an initiative and take something that you give to them or work on with them all the way to the finish line. And so I think that's most important almost like these... Each individual that you have immense trust in and trying to have as many of those people throughout the org because you can't expect that people on day one or even day 30 are gonna get there. It takes building context, having the right... Exactly. The right, training, the right culture, all the right experiences, to to get there. Yeah. One characteristic I really like about certain people on my team is having strong opinions loosely held where they have immense conviction in whatever idea they're telling to me. But when they're presented with, you know, an idea that is counter to that or or or data or evidence against it, they change their mind very quickly. And I found that that's a very good habit and value. So indexing on on that and people that make decisions and, you know, sometimes it's their call, sometimes it's mine, but always trying to have a very thoughtful way of arriving at that answer. So. [00:12:12] S1: Scaling your culture is one of the hardest things to get right. And one of the easiest things to get wrong. It seems even when it feels right. I'm curious to know what have been some of those cultural, uniquely you things that you want Merkor to keep.
00:12:12 · S1, Brendan Foody
[00:12:12] S1: Scaling your culture is one of the hardest things to get right. And one of the easiest things to get wrong. It seems even when it feels right. I'm curious to know what have been some of those cultural, uniquely you things that you want Merkor to keep. [00:12:25] S0: Yeah. So there's three values that jump out the most that we always preach to everyone. The first one is having a can do attitude, and that when we set really high goals, the decision making forms around those goals to optimize for much larger outcomes. So people that have this sense of optimism and ambition around how they approach problems is very important. The second is having really high standards, going back to hiring, and keeping a really high bar for who we wanna work with, what we expect of them is incredibly important. And I think one of the most, largest differentiators between the legendary companies and those that don't get there. And then the third is intensity, and that we work really hard. And if you look at the early cultures of all of the greatest businesses, they work like no one else. And so I think that's important to maintain as much as possible. [00:13:22] S1: Let's talk about your products a little bit. Can you walk us through the power behind Merkor? [00:13:28] S0: Absolutely. So it goes back... The right mental model is really automating all of these manual processes and [00:13:36] S1: And repetitive processes.