How to Hire for a Web3 Company: 6 Essential Tips
In the fast-evolving realm of Web3 technology, early stage companies face unique challenges when it comes to building their teams.
The success of these ventures often hinges on the ability to attract and hire top talent who possess the necessary skills and expertise in this emerging field. If you’re an entrepreneur or HR professional navigating the exciting world of Web3 startups, understanding the essential tips for hiring is paramount.
In this article, we will explore six indispensable tips to help you navigate the process of hiring for an early stage Web3 company. In fact, these tips come from Valerio Rossi, CEO of Workfully, Eytan Messika, Co-Founder of Nilos and Gregoire le Jeune, COO of Snapshot Labs, who shared their views during the Scaling a Web3 Company: Hiring, Finance & Compliance webinar (watch the full webinar here).
From the characteristics you should look for in your talent to organizing the hiring process, you’ll get valuable insights for building a winning team. With these tried-and-tested strategies, you can attract and retain the talented individuals who will drive your Web3 company’s success.
- Hire people who can get things done
Hiring process in the Web3 job market is very different from the one used in traditional enterprises.
If recruiting people from FAMGA is a standard (or dream) for many companies, this is absolutely wrong in terms of Web3 recruiting strategies.
Why? Because the skills of that talent working in established companies simply don’t apply to newly emerging Web3 patterns.
“If you’re a Founder at an early stage web3 company you might want someone that can get things done. So probably the kind of reasoning around looking at the CV with a lot of big names and a pedigree with big companies like Google and so on might not work in an early stage tech company,” says Valerio Rossi, CEO and co-founder at Workfully.
Adding to this, Eytan Messika notes: “Someone that has done 10 years at Google is not maybe the best candidate to look for especially in that market because we don’t have the pattern to recognize the skills in that specific industry. So you would look rather for people that have the flexibility to learn quickly on the technology because the technology is evolving so fast in that market.”
Referring to Web3 HR practices, Gregoire le Jeune also highlights the importance of hiring self-starters.
Talking about his own example, he says: “It’s an industry of self-starters. I can share about myself: I have a legal background and worked at the UN before I ended up doing hardware while trading, running desks and investing, and then building companies. So I have absolutely no academic or professional experience in what I’m doing: I just had to learn on the go and it worked perfectly for multiple different startups. This is just how it goes: we have an industry of self starters and we can identify someone who’s really hungry, who has the credentials. And we’ll always go for the hungrier one.”
Thus, if you’re building a team for an early stage Web3 company, rather than trying to select people based on social signals, go for people who have Web3 skills and expertise, as well as ability to actually adapt and learn quickly, are flexible and hungry for knowledge.
2. Pay special attention to technical excellence
Early stage Web3 company hiring comes with its own challenges. One of them is to identify the level of the Web3 talent pool expertise.
The thing is normally at an early stage you don’t have enough resources including time for upskilling your technical team.
So, the best solution here would be to hire people who already have that technical excellence.
“What founders need is technical excellence because most likely you won’t have much time booked for a fantastic Web3 onboarding process where you do a lot of training,” adds Valerio Rossi.
So make sure to consider your resources and assess your talent’s skills to hire the right talent.
3. Identify believers and adopters of Web3
If your candidates work in Web2, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will be a success at your Web3 company.
“So you really need to identify believers and adopters of Web3 and blockchain in general because we found that it’s super hard to get someone that only worked in a Web2 environment and didn’t really make any projects in the Web3 blockchain world to work and understand the language and the culture of that world. And that is pretty easy to understand just looking at you know if they’re part of communities, projects or companies,” says Valerio Rossi.
So what matters is the attitude of your candidates: do they really believe in Web3? Are they really involved in it?
4. Go for believers in your company’s project
Another critical factor for early stage Web3 company founders to consider is that the right candidates need to be believers in the project right in the company.
“This is probably the most important point. We see many founders or technical managers that are not very great at communicating to their candidates why their product exists. And that is super critical because even if the person already works in a big Web3 company, you need to convince them to switch to your Web3 project. This selling part is very important,” notes Valerio Rossi.
Thus, make sure to communicate to your candidates the purpose of your project and make it attractive for them. Then you will see if they believe in it, if they have that excitement in their eyes.
5. Ensure a proper recruiting process
Another important point in hiring for Web3 ventures, especially those in the centralized work settings, is having a good recruiting process in place for Web3 job candidates.
That is to say, lengthy and impractical interviews are totally improper as part of a Web3 workforce planning.
Referring to this, Valerio Rossi notes: “This is probably where most founders make a mistake because at the end of the day if you want to assess technical excellence and get things done, you need a proper recruiting process. So what we always advise founders to do is to always keep it very short but also very deep. A two-week cycle with, for example, two interviews with a technical challenge in the middle is what we recommend the most in order to assess this setting.”
Thus, mind your interview length and content when hiring for Web3.
6. Network
Web2 companies along with the new Web3 companies have come to form an internal network where they support each other also on the talent side.
Referring to his experience, Daniel Gilgenmann, Head of Talent at Xoogler.co, notes:
“What I’ve seen is that there are so many groups that really know each other — these hardcore connections that have been built out since the early days and still up to this day. There are a lot of startups that are coming out of these ecosystems and they really help each other also on the talent side.”
So it’s good to know other Web2 and Web3 companies and maintain communication with them too.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, hiring for an early stage Web3 company necessitates a strategic approach. By implementing the six essential tips discussed, you can attract skilled talent and establish a solid foundation for your Web3 venture.
One rule of thumb to remember about Web3 workforce planning is that traditional approaches won’t apply in this newly emerging industry. This is essential to build a thriving team that drives your early stage Web3 company towards success.
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