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InProd
InProd (fka Partner Path) is a podcast exploring the venture and startup ecosystem through the lens of trailblazing founders and operators building the next wave of AI companies. We feature candid conversations with early-stage leaders, offering practical insights on product execution, GTM, and the messy middle of scaling teams and navigating growth.
InProd
E64: Reinventing How Teams Find Talent with Ishan Gupta (Juicebox)
This week, we’re joined by Ishan Gupta, co-founder of Juicebox — a company redefining how recruiting works in an AI-native world.
Ishan shares how they pivoted from earlier ideas to focus on the highest value part of hiring: identifying the right people and getting them into process. With Juicebox, you describe what you want in natural language and the platform searches more than 800 million professional profiles, surfaces the best matches, and engages candidates through recruiting agents.
Their breakout feature, Autopilot, uses LLMs to semantically evaluate and stack rank candidates based on nuanced criteria, which quickly drove organic growth and strong PMF. We talk about why their data makes the product so sticky, how they see recruiting evolving over the next five years, what led them to raise their Series A, and the culture they are building around moving fast and being intellectually honest.
Ishan also shares what they are building next with their memory layer, which will make it clear what the AI is learning over time and how it improves future searches.
Episode chapters:
- 1:44 - Competitive programming
- 4:35 - Choosing the company name
- 5:55 - YC and the pivot
- 8:00 - How Juicebox differs from traditional recruiting
- 9:51 - The killer feature
- 14:30 - What makes the product sticky
- 17:15 - Is recruiting a zero sum game
- 19:10 - The macro view of hiring
- 22:05 - Raising a later Series A
- 24:10 - Product expansion
- 26:45 - Quick fire round
This episode is brought to you by Grata, the leading deal sourcing platform for private equity. Grata’s AI powered search, investment grade data, and intuitive workflows help you find and win the right deals faster. Visit grata.com to book a demo.
This episode is also sponsored by Overlap, the AI powered app that uses LLMs to surface the best moments from any podcast. Overlap reads full transcripts, finds the most relevant clips, and stitches them into a personalized stream of insights. Tap into podcasts as a real information source with Overlap 2.0, now available on the App Store.