100 days to go: lessons from recruiting and distilling advice

A recap of week nineteen as a full-time Founder.

Jade Buffong-Phillips

Feb 20, 2024

Hey there 👋🏾,

For those of you who are short on time, here are the sections of the newsletter you may want to skip ahead to…

Win🏅: We had an amazing final stage interview for Head of Product
Loss 🤕: 2x great candidates dropped out of the interview process
Lesson💡: Advice is great, but it’s what you do with it that counts
Hack 💥: How to build a wider network on LinkedIn
Resources 📚: Financial advice, communities for bootstrapped start-ups and more

As always, I appreciate feedback, so feel free to leave comments or reply to this email with your thoughts.

🎯 Objective

Power through and prepping for final stage interviews ✨

After a few challenging weeks, the tide has finally started to change as I’ve bounced back physically and gained more (much needed) headspace 🤩.

It was perfect timing as we kicked off the final stage interviews for our latest hires. Here are some of the things I needed to prioritise:

Speaking to CPO’s and CTO’s to collect interview question and task ideas
Ironing out the details for equity and salaries for our offers
Getting advice on who we should hire/look for next

This was really energising for a few reasons:

I love recruiting, it’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed at every place I’ve worked (so much so that I led and/or supported 12+ hires at my last start-up).
I always learn a lot during these processes as it helps me to gain more clarity on who I need now and in the future.

That in mind, this week a lot of my wins and lessons stem from the hiring — there’s plenty to unpack so enjoy!

Also, a huge thank you to everyone who reached out and brightened up my week in response to the last newsletter! I really appreciate your support 💛

🔋 Progress recap & highlights

Biggest wins

WIN 1️⃣: We had an amazing final stage interview for Head of Product 🥳

Hiring is always a big deal, especially when you’re looking for some of your first team members! As we’re now getting to the end of the recruitment process, here’s a quick summary of why, what and how it went down.

Why now?

About a month ago, I started looking for our Head of Product & Engineering after a really good (and honest) conversation with an investor who flagged that I would benefit from searching for them now. Mainly as, if you don’t have a co-founder, investors at least like to see a product or technical lead.

So, what happened?

After posting the job on LinkedIn and Work In Start-ups (for free), we got over 45 applications, 75% of those came within 48 hours of the job being posted 🎉.

All of the applicants were strong contenders buuutt they typically had a background that was heavily leaning towards Product OR Engineering (rarely both). With that in mind, I decided to split the role into two, and search for both a Head of Product and a Head of Engineering.

How did you prep?

After screening 8x people, 2x made it through to the final stage interviews which led to me doing a tonne of prep to make sure I was as ready as could be. I love giving people tasks for final stages as it gives me a chance to understand how they think, problem solve and respond to a bit of pressure. So, I gave them the task of sharing a 30, 60 and 90 day plan for the role.

I also spoke to CPO’s and Senior Product leaders to get an idea of questions I should ask during the interviews and what core skills, competencies and personality traits I should look out for (a huge thank you to Martina, Cien, Haley and Arjay for all of your help!).

Another example of how your tribe can really come through!

And how did the interviews go?

Amazing, for a few reasons:

The task shed a lot of light on how people work: and gave me more confidence in their ability to deliver in the way that we need, and share info in a very concise way.
I could see how engaged they were with our brand: there are a tonne of talented people in the world who could, in theory, be our Head of Product. The difference between a good and great hire, often boils down to how much they care about the product you’re building. From the quality of the presentations to the questions asked at the end, I was able to get a concrete idea of how much they were interested.
It helped me to understand the type of people I need in each role: speaking to people often brings more clarity to the other roles that I’ll recruit in the future. I now have a very clear sense of direction for product, marketing and tech.

What next?

I’ll iron out the details and will let you all know when we have a new team member! Wish me luck!

TIPS FOR INTERVIEWS: Create a structured agenda for the meeting so everyone is aware of how long you have to get through each section. This is even more important if you have a task as time can fly, and candidates should have at least 10 mins at the end to ask anything that's on their mind as well.

WIN 2️⃣: 2x investors reached out via LinkedIn, 2x positive replies to cold outreach emails, and 1x investor offered to introduce me to three funds💖

Given I had to take it easy for a couple of weeks, outreach started to pick back up again, with cold emails being my most successful channel.

Last week alone I managed to:

Get 2x positive replies to cold emails, leading to calls (with one person giving me their mobile/cell number).
While 1x investor wasn’t interested, as we didn’t meet their thesis, they did offer in introduce me to 3x funds.
2x investors reached out to me via LinkedIn (one to get more detail from my deck, another to offer support).

This helped me to understand the importance of relying on multiple channels to connect and interact with investors, but also that maintaining a relationship with those who have said no is key.

TIP FOR FOLLOWING-UP: Persistence is everything. It is very rare that you will get a response from an Angel or a Fund after one or even two emails. If someone has shown an interest, be prepared to email them 5-6 times before moving on. Everyone has a different magic number, but remember that people are busy and you aren't always at the top of their priority list. Be patient and persistent.

WIN 3️⃣: 3x Founder’s booked for the first round of 240 Days interviews 🧑🏾‍💻

Last week, I announced that I’m interviewing Founders for the 240 Days newsletter to share the stories of Founders who have already closed a round.

As much as I love sharing my own journey as it happens, I know all of you would benefit hearing from people who have been there, done it and worn the fundraising t-shirt.

I’ll start to publish these interviews in the March issues of 240 Days, but I’m also making some changes to the structure and frequency of the newsletter, so look out for the updates (👀coming soon!).

WIN 4️⃣: I got a tonne of support after sending the last newsletter (thank you, everyone!) 🙏🏽

The past 2-3 issues of 240 Days have really highlighted how low some of the lows can feel when you’re building and fundraising. When I decide to launch these weekly updates, I promised to paint a realistic picture of what that looked like (even if it felt uncomfortable).

Though, I hadn’t really thought about what that would look like if I had a few back-to-back down weeks 😅 last week showed me that not only does the transparency help other people to better understand what happens behind closed doors, but also how kind people can be in trying to pick you up when you’re down.

I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who commented, reach out privately or offered their support last week. It was both very humbling and heart warming to have so many people show up for me when I needed it.

I’ll continue to do my best to share what happens as I go — as always, I appreciate your support!

TIP FOR SHARING IN PUBLIC: Raising and building in public isn't for everyone. It's challenging to dance on the line between sharing and over-sharing, so I always recommend having someone you trust read over your work before it's published. Ideally, someone who understands the start-up landscape or the industry that you're in. The sense check will give you the confidence to keep posting, even when it gets tough.

WIN 5️⃣: I was featured in the Creator Spotlight newsletter + the keshty community Friday S/Os 🙌🏾

A couple of weeks ago, one of you put me forward for the Creator Spotlight interview series that’s published every Friday.

I was very fortunate to be featured in newsletter that goes out to over 200,000 subscribers, giving me an opportunity to share what I’ve learned from openly sharing my fundraising journey (snippet below 👇🏾, full interview here).

This went a long way to helping me recognise how far I had come and definitely lifted my spirits even more at the end of the week.

In addition to that, one of the Founder communities that I’m a part of, keshty, launched a series of Founder shout-outs on Friday’s and started with me 🥹.

After a few tougher weeks, it helped to have some additional moments of reflection (outside of writing the newsletter!), to see that I’m gradually taking steps in the right direction. A big thank you to Francis from Creator Spotlight and Neda from keshty for thinking of me!

TIP FOR GETTING FEATURES: Many of the best features I've had have come from recommendations or offers from people within my network. None of which would have been possible without the 240 Days newsletter or my regular LinkedIn updates. If you're looking for press coverage or opportunities to be interviewed, or feature on podcasts, put yourself and your opinions out there. It all starts with consistency and being brave enough to share your thoughts.

WIN 6️⃣: Automations update 🤖

The automations have been ticking along in the background and consistently provided me with feedback from investors or generating initial calls. I’ve chosen not to add any more contacts into the mix for now, to see how the location/country automations perform until the end of March.

As usual, here’s the update on the automation performance:

💃🏾 0 people added to automations
📧 976 people have opened my emails (33% of the total - equal WoW)
🖱️ 226 clicks on our pitch deck (23% of those who opened - up 3.2% WoW)
↩️ 51 people have replied so far (5% of opens - up 8.5% WoW)
📞 2x calls booked

While I appreciate that many investors and Founders argue against sending generic cold emails out, it has been quite fruitful for me. A lot of the support I’ve received has come from investors that I initially cold emailed, and I’ve managed to increase my monthly investors email list by at least 40% since launching the automations back in November.

It would be great to hear about your experiences of cold emails as well! Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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Biggest L’s 🤕

LOSS 😩: 2x great candidates dropped out of the interview process (but we’re staying in touch) 🫠

One of the many challenges that comes with early stage hires is finding that fine balance between what potential candidates want/need with what you can offer.

I experienced this while working on the Head of Engineering recruitment — after a few screening calls, we had a couple of people who were great personality and skills fit make it through to the final stage.

As we are looking for early stage team members, it’s really important to be transparent about a) the equity we’re willing to offer and b) the salaries we can afford considering we’re a pre-seed start-up.

I was also happy to have these conversations upfront to make sure people didn’t waste time preparing for a final stage interview if we couldn’t marry our expectations (especially given they would have to work on a task).

Even though we found some great people who believed in our mission and vision, we had a hiccup in a couple of areas:

Candidate A - equity expectations not aligned ❌: one candidate wanted co-founder status and equity. I’m not keen on as I believe co-founder relationships are like a marriage. You have to take your time to find the right person, and be very careful with who you say yes to (because a divorce is costly on both sides and your business is the child that’s in the middle). I would rather have someone onboard as a senior leader and then think about changing their status after getting to know them better and seeing the quality of their work. But the clash in expectations meant this candidate pulled out before the final stage of interviews.
Candidate B - wanted to work as a freelancer/contractor until we close the round closed 😢: Fortunately, we were able to establish solid ground on the salary and equity front, which was a win. But this candidate wanted to minimise their risk by working as a contractor/freelancer in the interim until we closed the round. While I completely understand wanting to minimise risk (and looked for a couple of options to negotiate with), we ultimately couldn’t come to an agreement that everyone was happy with. It all ended amicably, I’m happy to reach out again once the round is closed to see if they’re still interested.

Both of these encounters made me realise that one of the biggest sticklers when you’re recruiting mid-raise is striking that balance. It also taught me a lot about risk tolerance and finding people who were not only a great skills fit, but were also able to take on the risk that often comes with early stage start-up companies.

While it was a bummer to miss out on these people, it also gave me some time to speak to other CTO’s and Technical leaders in the start-up space and get their opinion on who we should hire. This gave me a much needed external perspective and has led to some changes in the scope of the role and the type of person that we’re now looking for.

So, what started out as a loss has led to some valuable lessons and next steps that will hep us to find the right people for the team, which is all I can really ask for.

TIP FOR SETTING EXPECTATIONS WHILE RECRUITING: Have salary and equity conversations sooner rather than later. That will give both parties enough time to negotiate and understand if the stars align. Also, gather feedback from other Founders and investors about their experiences of making offers at the early stages. That will help you to create offers that are in line with industry expectations.

💡 Lessons learned

Quote of the week
Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.
— Harper Lee

LESSON 👩🏾‍🏫: Advice is great, but it’s what you do with it that counts

It takes a village to build a company.

That means regularly relying on other people, their advice and opinions. But, it can become very overwhelming, even when everyone’s support is coming from a place of love, compassion or concern.

One of the skills I’ve had to hone is distilling the information that people share and selecting what I should think on, work on changing or just park because I disagree.

And that’s hard! Mainly as, I’m always very grateful that people share their thoughts — as that often means they care — but formulating an opinion of my own is equally as important.

In the past week, for example, I’ve had advice on my deck, the newsletter, who I hire and more. If I were to just take all of the advice I’d been given at face value, I’d find it hard to get anything done 😅. So, taking a step back and deciding what to take action on is a skill that all Founders need to grasp.

There’s also a lot to be said for building a circle of confidants that you can easily bounce ideas off of, and it helps to have a mix of people of different backgrounds and personality types. For example, I always ask my advisors for their thoughts because they know the business, industry and myself very well. I also regularly ask my husband for advice as he’s an Engineer with a very different thought process to my own, which allows me to gain a more interesting external perspective on a problem or piece of feedback.

Ultimately, much like everything else in the Founder journey, there’s no magic formula for getting it right. You just have to learn on the job by listening to other people’s opinions, sometimes applying what they’ve said, sometimes not, and seeing what happens.

But through it all, you will start to develop a better sense of when you should absolutely do as someone has suggested and when you should say ‘let’s agree to disagree’. It’s all a work in progress, so give yourself the grace to make mistakes along the way.

💥 Hack of the week

How to build a wider network on LinkedIn in 3x steps

Over the last five months, LinkedIn has become one of my favourite social channels. Not only has it opened the doors to meeting some incredible Founders and investors, it has helped me to gain more coverage and engagement with our fundraise.

I’ve managed to increase my network by 36% in five months and my engagement by 123% in the past three months.

There are three things that have helped me to achieve this — all are manageable and (and not too time consuming) for most people to incorporate into their routine. While it can be challenging to make more time for this while you’re fundraising, it can lead to more warm introductions and connections:

Revamp your profile, making the value that you bring to others very clear: LinkedIn headlines are your currency it tells people who you are, what you do, and what they can gain by connecting with you. Here are a few great examples 👇🏾, you’ll notice that both Maya and Gary clearly state who they help (e.g. CEO’s, athletes, entrepreneurs) and what followers will gain (e.g. advice, facts about social mobility). In both cases, if that piques someone’s interest, or they fall into the right audience bucket, they are likely to follow.

Post 2-3 times a week: as with all things, consistency is key when it comes to building a wider network on LinkedIn. Everyone wants to connect with people who are working on something interesting or have opinions that they can relate to. And, you can only prove that by posting and regularly. I started by posting twice a week and have since increased that to 5x times and it pays.
Connect with relevant THIRD degree connections: we’ve all heard the term ‘six degrees of separation’, and with platforms like LinkedIn, it feels far easier to get to the sixth person than it ever has before. There are also ways that you can strategically build out your network. For example, in the chart below, person A is a 1st degree connection (someone you’re already connected to), person B is a 2nd degree connection (someone who knows person A) and person C is a 3rd degree connection. From this diagram, it’s clear that person C holds more connections outside of your immediate network than person A and B. So, by connecting with them, you immediately open up a pool of people that you (otherwise) would have struggled to reach. That’s why it’s very important to reach out an connect with 3rd degree LinkedIn contacts more so than 2nd degree contacts. As this opens up the bandwidth of Founders and Investors who you’re able to speak to.

As I mentioned before, all of these tactics can be pulled into your routine without you having to sacrifice too much time, and the results are well worth the 30 mins to 1 hour a day.

TIP FOR GETTING LINKEDIN PREMIUM: Find a close connection that has LinkedIn premium and ask them to send you a referral link. That way, you can benefit from having 2x months of using LinkedIn premium for free. Thank me later!

Here are some other hacks that I’ve written in the past:

📚 Resources

If you made it all the way to the end of this newsletter, you deserve a reward. So here’s a list of the best resources I came across last week to help you with your raise.

Fundraising

Forum Ventures looking for new pitches: they’re writing 10x checks for B2B SaaS Founders for $100k + admission to their pre-seed accelerator. Drop Olivia a line here.

Book recommendations

The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick: highly recommend this book to any Founders who are doing product research and customer interviews. It’s a game changer.
High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil: While I haven’t read this book, Elad’s reputation speaks for itself so I can imagine his advice on growth is worth it’s weight in gold. There’s a free Kindle edition for those who don’t have space on their book shelf!

Founder support

Personal finance advice from MD at Harlem Capital: some great insights into personal finances from Harlem Capital, something that all Founders should read (especially if bootstrapping).
Group chat for bootstrapped founders: Finding your tribe is key, and this might be one for you. DM Andrew for more info.

🧰 Founder’s toolbox

Anyone who knows me knows that I love finding tools, apps and systems to add to my arsenal. Here’s a list of the best tools that I found last week.

Gumroad: find founder and fundraising resources

What’s it for: A platform for creators to sell their products and for potential customers to find amazing resources and content.
How it helped: Gumroad has been one of my go-to platforms for finding templates and tools. There are plenty of sellers to choose from and you can check out star ratings before parting with any money.
Price: That all depends on what you want to buy!

Questions? 🤔

Feel free to drop any questions in the comments below! Until next week,

J x

P.S. Here are some of my other posts:

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