Recruit Rockstars Podcast

Akshay Krishnaiah is CEO & Founder of Line, the fast-growing fintech company.

After a successful career at Paypal & eBay, he stepped out on his own. And he personally interviewed hundreds of people to find his first few employees.

Based in SF, Line is the Venture-backed company helping American working-class Americans who are underbanked.

Their first offering is a “Get cash now, pay later” service.

Akshay & team have built a highly-scalable model. With a team of just 30, Line provides Underwriting, Dispute management, Risk operations, and 24-hour in-house customer support.

Clearly, they’re onto something big. Investors include: Techstars, Avesta Fund, CUNA Mutual Group, Goodwater Capital, overtime.vc, SustainVC.

In this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he’s put a Rockstar in every seat.

How does a startup with a dozen people change a monolithic industry?

Simple (but not easy): Hire for DNA Fit

And Brian King does it consistently.

He's CEO of Realto, the Kansas-based Private REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) marketplace. Brian & his team saw a gap in the market: there were limited options to buy and sell privately-held real estate.

So they created one.

Now, what used to be a manual paper-laden process is streamlined to days instead of months.

And he's onto something big....

Investors include KCRise & Firebrand Ventures.

In this 20-minute conversation, Brian reveals how he & his team hire primarily for DNA Fit (even before skills & competencies). And why it's helped them change an industry.

The only thing better than talking culture & leadership with a progressive talent leader? Talking with two of them.

Aparavi helps organizations that desperately need a solution to the mountains of data they need to manage.

It's the cloud based platform for finding & consolidating your company's unstructured & distributed data. 

Speaking of distributed, Aparavi has a distributed team of 100. In this episode, Tania Williams (People & Culture Strategist) and Luis Zambrano (Chief of Staff) reveal how they put a Rockstar in every seat of the business.

And how they assess candidates for culture match with Aparavi.

Tania was previously a talent leader at 24 Hour Fitness and Sears Holdings. Luis was with HealthTrust Software and MGA Homecare.

There's a SaaS platform for everything... And everyone.

Including SimpleLegal, the fast-growing SaaS platform for in-house counsels. It's part of Onit, the leading provider of enterprise legal management & contract lifecycle management software, which is backed by the PE firm K1 Investment Management. 

Mark Weidick is President & General Manager of SimpleLegal, and he has a unique perspective having joined when the business was VC-backed. Now that the company is PE-backed, it has a different pace, metrics, and cadence.

Prior, he was CEO with a number of Venture Capital backed companies and senior executive with Cisco.

In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals how he's put a Rockstar in every seat. And how he evolved the culture from VC-backed to PE-backed.

Jeff Grass knows how to get your hesitant employees back to the office. 

This serial entrepreneur is Co-Founder & CEO of Hungry Marketplace.

Based in Arlington VA, Hungry is tackling the $100 Billion business food & events industry with a food-tech marketplace & logistics platform that provides unparalleled food & engagement solutions for businesses, powered by top local chefs.

In short, Hungry partners with local chiefs to bring food to your office. So far, they operate in 9 markets with 250 employees.

Clearly, Jeff's onto something big. Hungry doubled revenues last year, despite the pandemic.

And he's raised capital from leading VC firms: 10X Capital, Bread and Butter Ventures, Evolution PC Partners, GP Ventures, James Madison Innovations, Marcy Venture Partners, Motley Fool Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, Sands Capital Ventures, The Heritage Fund, The Torch Fund

After earning his MBA at The Wharton School and a stint with McKinsey & Company, Jeff was Co-Founder of other successful companies LiveSafe and buySAFE, which enables online businesses to increase trust & confidence with site visitors.

In this 20-minute conversation, Jeff reveals how he's put a Rockstar in every seat of Hungry (and how he keeps them)

Whether your team is hybrid or distributed or global, you’ve got nothing on Chad Mattix.

He’s CEO & Founder of Kinettix, the leading IT field service support company.

Based in Cincinnati, Chad & his team deliver 24/7/365 IT field service support on-site in over 100 countries.

He’s built a fulltime team of 80 with a remote distributed team of thousands!

Their customers are large IT service providers. And for them, they Install & service cameras, digital signage, POS systems, kiosks, network equipment.

In this 20-minute conversation, Chad reveals how he’s built a global team of Rockstars.

(Hint: She didn’t click “Apply” on some job board)

Morgan Smith is Work Reporter with CNBC and its industry-leading careers website “Make It”

Previously, you’ve read her pieces in People Magazine, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and The Associated Press. 

Morgan discovered her passion for some meaty topics: the future of work, interviewing, hiring, job search.

So, she proactively went after the job she wanted. CNBC wasn’t looking. But she didn’t let that hold her back.

In this 20-minute conversation, she reveals step-by-step how she did it.

Plus, she reveals the most common mistakes that job-seekers make when looking for their next role.

Growth-stage companies don’t get much hotter than Salesloft, the leading platform for sales reps to execute their day to day selling tasks. 

Put simply, they enable sales teams to drive more revenue. Customers include Stripe, ServiceNow, and Shopify. 

And the company’s leadership team is committed to culture like few others. 

Katie Branham is VP People at Salesloft, where she’s tripled headcount to 750 Lofters in just 4 years. 

Unlike most, Katie & team have developed a crystal clear employer value proposition “we promise you’ll learn more here than anywhere”  which has attracted Lofters in Atlanta & beyond.

Clearly, it’s working…

Investors include Atlanta Ventures, Emergence, HarbourVest Partners, High Alpha, Insight Partners, Storm Ventures, Techstars

Candidates are interviewed to ensure they possess the same core values. In this 20-minute episode, Katie reveals how you can do the same.

Few early-stage companies combine as many distinct components as Tovala.

Based in Chicago, the company pairs a smart oven with a meal subscription service. It truly makes foolproof food.

Weekly meals are delivered fresh to the your door. Scan the barcode & you’re done. Home-cooked meals that cook themselves.

And clearly Tovala is onto something big. 

They’re venture investors include: Comcast Ventures, Finistere Ventures, Left Lane Capital, New Stack Ventures, Origin Ventures, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, RiverPark Ventures, Service Provider Capital, Y Combinator

Mike Mason is Tovala’s Talent Acquisition Manager, which puts him in the crucial role of scaling this hypergrowth organization.

I just had the change to speak with Mike about how he puts a Rockstar in every seat. (And how you can do the same.)

Yum.

Few things wag my tail like meeting with a CEO who puts talent at the top of their agenda.

Here’s one.

Matt Hulett is CEO of publicly-held PetMeds, America’s most trusted pet pharmacy with 11 million customers.

Matt has driven more than $2 billion in value creation as a four-time public company CEO/President and a two-time private company CEO. 

He’s led multiple turnaround successes at companies you know, including Rosetta Stone, RealNetworks, and Expedia.

And this week, he released his new book “Unlock: 5 Questions to Unleash Your Company’s Hidden Power” - It’s fantastic, regardless of your company’s stage.

I just had the chance to speak with Matt about what role Recruiting has played in his personal success & that of his companies.

Arf! Arf!