Layer 2 Stage | Operating Advice: How to Hire Smart in Web3

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1. 0:00

   first up we're going to have Dan escrow coming from Jersey giving operating advice how to hire Smart in web 3 and as I did yesterday fun fact about Dan he actually has a cigar collection of over a thousand cigars pretty impressive so please welcome Dan escrow hey what's up guys thank you will appreciate you bro salute near uh what's up lisman thanks for having me appreciate the opportunity to speak to

2. 0:32

   you today um so the the topic for the talk uh this afternoon is going to be you know how to hire effectively in web 3 and we're directing this really not towards candidates but we're directing this towards Founders so um here's you know I'm going to break down a couple of best practices uh for you to be effective and you know and and I'm really gearing this towards early stage projects um that are that are looking to

3. 0:58

   you know make their first couple of key hire um that's kind of what I specialize in so to kick this off um I think if you leave this talk with with one take away it should be this um hiring is not about selling an opportunity it's about understanding what's important to the person you're evaluating let me let me run that back one time hiring is not about selling an opportunity it's about understanding what's important to the candidates you're evaluating right and to break that down and unpack it just a little

4. 1:31

   bit further I think from there there's there's two things that are important number one um as a Founder you need to be self-aware um and what I mean by that is you need to understand kind of where your project stands in the ecosystem um and you need to understand like what are the pros and cons and selling points that you have um so you need to understand you know if you're a candidate you know what other opportunities are they going to be interviewing for that's competitive and

5. 1:56

   how can you kind of Leverage what your strengths are are to to make that opportunity attractive right and so to take it one step further um you know you need to you need to understand some of the most important things that candidates consider when they're you know looking at taking a new job and a few of the things that come to mind uh to me um stability base salary culture what's the vibe you know

6. 2:21

   stability is this company going to exist in six months to a year like how can you prove to me that this company is going to stay around salary like can I pay my BS culture how am I going to feel every day at work what's the vibe am I going to be happy doing this um brand and reputation like am I going to get some clout for you know updating my LinkedIn with this you know are people going to show me love and respect the work that I'm doing um that's important especially

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   in like non-technical roles right um and then the other thing I would say is like opportunity to learn and grow so like you know for for technical example like is what I'm building going to teach me a new set of skills that's GNA build on what I already have to make me a more well-rounded candidate in the future right for a for a non-technical role like a salesperson is this an

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   opportunity for me to meet a different part of the space a different Niche and grow my network in that side right um so I think all that stuff is really important and I actually just last week put out a survey to about 15,000 people who have applied to my jobs um and I asked them to rank those things in order of of importance and I don't know if anyone could take a guess of what was by

9. 3:32

   far number one will you would think you would think but actually it was it was it was salary believe it or not right it was salary and to you know to jump off that a little bit um I I think it's an important point that you know Founders need to understand that they need to share in the Financial Risk with the candidate right I can't tell you how many times I speak to a founder and

10. 3:57

    they're like oh you know we want someone who's is motivated by the upside we want someone who wants Equity tokens cool they also have bills to pay and subliminally subconsciously the message that you're sending is that I want you to take all the risk candidate I'm not going to invest in you I want you to invest in me no that's not how it works we have to share in this right and

11. 4:20

    there's always a compromise to be made people in this industry that are even at all looking at early stage projects they understand there's upside to be had and it's coming upon you the founder to show that value but also show them that hey I'm right here with you taking this risk I don't have $57 million right now I have3 to five million and I'm willing to spend it on you and here's why you know so show that this person is important to you that's that's really really

12. 4:46

    important um so you know in addition to that another like major red flag that I see very very often from Founders is the you know the mindset of like I don't want to waste my time speak speaking to 100 candidates to make three or four hires I don't want to waste my time in 30 minute calls I want to do a quick 15minute screen or maybe I don't even want to do that I want to send you a a test or something before we even speak right and that's a huge huge huge red flag to me because what does that tell

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    me that you the founder the hiring manager are not invested investing your time in making this higher um and so when you tell me it's a waste of your time of your time I tell you I I couldn't disagree more like bro you should be spending more time like if this isn't important to you and you you can't like you can't turn hiring into an algorithm there's just too many variables you can't like build a system

14. 5:44

    to where you're only going to get the top five people that are that's not how it works here especially in early stage projects and you have to go into this knowing like this is important to you and you're willing to like you know invest your your own time and money in this right um and so I'll give you another point and and to to illustrate this point I'll use an example um one of

15. 6:06

    my favorite clients that I love to pump their bags and I love to talk about and I love to work with is be chain I don't know if anyone's familiar with be chain super fun team super fun project right I'll tell you one thing that bear chain did that was a uh like a Hu like I really respected it and I would love to see more of this right and and what I think they do is they bet on themselves they bet on their instincts they um

16. 6:30

    they're willing to take calculated risks taking calculated risk and what do I mean by that so let let's take a scenario right where like let's say you're interviewing for a BD role you're interviewing BD candidates and you have two resumés up up in front of you I I don't want to lose my mic here but you have two rums up in front of you right and you're interviewing two candidates one of them is you know let's say he worked at chain link he was the director

17. 6:55

    of BD at chain link and before that he was at coinbase and he's got a crazy Network work and you know he could list all these people that will take the calls with him and everything like that right but you interview him and he sucks he or she sucks they're a dud um you bad vibes you feel like ah like I don't know if this I don't know if this is going to work out but damn that resume looks good damn I know he or she could book me some

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    really impactful meetings right and then you have another candidate who has a product background now this really happened I wish I could dox the actual person but you know how be chain is so let's say the that has a product background but he or she is cool as hell they know people they're smooth they're great socialized uh great in Social settings and they know how to like deliver a message right that's what BD people do deliver messages effectively

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    capture people's attention and you know make happen right 99.9% of the time companies are going to go with the first option even though in their gut in their heart they know this is this is a dud they know this is a mistake but why are they making that choice because it feels less risky right and they can justify it easier to investors right they'll look at their investor and say oh look I got a guy

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    from chain link you know this guy sucks but you hired him anyway because he was less risky be chain bets on their own instincts they bet on themselves they know all right this product guy he's never done BD before but I could see it in him and I know what I know what I'm looking for and that he's got that that fire and I could work with that right and for me I'm really really bullish on

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    teams that that you know know what they're looking for and know how to curate and cultivate and build someone up and those are the people that are going to work 100x for you and and help you grow and the reality is you know if you're an early stage project struggling to you know struggling to hire frankly like you might not have a choice and but I see it time and time again that you

22. 8:52

    know people waste a ton of time trying to go with the you know the big A+ Superstar when like that's not always realistic ISC and it's not always the best choice anyway so point of what I just said take calculated risks understand what you need and bet on yourself if you're if you're a Founder that and and those are the founders that are going to win uh in the long run that's that's that's my thought on

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    that um let's see what else another thing you know on the topic of bear chain that they do extremely well is they've Amplified their culture right I mean like everyone you know if you do one quick scroll on bear chain Twitter you'll understand like what the Vibe is um and I and I think they've really leaned into that as a selling point doesn't hurt to have $42 million in the bank but um the culture definitely is a huge huge selling point for them and I

24. 9:40

    think you know uh I I think every startup needs to kind of lean into to what the vibe is and and and build off that um okay let's see what else and so okay another thing that I've noticed uh that I've noticed a few times that has been like a a winner a winner for early stage companies is um when they like educate candidates during the interview process so let me give you another example here um can't name the

25. 10:09

    shop but I have a uh crypto trading shop that's doing some some cool stuff on Defi and I had a candidate uh PhD from Berkeley former Hudson River Trading former Alam beast beast beast top 1% Trader candidate probably like a $7 million a year kind of guy right and he after a couple of interviews with this company he said you know I I I I'm offended by this offer it's 200k base like dude you know I made $7 million last year right I'm like yeah and I'm like but dude everyone loves this

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    company I don't know you might be missing something take one more call with the founder and uh what this founder was able to do on that call is basically teach him something about ethereum that the candidate wasn't aware of and it unlocked his vision about that company and he saw the potential and I when I first spoke to him I said to my guys 20% chance this guy accepts the offer he's so negative about this never GNA happen completely turned around

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    after that call and to bring it back full circle from what I heard that was a three-hour call that they went on to explain the vision and explain what this guy was missing as far as the ethereum knowledge and full circle that's an investment in of time in that hiring manager to teach a lesson to that person and don't assume just cuz the candidate doesn't know one thing about what you're building that he's not legit you know

28. 11:28

    don't assume that they know everything spend the time teach them something and uh hopefully they'll come around to see what you see but uh I think that's uh I think I think that's most of what I got here today um again appreciate the time salute to near thanks for having me and uh I'm around for the rest of the day if anyone has questions or wants to hit me up you know where to find me salute thank

29. 11:57

    you