How first-time CEOs can hire top talent: BigCommerce co-founder and Young Rich lister Eddie Machaalani

March 9, 2014 Leave a comment

How first-time CEOs can hire top talent: BigCommerce co-founder and Young Rich lister Eddie Machaalani

Published 05 March 2014 11:24, Updated 05 March 2014 15:09

Eddie Machaalani

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Eddie Machaalani (left) and Mitchell Harper, co-founders of BigCommerce. Photo: Nic Walker

Every start-up founder knows, or should know, that you’re only as good as the people on your team. Hiring the best people you can for the stage of your company is imperative for growth and building a great business. Question is, how do you know you’ve found the right person?

Entrepreneurs that have built previous companies often have a much better chance of success because they have a mental model of what a great hire looks like. They’ve worked both with talent that wasn’t a fit and with quality talent, so they know how to spot the difference. It’s become deeply engrained in their mindset that the right person can make a huge difference to their business, so they’re much less likely to settle for someone out of desperation — and willing to do “whatever it takes” to bring on the right person. Second-time entrepreneurs also have a much wider network and will often hire teams that they’ve worked with in the past, again reducing their risk of hiring the wrong person.

But as a first-time founder and CEO, how do you know you’ve found the right person and if they’ll be a fit? You haven’t hired for this particular role before, and you don’t yet have a mental model of what the right person looks like. This is probably the biggest challenge new CEOs face, myself included, and while nothing takes the place of experience and failing (which is costly), there are a few key questions to ask that can help increase your chances of hiring top talent.

1. Do they have the skill set we need now and in the future?

2. Do they have the experience and have they done a similar role in the past?

3. Will they fit into our company culture?

Skill set

Start by immersing yourself in the role that this person will do. As a first-time CEO, you’re probably already performing this role or at least well versed in the problem you’re trying to solve. Take the time to learn everything you can about the skill set you’re looking to hire by reading articles, blogs and books, and by talking to anyone in your network who has worked with someone with that skill set. Once you’ve become an “expert” in the area you are hiring for, you can ask the right interview questions and see how your candidates tackle problems.

Experience

When trying to determine if your candidate has relevant experience, start with your end in mind. At BigCommerce, we usually start with a success profile. It’s a list of eight to 10 results that this person will accomplish in order to be successful in his or her role over the next 12 months. With those results in mind, you can see if your candidate has accomplished them in the past and, as importantly, how they did it.

Cultural fit

Maintaining a strong company culture as you grow is extremely important in attracting new talent and retaining your current team. Having an incredibly talented person that doesn’t play well with others can be corrosive to the business. This is where more general interview questions come into play — throw out example scenarios and see how the candidate would handle the situation. Having the candidate go through a round of interviews with other people in your company who exemplify your company culture can also greatly reduce the risk of hiring a non-cultural fit.

Being a first-time CEO can be daunting and hard work. Nothing is more important than hiring the right team around you to help you scale your business and free up your time to focus on what you do best. I’ve found that if you do this well, almost everything else will take care of itself.

Eddie Machaalani is the co-founder and co-CEO of Australian software start-up BigCommerce. He is a member of the BRW Young Rich list, placing equal eighth with business partner Mitchell Harper in 2013. Follow him on Twitter at @eddiemachaalani.

 

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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