Hiring in an Early Stage Startup

Throughout their existence, startups face numerous challenges. They frequently face serious hiring challenges in their early stages. Since startups are not yet established brands, it is difficult for them to attract talent. As a result, startups and their leaders must rethink and revise their hiring strategies in order to fuel their organizations with the right talent.

On the fifth episode of #ThroughFounder’sLens, an impressive guest list comprising of young startup founders, Mr. Arihant Jain and Mr. Ishwar Sundaraman shared their experience with hiring for early-stage startups. 

Arihant is the CEO of Wubba Lubba Dub Dub marketing firm. Wubba Lubba Dub Dub Private Limited is one of those few marketing firms that truly understood the untapped potential and market that dedicated memers have created over the years. In fact, they call themselves -the ‘world's fastest advancing meme company’. It's taken a niche market and successfully blown it up with numerous iconic meme-driven campaigns. With a diverse portfolio consisting of some of the most reputed brands like - OLA, Poco, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, and Durex, the company is making great strides and has established itself as a serious contender amongst the goliaths of the marketing industry. 

Ishwar Sundararaman, as he puts it, is a serial entrepreneur and has brought four startups to life in the last decade. His most recent venture, Unsolved, is almost just a year young. As he himself puts it, Unsolved is a platform where influencers launch micro courses. He also created Furdo, a startup that specialized in interior decoration, and has worked with clients like Mahindra Lifespaces and The Promont but most importantly, turned profitable in two short years.

Here are two key highlights from the event:

1. What did the hiring process for your startup look like in 2018? How did you approach building a team?

“The first few teammates are always the people you know”

The first set of people is from your own network where you upload a post announcing that you are hiring for a new company and you can highlight it to friends you know. It's mostly people you know that form the initial workforce in the early stages. We used social media to help raise awareness about hiring. Access to meme pages on social media always helped us to share our intention to hire with a global audience.

However, the problem we faced is to find individuals to fill in higher management roles. It was difficult to find people who could lead sectors and departments. Moreover, it was difficult to onboard talent since candidates from the advertising sector were skeptical about joining an organization that specializes in meme marketing. 

1. As founders, what are the few things you look out for in people before letting them into your ecosystems?

Arihant: We actually get along based on the shows they watch. One of the fundamental questions we ask is, "How do you consume pop culture?" "We need to know which YouTubers and comedians they are familiar with. Linguistic abilities are also valued in organizations like ours. This, of course, is in addition to the hard skills required to contribute to the organization in any capacity.

I prefer I will learn it all attitude over

I know it all attitude in my employees.

Ishwar: There isn't one thing we are looking for in all employees. It is role-specific. Depending upon the capacity we are hiring the workforce for, our requirements and expectations change. We are looking for individuals who are problem solvers. In an early-stage startup, there are a zillion problems in marketing, product, etc. What we ideally want are people that can solve problems that come every day. They should also be able to learn rapidly. In simple terms, I prefer “I will learn it all” over “I know it all” in my employees.

To watch the full event click on the link below-

Through Founder's Lens - Episode 5