Unicorn Leaders
The Unicorn Leaders podcast takes a deep dive into the world of building a billion-dollar company (a unicorn) in every episode. Join us while we explore the leadership and environments that create unicorn startups straight from those with first-hand experience (startup founders, VPs of talent, and more). The podcast is hosted by Fahd Alhattab, the CEO of Unicorn Labs and a millennial workplace expert who specializes in providing transformative leadership and team dynamics training for high-growth startups. Fahd has been researching what creates high-performing teams over the last five years. Join him as he asks his guests the hard questions to uncover what it means to be a leader in our fast-paced, information-based world.
Unicorn Leaders
Ep. 23 - Hiring Fast, Hiring Smart: Rethinking Recruitment in Startups with Adam Gellert
In this episode of the Unicorn Leaders podcast, Fahd Alhattab sits down with Adam Gellert, founder of Linkus Group and Hypo, to talk all things hiring—from building high-performing teams to breaking outdated recruitment myths.
Adam shares what it really takes to find top-tier talent in startups, why the "hire slow, fire fast" mantra is broken, and how founders can avoid costly mis-hires by aligning on the real business problem behind every role. He opens up about the grit behind building two companies, what top candidates are actually looking for, and how to avoid culture-breaking overhiring.
Whether you're scaling a team, hiring your first exec, or wondering why your dream candidate said no—this one’s packed with practical insights for startup leaders who want to hire fast and hire well.
Episode Mentions
- Check out Adam Gellert: https://www.recruiteradam.com/
The hire slow, fire fast mentality is broken. It's wrong. It's no longer the way we should be thinking about it. You've said that. Walk me through that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think a lot of companies like to lean back on that because it feels safe. And, you know, if I make a mistake, it's like, oh, you know, hire slow, fire fast. But it's the biggest lie that's ever been told. You know, you need to be able to hire fast. And if you hire fast, know what you're looking for, you don't have to fire at all. So you hire fast and hire well.
UNKNOWN:So
SPEAKER_00:Hello folks and welcome to our Unicorn Leadership Podcast. We've got Adam Gellert here with us. This is where we interview amazing leaders like himself to really unpack this season's theme, which is the David versus Goliath of teams. What makes these small yet mighty teams that are able to overcome the competition to really win? This podcast is brought to you by Unicorn Labs. My name is Fahad Al-Hattab, the founder of Unicorn Labs and the host of this podcast. And today's guest is on a mission to reshape, recruit, and to change the candidate experience. So Adam, you are the founder and CEO of Hippo and Linkus Group. Tell me a little bit about Hippo and Linkus Group just to get us started.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've been in the recruitment space for over two decades. Two of the couple of projects that I've started. Linkus Group is known within Canada as a search and be search firm where we help companies go from one to 250 people. Really to fill hard niche, hard to fill roles in almost any sector. And so that's what we're known for. I started Hippo. We kind of just rebranded to Hypo for high potential. And that just came out of like sort of like the side hustle idea. You know, I read something from Gary Vee that said, if you don't take yourself out of business, somebody else will. So I said, screw it. I'm going to take myself out of business. So we created really a way for our clients who didn't want to kind of go through working with a recruiter and they wanted to do it themselves, gives them a way to access our database with high potential pre-vetted talent in a very fast, cost-effective way with high quality results.
SPEAKER_00:That's quite bullish. Literally went and said, I'm going to cannibalize part of my own market, right? Like, you know, Hypo, sorry for calling it Hippo, Hypo, I actually knew this, Hypotest, because we talked about this, but yeah, Hypo literally is a competitor to Linkus. Now, maybe a subsect competitor, right? Because you're capturing a little bit of But that's so interesting. How did that feel at first when when it felt like you're almost competing against yourself here?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, look, some of my clients thought I was crazy. Probably still to this day. You know, definitely a lot of people think, you know, why would you do that? But like, look, I'm obsessed with changing the way the companies hire and the candidate experience. And I'm all about making hiring and recruiting better. So why wouldn't I create something that I think is very disruptive and I will set the tone and set the trends for the industry. I want to be a part of that. And, you know, I've just kind of put my hands on a lot of things within the recruiting space. So to me, it was just quite obvious at the time that there was just like no way to quickly match the right talent based on interests and passion and skills and experience with what companies were looking for in a very like private, exclusive way. And so we said, like, let's do it.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, that's the better intro than I could have given you, Adam. That was good. I mean, In this episode, we really want to unpack that. I mentioned that whole David versus Goliath, what makes these small, powerful teams. And I think, as you've mentioned, it's talent. It's the team. It's did you get the right people on the right seats in the bus? Did you get the best people? And that's sort of what we want to explore in this episode. Maybe the hiring process, but maybe challenging. You know, you challenge the hire slow, fire fast mentality and how that falls short. So we're going to unpack that. Stuff that CEOs and founders can learn about what what it looks like to build their executive teams, to build their leadership teams, how they hire for those, how they recruit for those. Those are the different pieces that we're going to want to unpack during this episode, and we're going to have a lot of fun with it. But Adam, you weren't always this brilliant entrepreneur building these companies. Give me a little backstory. Where are you from? Where did you get started? What was the first gig, first entrepreneurial journey, or first job out of university? Give me a little background. Who is Adam?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. I'm a first-generation Canadian. I grew up in... Midtown, Toronto, Canada, and always just had to make my own way. I've been working since I was 13 years old, just multiple
SPEAKER_00:jobs. What was the first job? What was the first 13-year-old job?
SPEAKER_01:Well, there was a lot of babysitting and selling carts and stuff like that, but the real actual job was, before I was even legally eligible to work, I was paid cash under the table at a record store in Midtown Toronto. It was called Edwards Record World. I worked for a company called The Food Dudes for a while, a great catering company in Toronto. And yeah, just... you know kind of fell into recruiting honestly didn't know what i wanted to do um after my dream of becoming a veterinarian fell through and that was i didn't i didn't know that did you did you go to school for it i mean it just took me through from birth the high the you know through high school i worked at a veterinarian clinic for seven years several adults um and you know now we were getting to actually recruit for some vets too which is awesome full circle um Yeah, just working in the vet clinic, just realizing that, you know, something more, you know, business, creatively related. It was more up my alley and just, you know, kind of different stamp on the world. You know, I really believe you've got to find your superpower. And, you know, I just opened up a bunch of doors to find that. So, yeah, that's when I started. We've been building it up for years. almost two decades now. I
SPEAKER_00:love that. I love the grit, man. That's two decades. I mean, you know what? That's how long it takes to build a really good, healthy business. It takes time. I think that's part of it, right? So Adam, let's go through, think about some of the founders and tech companies that you've worked with or that you continue to work with. When it comes to hiring key leadership roles, what are some of the mistakes you see people make there? Most founders fire their first VP of sales because it's a mishire, right? They hire the wrong person. It's the wrong It's the wrong. They don't have a sales team actually built out and they bring in someone senior too early or whatever it is. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's honestly always comes down to the business problem that the company needs to solve. So that's all jobs are as a business problem that the company needs to solve. Like, like, you know, oftentimes an executive leadership. I mean, sometimes you want somebody who's done the movie before, like, you know, comes in already with that experience because that's kind of required. You know, you need to have a different set of budget for that. So, you know, founders need to be kind of realistic. If you want a. you know, needle in the haystack, the like spear of the perfect candidate, which is what we focus on. We only headhunt talent, right? Is just like, yeah, identifying, you know, what are the needs and where that person should come from? And is it potential or is it experience that that person's going to have?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Now you said in this kind of tech space that we're working in, the higher slow fire fast mentality is broken. It's wrong. It's no longer the way we should be thinking about it. You said that, walk me through that. Help me understand, you know, What's the myth busting here? What's the way we have to look at it differently if that was more traditional?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think a lot of companies like to lean back on that because it feels safe. And, you know, if I make a mistake, it's like, oh, you know, hire slow, fire fast. But it's the biggest lie that's ever been told. You know, you need to be able to hire fast and you need to be able to. And if you hire fast, know what you're looking for, you don't have to fire at all. So you hire fast and hire well. I mean, a lot of companies just take too much time because they feel like they'll you know maybe land on that perfect unicorn or they didn't start early enough i mean nine out of ten calls i get is i need to hire someone as of yesterday so it's just
SPEAKER_00:but they are looking for this unicorn right they are looking for this top talent you're totally you're often told hire people better than you and so you're sort of looking for this venn diagram of skills what's what's what's your thoughts on that are people are You know, are they are they over coupling job descriptions? Are they are they looking for too much of the, you know, a Venn diagram of four or five different competencies that don't typically come together? So it makes it difficult. They are afraid of making a mistake, but they also have this really high, maybe standard is the wrong high bar, but also this sort of I want them to be able to do this and that, right? Like they need to be able to do sales and marketing and they want them to be a designer and a product person. Or I want them to be a front end, you know, full stack engineers that are the best, right? They've got a lot of coupled needs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, I think there's like some truth to that. And then there's just like a lot of fluff, in my opinion. I mean, you know, you don't always need to hire someone that can do everything and be better than you. I mean, they need to maybe be better in certain ways, but nobody's going to essentially be able to replicate the founder. You have to really understand that, like, if you could do X amount of sales, like the person you're bringing in probably do 50% of those sales, maybe 70%. I mean, you just need to be really realistic. And, you know, a lot of the top advisors like Jason Lumpkin, like they all say this isn't, you know, just coming from me. Even Harley from Shopify says that, like, you need to get pointy people that can, you know, solve a really, you know, critical critiqued problem. These like Jack and Jill of all trades. It's not like, you know, wouldn't be great to have if the company is just still trying to figure out product market fit or we don't know what tomorrow is going to look like. You know, those are the people that kind of built like the PayPal mafia, right? Like, sure. I mean, I always tell my clients, like, look, we're always looking for that unicorn. Unicorns are possible. I mean, it's just like knowing the market, what's realistic, having like a really good, whether it's, you know, whatever recruiter you use, you know, just having somebody who like knows what they're doing, what's available on market and how to attract those people. But yeah, I mean, we go after the unicorn, but if that's not possible and what's needed, I mean, it's like, I love the unicorn name because we're talking about Unicorn Labs here. it's
SPEAKER_00:a plug it's a plug
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, look at it like hiring a dartboard. So there's this bullseye of exactly what you're looking for when you need to hire. But essentially, if you make a mistake in terms of who that person is, that's when your cards start to fall. And then if you can't find that within your budget, you start kind of moving out what's available. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. But you just hit a nail on the head. I think a lot of founders are afraid of making the mistake of the wrong hire because the wrong hire in a small team... feels catastrophic, right? It feels very painful. You feel it. The wrong hire in a 300-person team, different than in a 30-person team, especially if it's in a leadership role, the damage that can happen. So that's always a risk, which is why people do the whole hire slow thing. But I hear what you're saying. So I guess the fix here, when you say, I always look for top talent, I'm only talking to the top 10% talent. How do you do that? How are you only talking to the top percent of the talent? What's that? What, I guess, markers are you looking for what indicators are you looking for or how do you sift through some of it and then how do you qualify some of it maybe that's getting more into the interviewing pieces so first like how do you sift through it how do you talk to the top talent
SPEAKER_01:yeah definitely so yeah i'll just i'll just touch on there like you know hiring slow isn't an advantage right it's just like you need to hire slow if you don't know what you're doing um but to get to the top 10 i mean look like startups can't hire the top one percent because i
SPEAKER_00:can't afford
SPEAKER_01:them And they can't afford them and they're at the, you know, unicorn companies, right? They can't afford to hire below the top 10% because those people just won't have the grit and understanding. So you need to kind of fit between that top one and top 10% of talent typically, which startups can do because there's a lot of other advantages than just monetary gains, right? And so, and you need to find the people that are kind of like aligned to be an environment that can be, you know, maybe unknown, you know, building a plane while you're flying it. And so how do we get that top 10% of talent? I mean, there's a number of ways you could do that pretty easily. One, you want to be known as the person to contact when you're looking to hire or get hired. So we have, you know, most of the people that contact us are confidentially looking and they know us as leaders in the space. So they call us and say, hey, you know, if you hear of anything. They also call us for advice because we, you know, try to set the bar in terms of what's on trend and and how people should be looking at career trajectory.
SPEAKER_00:Just to jump in on Adam for a second, I think that's actually an unstated superpower. The unstated superpower here is When I, as a business, go searching for talent, I have to search for the talent that's available. But you get the talent a step before when they're starting to look, but they don't want anyone to know. Like that's actually, right? Because a lot of the highest performers still have jobs. They're not actively like, you know, applying and do that. And so we always say like, how do you find the top performers who already have jobs? And so you're like the secret power of Linkist Group or Hypo is like, it's that you're getting them before. That's a really interesting thought. It just came across my mind that I wanted to highlight. Sorry, keep going.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. That's exactly why we built Hypo and the product so that companies could access that talent that will kind of put up their hand when they're looking anonymously, like candidates sign up anonymously. It's not just the role we're working on. We're looking at the whole company holistically. And if there's a candidate, even two years later, we'll be able to put that in. I mean, we just hired a CRO for a company I've been working with for 15 years. They didn't have a role posted. And that's just like one of like 1000 examples of jobs that we get filled. But I knew that this this candidate had, you know, the ability to connect with this founder and a vice versa. And so we're creating opportunities. It's not just opportunities that are available. I always find that like a lot of recruiting agencies kind of like lean on this, like, very old school thing of like, we have a database, we have somebody in our back pocket. I hate that. Because it, you know, people are aren't, you know, just waiting in the sidelines. You just have to have a pulse on the industry. I need to know that you're serious about hiring. We need to figure out what you're looking for because what you think you want is probably not what you need. And there's a lid for every pot. I mean, you know, it, it like what somebody who's great at Shopify, like might not be great for you for, you know, one or a thousand reasons.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. I think that definitely happens, right? That sort of bias towards, oh, you worked at Apple. Oh, you worked at Google. You worked at Shopify. Therefore you must be great. Right. Right. Like they're when when, you know, these larger companies, Shopify, Apple, all of them who are more corporate at this point, they have people who are extremely specialized. They are extremely pointy. And sometimes in that case, maybe would you say they're too specialized for when they shift over to startups? I just find that interesting. Like some people make the shift over to startup and do well. Some people make a shift over to startup from a more corporate and don't do well. They want more defined processes, more defined roles, the chaos of a startup. of a 20, 50 person startup is still too much uncertainty and ambiguity for some of them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely. I mean, you hit on so many good points there. And this is like what a lot of companies, startups struggle with. Every day is going to be different, that there are going to be certain stresses that, you know, you might not know what you're doing tomorrow, that the processes or the resources that you had, you know, in a company like Google and the other you know minds and talent that you had previously aren't the same you know it's kind of like the the mighty ducks right like when they like have like not a great team and it's like everyone needs to come together that's like the startup whereas like you have like a stack team right where everyone's like a top performer I mean I'm not saying that they're not top talent but they have other players on their team that elevate them you know like we got Gretzky elevated Messier you know and so would he have done the same on another team maybe but you know probably not to that a Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:I actually really like that example, like the Mighty Ducks versus like the New York Yankees who like literally purchased the best talent and just put them in different environments. Right. We got to be the Mighty Ducks. We got to be the team that comes together that actually. make each other better through, you know, through the work together to make each other better. I really like that. You know, one of the things that's standing out to me, Adam, is like just how much rigor goes into the process of finding and bringing on this talent, right? I think a lot of people go, oh, I got to hire, I got to find someone. And what you're saying here is like, wait, I got to start with a business problem. I got to search. You got to be on the pulse. There's just so much to do, which is why there's value in Hypo and in Linkers Group. It's because most startups Startup founders underestimate, myself included, underestimate just how... much work goes into finding that top 10% and getting the right person. Yeah, it's quite interesting. Adam, you've got another thought here. You mentioned to us in some of the pre-interview, you said, well, some companies, they do the hire slow, fire fast. It was some companies overhire. And where are you seeing that? Where some people are overhiring, maybe mediocre talent, and that's sort of what creates this bloatness? Or what are you seeing there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, recruiting, you said so much great stuff there. I best person for the job So high quality in the fastest way possible for the lowest cost. And if you can do that on your own and you've got that covered, then you don't need recruiting help, right? If you don't have like hiring is expensive. So, you know, there is a ton that goes into it. LinkedIn is not cheap. Like all these tools, things are not cheap. Having, you know, a lot of experience is not cheap. So like if you don't have the budget, then yeah, you might have to hire slow, fire, fast. Like I love that you said that. But in terms of like how to get people into the right seats it's like understanding the entire scope of the market right
SPEAKER_00:so then do you have any tips and tricks for the like for the people who are doing recruitment in-house you know like how do you do you guys do certain interview tips and tricks is there i would say interviews are bullshit like you can you know you can walk through and you can talk through it but how does that convince you that this talent is the right talent
SPEAKER_01:yeah i mean like first of all you want to know the business problem you want to solve it i've said that before for but like you just know what you're looking for what's good like what good looks like when you see it when and why and where you need to hire what's the market going to look like based on you know your budget and requirements and then you know focus in on you know three interviews I mean Google says that like beyond four you know you're not really making any changes so I see all these companies because you know people are scared about making bad hire or wrong hire and they they try and you know make that seem better by having more interviews, which doesn't really help them. There's no data behind it. And so, yeah, just streamlining that interview process, you know, how to make those decisions in terms of, I think one of your other questions was like interview questions or tests. I mean, you want to cram all those things in there that are related to the job. Like, you know, don't try and trick candidates into questions like how many golf balls fit in the bus if that's not part of their job. And then I see that sometimes candidates take jobs and it was kind of sold to them differently than during the interview. So You need to make sure that you're transparent. You tell all the good, bad, ugly, you know, hey, we might not hit our runway in six months from now. You know, hey, like you have to be in the office. If you sign off at five o'clock, you know, it's going to piss this person off. You know, just everything, even if it, you know, might get that person not take the job, tell them because trust me, trying to trying to replace someone is much more painful. So giving people like insight into what the job is. So if like they're going to be on the phone doing a cold call, like I just thought it was crazy. crazy at how many companies that I saw that hired somebody without showing them a demo of the product right and I don't know why that candidate would have taken the job or you're selling events and they've never been to an event before like bring them to one of your events show them a you know video get like walk them through the door who are other people in the company I mean people always leave jobs because it wasn't the way it was sold to them not because of money you know sometimes because the leader like they didn't have enough face time with the leader so just in those three interviews just make sure that you're giving people kind of like like you're putting on a VR headset and you know exactly what it's going to be like to walk through the door.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, that's a really good point. Adam, have you seen, what do you see top talent evaluating for?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, candidates that are high quality are looking for the same things the companies are looking for. Like, it's funny that, you know, both people, both companies and candidates want the exact same thing, but they just have different ideas how to get there. And so, you know, they want transparent, like, information. Like, you know, is the company doing well? Is it not? If it's not, I'll at least know what I'm getting into. It's like dating, right? Just tell me what I'm getting into so that I know that I'm making the right decision.
SPEAKER_00:We
SPEAKER_01:don't have to get married tomorrow, but I at least want to know if I want to continue this conversation, right? So we found when we created our product that the number one thing that made somebody kind of raise their hand that they were looking for a new job was location. So, you know, how close it is to my house, obviously like pre-remote, a ton of remote options. And now people are kind of still looking for the same thing. So transparently, good candidates ask those questions. What is it like? Then they want to know like growth potential. So who works there? How long have they been working there? Am I going to learn from them? Do you think they might leave in the next six months and I'm going to lose that person because I'm jumping on board because that person's available, right? Same with the sports team. Maybe they're joining because LeBron's there, right? It's just all these factors. And then, you know, alignment in terms of like what they want to be doing. So like if I'm, you know, maybe a developer, maybe it's like, you know, I can work on any stack or I want to work on a specific stack or I want to solve this problem for Alzheimer's, whatever the challenges and the passion is, it's like, am I going to be able to wake up tomorrow even if it's hard to be able to do those roles? And then, like, obviously, compensation... plays a big part. But quite honestly, like most people are somewhat aligned on compensation already. It's the other things that they typically get wrong.
SPEAKER_00:That's really interesting. Any other hiring trends or industry shifts you're seeing? That was really good, Adam. I enjoyed that, that even giving me some insights, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, I would say people just tend to overcomplicate hiring. Like it's not that hard, right? Like sourcing and finding candidates is probably the easiest part about recruiting. It's about the alignment, the trust. Like did people say what they said they were going to say? Did the candidate do the work to figure out if that was actually the right job for them? Had they gone on enough dates to figure it out? In terms of hiring trends right now, the hiring space has changed so much since I got into it. It's just technology, a bit of AI, people faking applications, fast apply, doing two jobs at the same time, lying about what they can do, companies overselling something. There's just like so much has changed that's just like the tip of the iceberg what i find is that the the separation between top talent and not so great talent is has has expanded um It's just harder to find really good talent for what companies are looking for right now. I guess this goes back to your other point of like, and what I like to talk about is like, stop hiring too many people. You know, it's kind of counterintuitive to what a recruiter would say, but, you know, I don't need you to hire 10 people when you only need, you know, eight or one. Yeah. And you need to identify like what do you actually need? Like what's going to be great for the business? And not often, not always is like adding some person going to magically change the business, right? And I think that that's sometimes what people think. Like remove all your bias and just come to the table and have a candid conversation about how you want to start dating. Like that should be it.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I think it's interesting because, yeah, I reflect on this and you go like, you know, you end up on LinkedIn and every second LinkedIn influence are saying like the only way to get money is to you know not be loyal to the company but jump you know hop like and I think it's literally become as you mentioned it's a trend to like company hop because they think that if I move laterally it's the only way I'm going to get a raise but the grass isn't always greener on the other side the grass is greener where you water it right like have you actually you know within your own company asked for a raise asked for growth had those discussions looked at those pieces I really I really like that but I like that the first point there, which is, even though you mentioned it, we see this so often with the startups we work with. They get venture capital funding, and then, okay, I've got all this investment, so now I've got to grow, grow, grow. I've got to hire all these roles. And they hire far too quickly, trying to hit numbers on employee count versus solve a specific problem, which is what you're getting at, right? Versus actually solve a problem with each candidate. And often my biggest advice to people is in those cases, like hire one at a time. Don't hire 10, hire one, get them in, see how it's going. Hire the second one, then hire the third one. Like, let's just build this iteratively because imagine being on the Mighty Ducks and getting 10 new team players. You're going to lose your team mojo. You're going to lose the teamwork. You're going to lose the culture, right? Like all of those pieces. But if you add one at a time, you still have the density of the team that was there before that can help grow, help teach, help really mitigate those pieces.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I will just jump in for a second. I think hiring in twos is really great. Depends on the role. I mean, yeah, sometimes you don't need two people for one role. Like, you know, obviously you're not going to hire two, you know, CROs, right? Like, you know, so there is definitely, but I just want to, you know, talk about how two is really good because both people can, you know, it's kind of like taking a pair to swim, right? If somebody's drowning, you can help them out. It's going to challenge that. People thrive on challenge, too. If somebody's doing really well in sales, they're going to try and beat that person. If that person, unfortunately, something happens to them, you still have that other person with that knowledge. So if you can afford it, I always recommend to hire in twos. And then I don't recommend hiring teams probably above seven. And so, yeah, I think that everyone has been just throwing money at a problem. And in some cases, cases like you just don't want to necessarily let that money sit and stale and do nothing but it needs to be very methodical I mean you talk about like time heals all wounds right like just like you said just see what happens right like be very methodical hire the right people higher quality and if that means you need to change your requirements to hire higher quality or change your salary you know maybe hire somebody for 100k instead of two people at 90k you know less management headache you know less drama less issues like there's just all these things that you know come with hiring a team and if you're not set up for it if you just go speed then it'll be one of the things is fresh books in Canada for people that know fresh books there's a wonderful beautiful product I love the product so much but they came to the point where they like they got over like kind of like a hundred and they kind of like lost their culture and mojo because they were just growing so fast they made a couple changes I don't know if that was like I don't want spreading rumors that was the total problem of where the company went but they had a massive amazing talent on that team, you know, amazing product. I think, you know, believe it still exists, but I think they could have crushed QuickBooks if they had just methodically more thought about, like, you know, I think, and I know a lot of people on the HR team, same people, doing all the right things. But I think it was just like a little bit of, you know, I think we should do this, or I think we should do this. And, you know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00:That's good to share. I got one more kind of grouping of questions here for you, Adam, a little bit around the founders and yourself kind of personally, too like so founder burnout is very real right when we talk a lot of to a lot of founders a lot of startup founders you know they're hustling they're working hard they're up or they're up early they're they're staying up late they're working and oftentimes it has a lot to do with the fact that they haven't built the right sort of leadership around them they scaled the talent around them and you and I met at the dinner we were talking about scaling leadership talent this is kind of part of it but as a founders trying to scale and trying to grow they come to a lot of burnout issues also mind mindset issues around how to approach scaling from a talent perspective. So first, personally, like you're running multiple businesses. You've had to grow your team. You had to give up, you know, give away control to certain people on the team so that they could grow without you and so that you're not the bottleneck. How have you maybe avoided burnout? How have you thought about scaling your talent and your team? Give me just some personal thoughts on it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I love this question, especially now because I am feeling like, you know, we are like, yeah, I've been working like crazy. since I was, you know, 13 years old. Like I said, like I just, I definitely burned the candle at both ends and I'm just, you know, constantly, I've got six things, you know, six to seven things in my head at once, even during this podcast. But I will say that, you know, personally from experience in terms of like how I'm managing all these companies over the years, what I've realized is that focus is the biggest hack. It's like being able to say, no, I think I just, you know, maybe I felt bad or I was trying to be too nice or like, you know, just, you know, just thinking that I had to open all these doors. But the more and more I say no, the more weight I feel is lifted off my shoulder. And then I set my calendar by prioritizing and color coding really just based on two things, which is health and wealth. Health is like anything like family related, you know, hitting the Peloton or, you know, I have a boxing coach. Like that was the best thing that I ever did was get a boxing coach to pay, to pay somebody to make sure that I
SPEAKER_00:show up.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And honestly, like
SPEAKER_00:push myself too. Right. Like, cause you know, if you did it, you do it on your own, maybe you go 80% with a coach, you get 110%. Right. Like there's that extra bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Fortunately you do it. And, and, and in boxing is like, basically like a workout for your brain as well, because if you have six things going on in my head at once, I'm going to get hit. So, you know, it's just I think I really chose the right sport. But anyway,
SPEAKER_00:I'll just end it. No, I like that. I like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'll just end it saying that, like, you know, I think what people need to do for burnout is just like set those priorities, like, you know, color code their calendar, get tools like superhuman or whatever is going to kind of ease some of the burden and pain. And make sure you're doing something that you like. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't have made it this far if I wasn't super passionate about breaking down doors in this space.
SPEAKER_00:It's fantastic. Well, Adam, I'm glad you put us on your priority list and that you made time for us on this podcast. This has been a really fun conversation. Before we wrap it up, Adam, any final hot takes, any final thoughts for some of our founders who are listening to this, for some of the VPs of talent that listen to this, any kind of last thoughts that you'd want to share, anything that you've been chewing on?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would say that don't be afraid to make mistakes. I mean, like, you know, hiring isn't perfect. Like you have to, you know, do put yourself out there and take those risks. But, you know, I would definitely find somebody that's in your corner that all they do is think about recruiting, whether that's in-house or otherwise. I'm always happy to be a sounding board. I love talking about the stuff, you know, traction, talent, retention. Yeah, I think I think the last thing is like, yeah, just try to focus on the current team that you have. Like, I really like Netflix's philosophy on that's like the quotes escaping me but the keeper test just to kind of figure out like who you know in the organization you still want to go to war with and like just constantly do that like every week
SPEAKER_00:Remind the folks for the keeper test. Who would you be upset if they left tomorrow? Or who would you try and counteroffer if they left tomorrow? They had a specific one, I remember. Is that the keeper test you're referring to?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got it. That's exactly it. Who would you pay more to keep? Who would you not be happy losing? And
SPEAKER_00:who would you be happy if they left? Where you'd be like, wait, you know, it's a relief. Maybe I should have gone for to this person?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, attrition isn't always bad. Like, look, there are certain people that can take you from A to B or zero to one. And there are certain people that have to take you to the next step. I know some companies really struggle with like, well, I started the company with this person or... You know, we did that. But honestly, attrition can be a good thing. And it's a, you know, restart, refresh. Sports teams do it all the time. There are a lot of correlations between sporting and building a team and dating and building a team. Like, there's just a lot of correlations that, like, you know, rally back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. No, I really like that. I think that's key for us to sort of, like, we've talked about this before. It's like, is the turnover in a startup a bug or a feature? And the reality is that it's a feature. Like, startups need natural turnover because if they don't turnover they don't update their talent right and who you needed at the start you know the the sort of generalists that are just hacking away at things aren't the pointy people you need as you start to grow and as you scale right the leaders that got you here are not the ones that get you there but we've given out all our vp titles and all our c-suite titles already because we wanted everyone to feel good that's that right that's the other piece of it the other challenge there adam this was wonderful this was awesome adam where can people find you online on linkedin where is that where's the best place to find you to connect with you to learn more about your companies and all the amazing work you do for recruitment
SPEAKER_01:yeah uh you can go to recruiteradam.com um that's where you find like all of my portfolio and links to all my site on linkedin um adam geller there's there's a couple but you know if you see lakers group that's me and uh and yeah those are the two best places i live in both both those areas.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Fantastic. Well, folks, thank you so much for joining us. If you made it all the way to the end of the episode, we love that we've had you here. If you have any questions for Adam, you have any questions for me, you can always send in your questions. You can find me at unicornlabs.ca. You can find me on LinkedIn or any of our socials. Ask us our questions. Let us get your questions over to Adam. We'll talk to you at our next episode. Thank you. And that's it. That's all for now.