Founders at Work.pdf

374 Founders at Work
can have enough people in the company that work twice as efficiently as the
person sitting next to them, because they just know what to do, what not to
spend time on . . . I mean everyone, they’re more or less all working the same
number of hours. It’s rarely a work ethic issue. It’s just, hey, you give this engineer
a task, and it’s just done right in half the time as the next person. That it’s
done right, that’s the first important part; it’s done quick; and there’s just less
communication if the teams are smaller, because everyone’s getting twice as
much done. Now how the heck do you fill a company with people like that in
every single department? Well, you tap out of your friends pretty quick; but
absolutely, go hire your friends.
As I advise other startups from time to time, if you find someone you like,
pay what it takes to get them to come to your company in options or in salary,
depending on the company’s stage. But getting the right people—especially in
that first dozen—is so much more important than getting the req filled.
Unfortunately that slows down the hiring process a lot, which slows your
growth a lot, which is how I circle back to say, “In the next company, I’d hope to
have a recruiter on board within the first half a dozen people to help get the
right next 12 people.”
Most recruiters don’t work that way, don’t think that way. Recruiters want to
know, “What requirements do you need in the job?” My answer is, I want passion.
I want people that really care about doing a great job. It’s just a different
mindset. That’s software, that’s customer acquisition, that’s branding, that’s PR.
It’s really not in any one department. It’s an attitude. And it makes a company a
hell of a lot more interesting to work at.
So in turn, it actually makes recruiting a little easier, because you come in,
you meet the people, “Man, you’ve got a bunch of sharp people here.” “Yeah,
that’s right. And Expedia did a customer survey for us, and it came back that
98 percent of the people said they really enjoyed working with the other
people here.”
Livingston: Does Barry Diller let you do your own thing, now that you’ve been
acquired? How was the transition to being part of a larger organization?
Kaufer: IAC was a fantastic company to be acquired by, because they told us
their history was, “We acquire companies and we let them run stand-alone.”
So we came on board. I have to report finances up through IAC instead of my
own five to seven person board. Other than that, we were really left on our own.
Even when we had ups and downs in our numbers, we were left on our
own. They were true to their word. And my hat’s off to them, because you so
often read about small, entrepreneurial companies like ours being acquired and
it being a disaster, because founders leave, teams quit, an infrastructure process
is put in place that doesn’t fit. IAC said, “Hey, you’re running a business. Tell us
what you’re going to do, then do that. And let us know when you need help.”
That’s what we’ve done.
Livingston: I noticed you don’t have a receptionist.