Strive Talent: Raising Money as a Solo, Non-Technical Founder

Our team recently invested in Strive Talent, a competency-based hiring platform that helps companies recruit based on potential and skills rather than pedigree. We are so excited to work with Will Houghteling on this idea, and we are big fans of the company’s mission and potential to create career pathways for people from all backgrounds.

We don’t usually invest in a solo founder or non-technical team, and in this case we did both. We loved the idea and progress (table stakes), but beyond that, we observed some behaviors during the investment process that helped us get over the line. Here are a few examples in case this is helpful to others:

• Follow your passion and expertise (but don’t be stubborn). Will started Strive to redefine community college education. This a big idea that matters, and it is also an area where he has years of experience (both crucial as a starting point). After a lot of research, he changed his focus to assessing job candidates. This was a different vision, and it meant building a completely different type of company. But it was a better way of helping people get good jobs, which was really what he cared about. Will was committed to his high-level mission (helping people get good jobs), but very open on the specific solution (education vs evaluation vs something else). He didn’t pivot to an unrelated idea outside of his expertise, and he didn’t stubbornly hold on to his dream of creating a school — even if it still seemed like a pretty good idea (but not quite the best).
• Make progress without $$$. Strive Talent was built on Wordpress, Google Sheets, and Skype. Raising money and building software up front would have been nice, and it would have felt like much-needed validation from investors and team members, but it was not the fastest path to proving that the business could work. Instead, Will focused 100% on getting customers and delivering value, and he got answers to key business questions much faster and cheaper. Now he can attract and hire a world-class team—and they have the rare opportunity to create a product from the ground up for a process that is already working.
• Run a tight ship and follow through. During our investment process, Will was immaculate in following up on requests and action items. We never had to ask for anything twice or send a reminder after a meeting. This made it possible for us to reach a decision in less than a week, and it also happens to be a great attribute for running a company. When we first caught up following our investment, we covered 5–10 topics in 45 minutes. I got a note from Will listing all 10 of the action items discussed, requesting the top 3 immediate ones, and specifying who would do what and by when to make them happen (including reference to an easy process for making intros- how have I not seen this before?). As a result we helped twice as much — with half the effort.

These are just a few attitudes that we hope will pay off as Will turns his startup into a vibrant company. Small changes in mindset can make a big difference!

If you’re passionate about building pathways to middle class careers for people from all backgrounds, consider joining the Strive team, and if you’re interested in learning more about their data-driven approach to hiring, check out strivetalent.com.