The Lean Hire

For years we've been okay with the arbitrary outcomes of existing hiring processes. Interviews are terrible. And bad hires are of often fatal for early stage startups. We are fixing this by applying the proven lean principles. And we're calling it lean hire.

Dear reader,

the last few months have been wild. Even though it feels like time doesn't go by, but a lot of stuff is happening.

In March 2020 we shutdown our YC startup Mage W19, a company we've spend 4 years building from scratch. Over the course of running the business in Germany we've always focussed on working with contractors first and then eventually offer them a full-time position.

For both employer and employee it de-risked the process.

It felt natural for us.

Until we got into YC in the W19 batch and saw how hard and risky it is to hire in the Bay Area.

The local talent market is hyper competitive, compensation and rent is sky-rocking and interviewing processes seem endless and painful.

While there are various hiring platforms, job boards and headhunters, we didn't feel comfortable hiring without having a network to source hires from and de-risk the process.

Fast forward to 2020 – COVID19 forced entire industries to go remote-only.

The workplace has changed, but hiring is still broken.

How do you hire someone without meeting them in person? Do we want to spend several weeks in video calls to see if a potential employee fits into the team? How do we even legally employ international talent?

There are a lot of things that can go wrong.

And bad hires are often fatal for early stage startups.

We are fixing this by applying the proven lean principles.

And we're calling it lean hire, starting with the YC Alumni Network (previously called BookAYCTeam.com).

I can't wait to hear your thoughts about this :)

Check out Lean Hire on Product Hunt

Cheers, Peer