Reducing the Talent Gamble — The Startup Studio Approach
As a Startup studio founder, I often get asked about our ‘talent’ strategy. Usually, I would say, we’re not into talent investing. That’s what pre-seed accelerators and talent programs do.
However, that would not be an entirely true statement. As a studio, we inevitably look for both promising ideas and potential for execution. Nonetheless, my personal aversion to the phrase “talent investment” comes from the fact that it sounds like you’re in it to select the best founder, instead of the best company. It implies that the outcome is a gamble solely hinging on your initial choice. But studios are not built like that.
For Builders, investing in talent means partnering up with entrepreneurs who have the same beliefs and want to capture momentum to solve a big problem today. You see, building a company can be done in many different ways. But a big predictor of success is timing — starting at the right moment and getting into the market when it needs you the most. Great entrepreneurs get that and consider a studio to be one of the options to capture that momentum.
In the past, I would see talent investing as a lonely pursuit, where the entrepreneur was just the missing link to get an idea into the real world. Of course, the effort is worth a piece of the pie, but does it actually make an impact on the world within a timeframe we can actually witness? I’m not convinced.
Talent investment: The Studio Philosophy
For a studio, investing in talent can be split up into two chunks. Firstly, time and capital are channelled towards validating an opportunity. (Read more about our business opportunity validation process here). Ideally, the resulting findings are worth incorporating a company for. And, secondly, resources and capital are spent getting the product to market after incorporation. Let’s dive into this.
The way we make this work is by being absolutely certain we understand the markets we’re getting into. I am not talking about the nitty-gritty, but the overall flow of the market and the emerging trends. It’s about knowing the opportunities and the kinds of companies we love to build; I’m talking B2B SaaS. Understanding the market makes it easier to reach out to future founders.
For example, let’s take the Future of Living. We really like the tenant experience market: ever-growing and driven by ever-more-demanding tenants. So, we’ve selected a few topics which we’d love to brainstorm with future founders during our initial conversations. We found that this strategy cuts out the noise and focuses our attention on the most promising candidates. The ones we end up partnering with are passionate about the things we already have a deep understanding of.
Of course, no one is stopping you from trying to reach just about anyone. But, by using a narrower lens, analysing trends in the Prop-tech space, and aiming for certain founder personas with a track record of building value, we stand a higher chance of success. We try to align as many of the stars ourselves rather than gambling on the hope that the right people will self-select into our pool of candidates.
Bottom line is that if you are trying to build a basketball team, you stand a higher chance of getting into the NBA if you recruit a bunch of 7-footers. I would also hope that if you’re planning on coaching a basketball team, you know the rules of the game, God forbid you to go looking for basketball players among ultimate frisbee players. The take-home lesson here is:
Narrow your search for talent and know what sport you’re playing, do your homework before looking for players.
Shoutout to the technical co-founders! They are the ones who make ideas tangible. Check out CTO opportunities at Builders here.
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