 Good morning everyone I'm Eleanor Crespo. I'm the co-founder of Pigment. We are a company that is actually here to replace Excel Headquartered in Paris. We have PostSeries B and I'm actually here to tell you about your very first hires I used to be an investor working for index ventures, which is one of the largest funds in Europe and in the US and I can tell you that talent is your secret source and it's really really important To do it right from the get-go So first of all I will explain why the topic is so important The first thing you need to know is that every single person that you will hire can either make or break your team And when it breaks your team it can be very harmful because it takes about six to nine months to actually You know spare part with someone but at the same time if you hire a right I can tell you that this is going to be the game changer and I'm going to give you example later down the line The second thing that you probably know is that a plus always brings a plus talent And that's very very important to have in mind because at the end of the day when you hire someone that is Exceptional you can make sure that this person will bring with him or her The ten best people he knows of and I can give you an example at Pigment for instance We hired the head of global business of Facebook workplace as our first pretty much very first business hire And he's bringing with us probably you know some of the best talents in the world to actually tackle or go to markets The third thing which is quite obvious is that the best people build the best company So it seems very obvious But depending on what you're tackling you need you need to think from the get-go about who is Going to be the best people to tackle the prime you trying to tackle so to give you an example with us We are trying to replace Excel and what was very important from the get-go is to find people That are the best engineers in the world Why because in order to replace Excel you have to become a no-brainer in a market And that means that you have and you need the strongest back-end engineers to build the strongest platform That's a very important point that I'm putting here on the screen and probably the most important At first talent is the one and only asset of your company So when you are for instance at a seed stage and you are B2B B2C whatever it is I can tell you that this is will look at your team first And this is the only thing they will be able to see is the quality of your team And they will be like do I actually believe that this team can be so ambitious to tackle a gigantic problem And if you don't make it right from the get-go if you think you know I'm gonna first hire cheap or two junior people or people that I don't know but that are friends, etc That's never gonna work for you So think about that from the get-go and I can tell you that the first ten employees of pigment were chosen So carefully to always think about that and to be able to say look in our first employees We actually have someone that was for instance the VP engineering at Creteo Which is a company that my co-founder created before creating pigment He was a CTO of Creteo put it to the NASDAQ and we hired as one of our first engineers is VP engineering And that you know can prove you that obviously, you know You're bringing and trying to bring the best and I can give you more example about that So as I said Talent is you one and only asset at the beginning and this is really what will make investors trust you But not only investors obviously customers as well for us obviously we had to sign our first customers We started the product We actually launched our product this year the company was funded in 2019 and we launched publicly in Q2 this year And what happened is that we wanted actually to bring the best logos on board to actually You know tell the world that our product is already a no-brainer and that companies in the lack of for instance Deliveroo, Gong in the US that has the best sales team Are actually using pigment broadly to actually think about their strategy because we are a planning tool We are replacing Excel and these teams are actually using us and in order to send these logos when you have a very nascent product I can tell you that the nature of your team is what will make them sign and so it's super super important to do it right from the beginning But as you know the prime today that hiring is very very hard and why that first of all the market has never been hotter As you know companies are raising massive rounds these days It's crazy right like people are raising rounds of a hundred million two hundred million Etc. And that creates a war for talent and the problem is that for you when you create a company Your first employees will only join you on your vision. You have nothing you don't have a brand You don't have an investor backing you you have nothing with you And so you need to convince them that actually They should trust you and they should come to your team for who you are and for what you want to be Challenges you are trying to bring to the table The third aspect which is important is that you in the street sometimes is very complex to to actually understand So for us to give you an example, you know when we tell people we are replacing Excel and we are business planning tool And we want to create this very powerful platform very simple to use where people can actually create agile planning You know think about strategy etc at first I can tell you it was very hard to convince people that you know A market was here and that you know the idea was not too big actually to be tackled And so here obviously it's very very hard and you need to find the right words to actually convince people and so Because of that I want to actually give you a playbook and I think it's why I'm here today About like basically the best tips and secrets to actually create a great team from the get-go So how to go about it the first thing which is very important is that you should always be hiring Always what does that mean that means that everywhere you go? You should think about talents Every person you meet you should think does this person could actually be someone I hire Why and does she know some people that I could actually hire for my company? And this is really what I do I can tell you every time I go somewhere I always try to understand if this person can be someone I should hire or consider of hiring The other thing is to try to get as many referrals as you can that means that every single employee You meet you should always ask them about who do they know are they like who are the most brilliant people that they could bring You know with them in the adventure are they people that you know They would dream of working with that they should actually you know consider and one thing I'm actually asking to every single employee at pigment is that every time they join now They give me the list of the ten people they dream to work with no matter who they are They might be like people that you think are unreachable, but I can tell you that no one is unreachable You know when I convicts actually my co-founder who has a city of crypto to start a company with me Some people could have thought it's unreachable. It's never unreachable I can tell you that was the same with my head of business It was the same with my head of customer success was head of customer success at Facebook workplace If you dream about someone you have to put all of the energy you can to actually bring this person with you The second thing is around talent talent never fall from tree and here I also want to emphasize that you should never Think that you should rely on let's say for instance an HR recruiter to actually find the best talents It's a job of the co-founders and the funding team to find these talents sourcing is key You have to spend time hiring all the time all the time all the time so that means that for me to give you an example I would think as a CEO that I probably spend I would say 30% of my time today hiring but at the very beginning it was more about 70% And it's really what I try to do every day because you are going to be the one bringing the best talents And no one else can do it for you The third point here that I put around around to finish this topic around always be hiring is around calibration That's something that we tend to forget because you know when you start a company sometimes You don't know how to find the best talents and where and how what I like to do actually Whenever I try to find someone so let's say you know right now I'm looking for instance for VP marketing I Trying to meet the best VP marketing in the world And so I'm trying to get in truth from my investors Etc. And people that I know but who are the best VP marketing like the best people like the best thought leaders Etc. And I try to understand from them what it means to be the best VP marketing And I can tell you that that helps a lot understand what you need and how to hire well And I really advise you to that for every single role you do not only exact But everyone and this TV marketing can also tell you about how to actually hire the best marketing team And what's interesting is that when you do that you realize that sometimes when you reached to actually the best VP Marketing the world guess what one of them might actually want to join your company And if it's not now it might be in two years And so it's very important also to think in advance and I will come back to that But again like this calibration is key and it can actually bring great surprises to your team The second point of you see is around peak only the very best So here what I mean by that is that obviously as I said at the very beginning You need the strongest team from day one. You cannot make a mistake You have to hire the 10 first people of your company should be the smartest people That you know and that you can bring on board In order to do that first of all the first advice I would give is to define the kids kids You want in your team and when I mean what I mean by that is two things the first thing is around the culture With a if you are alone as a founder with a co-founder from the from day one You really need to think about what is a culture that I want at your company And what I mean by that is that you know for instance for us with my co-founder We are true team players. We are we love creativity We think you know we love to work with humble people that are smart that try to bring new ideas every day very good at communicating Etc and from day one It's important to define this kids and to make sure you put this into your interview process So that means and it's something actually yesterday night I was discussing with the CEO of Supercell that was on stage just before me and it's something He does that every single interview meaning that you know He has agreed that he sends before the interview where he puts basically, you know the values of his own company And next week he put actions that relate to the value So basically the virtues that you probably heard of from Ben Horowitz and here I advise to do that because it's very important that in an interview You can have a sense for the social skills that you want to bring on the table The second is around hiring people that are better than you but not only better than you they should be expert in what they do You want people that from day one will bring your company from zero to a thousand You are not looking for someone you don't have time to teach anyone what to do And so the first advice I give here is really to say you need to find people That have a very big experience in the space you are tackling and you need to try to stick to hiring these people For every important role that you have I can give you another example here We've just hired our head of security He was actually the CTO of one French unicorn So I can't give his name unfortunately today but of a French unicorn that actually got one of the biggest data breach in history and He was actually brought there to fix it and he was the head of security there became a CTO And you know when I see that I'm like it's typically what we need for a product like Excel We need to be the best at security and we need people that are gonna bring us not only to the next level But people that are gonna be even jealous in a space and people that are actually gonna praise for your company and tell To everyone that pigments is probably by far one of the most secure company in the world And it's really every time you do something you should think is this people like are the people that I'm hiring going to one They speak at slush and be actually a specialist in what they do And I think that gives a good frame actually to help you think about are they actually you know the best in their own field The third point is that it's great to hire experts But the problem sometimes that it's hard to actually get experts that are also doers And that's something that is very very very difficult to find and that what makes the equation difficult Because every time you hire someone that has a lot of experience that is better than you in what he does Obviously that also comes with a fact that he has probably already spent a good ten years being hands-on and maybe now is looking for management skill so here obviously if someone is in that situation it will never be a good hire trust me even if you think Oh, but you know what two years down the line this person might manage, you know her hundred people at my company Still at the first on the first day you want this person to get his hands dirty You know look at tooling sign the first customers Whatever it is like if it's an engineer that was actually managing, you know 200 people at some point it should come back to becoming a you know the best individual contributor out there And if this person doesn't have the skill it means in that the right one Last thing obviously which wrap up the topic around picking the very best is that obviously in the first You know employees that you bring to your table you should think about Who are the best for the product I'm creating so obviously, you know you need to have an angle there So for us as I mentioned at the beginning the angle is that we needed the best back-end engineers The best designers and the best engineer to agree create the platform And that was the first core team of employees and then obviously you need to think about that for every single sector So meaning that you know if you are an e-commerce company perhaps the most important things for you are gonna be around supply chain and marketing And so from day one think about who are the best talent I can bring there before thinking about the rest Now on to the third topic obviously after you've picked the very best you need to attract them to your company And that gets hard because of what I said, right? It's very hard to attract the best talents because obviously talent is where they are probably you know They get a thousand other offers on the side as I said today It's a total war like every time I contact someone it tells me in the process with you know ten other companies out there So it's very very very hard so there are many things you can do here But the first advice I would give is that we are not in 2000 right now people are not working anymore from a garage And that's a reality especially if you want to build a team of quality It means that the people for instance for us at pigment the average age is 35 years old And that means that many you know team members at pigment actually have a family they have kids You know they actually you know they cannot afford to not be paid for two years and just get equity right So you actually need to make sure that you raise in advance Thanks to abuse you know the people that you bring first etc But you actually need to make sure that you can afford the expectation of these people And you really cannot be cheap here because you will never be able to attract the best talent otherwise It's very important and I think it's not it's not only obviously about the salary and the equity But it's also about how you can create a professional team from day one How can you put them empower them to be in the best conditions to actually work and that goes with a lot of things It goes obviously with a great office with you know allowing them to actually get the two links Allowing them to bring the people that they need in the team etc. Etc. So that's very very important and then obviously what's important in the in the in the interview process is To really remember that you are speaking to a human and that as I said at first It's not going to be rational This person is going to join you at a stage where your company is nowhere You don't have customers. You don't have a brand. You don't have the best investors You are not post series D. You don't have a name in the market, etc Maybe you don't even have a website and so people are just coming for you And so here think about that you need to create empathy with everyone you're going to hire that means that everyone you meet You need to be memorable and what does that mean that means that you need to surprise this person You need to say something that is going to speak you know deeply deeply deeply to his heart and to think like okay You know what? I'm gonna trust these co-founders. They seem so different. They have so much energy They seem to have so much ambition. They seem to you know, they want to change the world They want to have an impact on you know thousands and thousands and thousands of customers and I'm gonna trust this person for that and here like you can find many Many ways to be surprising But don't you know follow the rules of like the normal interview process like try to find things that define you as a Person and here remember that it's really what will make the difference and I can tell you that it takes time For us, you know, there are some employees that we hired It took me more than six months to convince them to join pigment and it was a lot You know you have to go and it's also what investors do right like I did the same when I was an index venture You try to meet people early and then you try to nurture the relationship You you know and maybe they will say no like my head of business actually told me that he wouldn't want to join And then I convince him to join after another three months of work, right? So it's really important to actually you know be really really tough and sorrow and be a hustler there of Thinking what can I do? Can I bring this person to dinner? Can I understand his personal life? What matters to him to her what's important? You know, is it about carry? Is it about ambition? Is it about work life balance? Etc. Etc. You should speak to the person The fourth point is around prioritizing agility So here again as I said we are at war We are in a talent war and so we need to hire fast and we need to hire rights And we need to convince people to join so I think that is important here And that obviously is very true most of the time is that you need to go fast in the process Meaning that you know every time you want to find someone and that you know This person is getting serious about joining the adventure and telling you that actually it's something that he or she cares about You should really really put an effort to show them that you are proactive and that you really want this person to join And so that means that you should make this person meet every single Person that can convince her to join meaning it can be obesity members co-founders Investors people that you know certainly there's in the space angels customers anyone that can convince this person to join In no time and you should really join forces here Second point is about anticipating your future needs. That's Quite nice to do. I would say that every time you know you are you think about your needs of hiring You should need you should actually think at least nine months in advance meaning you should say you know What do I actually need to be successful in nine months from now? Is it that I need to actually and enforce you know my business team my marketing team my engineering team my design team? And it's important to start the process early because you know especially in Europe It takes more than six months to hire someone and then another three months to actually on board this person So it's important to anticipate and to start meeting people early because the best exec as I said will probably take time to Actually think about whether they want or not to join the adventure Third point and that's an advice that I got from one of the best investor in the world Eric from benchmark that you might know off He told me Aaron or there is something you need to do at pigment You are taking a very complex problem You need to stay agile and that means don't hire too fast Do not hire too fast do not go too fast from 20 to 200 people that will harm your company And the reason why is that when you are a small team when you are about 20 people It's very very easy to change gears and to change direction. It's a bit like a small sailing boat But imagine we are on a cruise ship with 200 people It's actually much harder to actually steer gears and move around fast when you need to pivot And the problem is that as you can imagine in the first two years of the company You will need to pivot many many many many times Maybe you know your customers won't like the first version of your product Maybe you will realize you didn't tackle it through the right angle and in order to do that Please do not hire too fast. It's so important to do that, right? The five point to wrap up this playbook is around onboarding And I think you already got an idea with the talk that was just before me But we are in a difficult world because obviously there is this war for talent and of course as well You know, we are born more remote and here, you know When I say that it's that you know for us for instance, we started the company I think it was five months before covid hits and so from one day to the next everyone got remote And we were a very small team and we couldn't you know have the culture of being together at the office Celebrating successes, etc. And so here you need to think from day one About how can you embed in your structure a way to onboard people in the best possible way There is a great company in France called doctor leave. It's a it's one of the best companies out there It's a unicorn they do that really well They have created from day one an academy and this is what we do as well at pigment to make sure that people Get onboarded from day one the right way meaning that you know They spend a good two to three months meeting everyone in the company getting the best training Etc. Etc. And that has to come from the core team You need to make sure you know the first hires have a body that they can understand you product and to end that they can Shadow customers for us for instance every single hire Engineers whatever it is marketing support they spend time they get certified. We actually have a certified Certification internal to actually understand our product So they spend basically a month to get trained on pigment They spend another two weeks actually getting trained on the culture on the sales process on the engineering process on design Etc. Etc. And we also try obviously to make them shadow customer calls Interviews etc etc so you need to spend time on that because otherwise I can tell you that even if you find the best talents if they don't get the onboarding rights It's gonna lead you to failure So I think with this playbook you should have enough to actually know about About early teams, but I'm always available and always happy to help so never hesitate to contact me or link Dean through my email It's easy to know at gopigman.com I'm always happy to share more tips But I can tell you that Harry get the beginning is really of the essence because it's really what Investors and early customers are going to look for I'm going to share a couple of resources to read so these are books that you probably know of but I think Honestly that these are probably the best books to start a company So obviously there is who that is the book to read when it comes to hiring because it gives you everything About the interview process hiring the best You know what people are actually looking for how to speak human to human create empathy, etc Another one that has nothing to do with the ring is start with why and I do think at the very beginning It's important to start with why and to tell people why you have this vision why you are actually creating that company and so here It's it's a great book because it's a marketing book But you know it actually helps convey people to understand why you have actually picked a special mission High growth and handbook So this is more I would say for a little bit later stage But one of the best book out there from ill at gil one of the strongest angel in the valley that can also give you tips Around hiring exact and the cell acceleration formula for the teams out there that needs to build a sales team Because it's a fantastic book actually to get tips around how to actually build a team that scale And that's also very important because when you build yourself team from day one You need to understand how to actually put in place the first layers of your sales machine So for us for instance at pigment, you know I needed people to actually start from day one thinking about what it means to actually be one day at 200 million 300 Million dollars in error And so in order to do that it means that from day one obviously you need to be hands-on and say in the first days And and close the first important logos and customers But at the same time you always need to think ahead about you know what you need to go to the next stage So that's all for me. I hope you enjoyed the speech, but really I cannot emphasize enough how talent is important Thank you so much