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Lessons - The Hiring Process That Got SpaceX’s Attention | Harpaul Sambhi - Careerify Founder · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore how intentional hiring and radical transparency
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  creates stronger, more resilient companies.
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  Discover why defining clear values drives diverse and inclusive teams.
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  Understand how open communication builds trust and alignment across all levels,
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  and uncover how investing in top talent accelerates growth while empowering leaders to scale effectively.
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  One thing that I was curious about was how do you build a hiring process that supports that?
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  So it's so simple to fall into the trap of, and this is not a good thing,
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  but this is what happens when people, you know, the incorrect interpretation of culture and
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  a business is you're just hiring people that are similar to what you already have,
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  which is in my opinion and what you just described incorrect.
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  So how do you make sure that you build this into an actual process so that an entrepreneur
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  starting out can get this right from the from the get go because a nervous entrepreneur that's
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  just starting out probably would feel more comfortable hiring somebody that's very similar to them.
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  It probably would feel like it's safe, right? So how do you not? How do you go against that?
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  I think there's a couple of things to to ultimately anchor an entrepreneur on number one,
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  like be intentional about company values. I think ultimately my first business,
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  I went to kind of websites, went to Google, went to like other companies,
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  and they just said, hey, let me go ahead and just steal their values, and then you write it on a wall,
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  and that's it. And really quickly, I realized that not a lot of people
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  even knew what our value, I didn't know what my values were either. So being very intentional
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  the values of what you want to become, I think really starts to help in the sales process overall.
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  I think then you create that intentionalism and you start to go into interviewing and saying,
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  okay, like we have, we know who we are, we come from this ilk, we have these people in our network,
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  but at the same time as well, where do we want to ultimately help diversify and be explicit
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  and intentional about it. So as an example, we said, hey, we want to start to tap into the LGBTQ
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  community. We don't really have much in our networks, so let's go out there and find it and
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  be explicit and start to go into this communities. And that's something that you have to be more
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  proactive on instead of taking the reactive measures. And I think it's lost one of the things that
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  people, they just don't necessarily, and entrepreneurs just don't kind of like come back to. And this
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  is like one that I really had a huge guard up, but now I'm totally forest is asking for help, right?
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  And asking for favors. So just being able to say, Scott, like, I don't have a network here,
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  do you have a network here? And being intentional about the explicit helps that you need can really
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  start to open up the kind of like the conversations and speed up the ability to get you into those
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  networks to then become more intentional about your hiring. So these are kind of a lift after you
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  figure after you make that connection is less of a lift after you do it the first time after you
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  ask for help the first time, then it's all of a sudden something that's more easily accessible to
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  you too. Exactly. Yeah. And I think those are those are like the key areas of how to become a lot
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  more intentional when it comes to kind of like the hiring process start first start by, you know,
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  diversifying your pool, being more explicit there, getting into avenues and channels that you're
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  not comfortable with and being okay with. And then ensuring that your interviews have well
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  diversity or representation of the diversity that you're in for. Okay, so that that covers like,
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  so now that's hiring. And then as you're interviewing, you're seeking out these candidates.
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  I'm so hiring and interviewing kind of like go hand in hand when you're trying to improve,
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  improve this aspect of your business. What about the transparency when it comes to both
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  what you're looking for in a candidate as well as what the candidate is exposed to in your business?
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  Yeah, I, you know, in my first business, I was hidden, I was hiding everything. And it's not
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  intentional, but I, you know, you just learn that less is more. I guess like that's like the
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  adage that people sometimes say. And as a result, like, you know, my, I would say my employees
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  sometimes were in the dark of like, were we fundraising? Were we not? What happened to this big
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  account that you were talking about that just didn't happen? And I realized there that if you have
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  radical candidness in your company, and this is what we're doing in now magical, where we, we have
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  our investor updates are open, our financials are open to every employee to scrutinize or ask
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  questions of why we're making these investments. Our decision making process is open.
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  It allows people to understand your side and be, allow them to ask the right questions for
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  themselves, because I think a lot of the miscommunication and challenges in, in company building
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  comes from and stems from assumptions. And if you don't know the key facts, then assumptions
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  start to create and then you go to other employees that might have other assumptions. Now, if you
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  level the playing field of just creating all the facts within your company, then we're all basing
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  it off the same facts. And that creates the ability to have a very binary discussion to be able to
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  say, Hey, these are the facts. This is how we're thinking about it. What is your thought? And now you
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  agree to disagree versus not. And I think my first time around like I said in, in, in career five,
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  my first business, we just didn't have that. A lot of entrepreneurs that I spoke to, I was like,
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  do you provide, you know, financial updates or like, no, we don't want to show the fact that we
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  have six months of runway. Now, those are sometimes situations where you as an entrepreneur have to
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  ask yourself, like, what is this information going to do to an employee? Like it could be potentially
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  an alarming figure. But at the same time, it's reality. And why not give, if you give people the
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  data, if you give radical candidness, you start to create a foundation of trust. And a foundation
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  of trust is where you can work off of versus, you know, providing an alternate universe, if that makes
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  sense, specific data points or conversely trying to lead them on hoping for a prior to whim,
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  like a new key kind to kind of increase your runway. And it never happens, right? So that is
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  something that we definitely learned a lot of. And I think you're spot on in terms of building out
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  that transparency and ultimately within the actual company itself. How do you deal with deal with
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  is probably the wrong word. How do you manage all of the opinions that we're going to come at you now
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  when you do have that radical candor? Because now everybody is going to have an opinion about what
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  you should do and how you should do it. And it may be difficult for people to understand that
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  you're not accepting their opinion or perhaps they're coming from a place where they think they know
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  what's best, but potentially you disagree with them as a founder or an entrepreneur. How do you
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  manage that? Because there's a ton of noise. The second you open everything up.
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  Yeah. For me, specifically, it's about instilling trust and ownership. And we can always agree to
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  disagree. You know, I think the big thing that I've learned over 12 years so far is people want
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  to be heard. And if you can't give them the voice, then you're, you're already facing that battle
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  of mistrust and not understanding the entire interpretation and the decision making process
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  once you provide them this data points or not provide them the data points. So you often have
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  surprises where people just resign and you're like, where did this come from? Right. So I think it's
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  important for any entrepreneur to say this room that we're building with you as employees is
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  it's a room of trust. It is something where we're not going to always agree by, but at the same time
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  if you take the adaptation of learning, listening, and then pausing to reflect and say, I agree or
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  disagree, that is actually like 90% of the the battle. People want to be heard, right? So that is
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  the way that I like to construct it. And the the delta between my first business and second
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  business is night and day. People make informed decisions. People will say, Harpal, I disagree with
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  your thought here, but let's move forward because ultimately a lot of decisions when you when you come
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  down to kind of like what is this decision? It's not going to break or make the company. Now if
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  if it's a decision to where you're going to make or break the company, I you're going to sell the
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  business. You're going to go for a fundraise. You're going to go bankrupt. You're taking on a key
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  account that trash transcends the overall business. Then I do think you need to kind of move slow
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  and think long and hard about it and and welcome those opinions to ensure that you have it.
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  But most of these ideas, most of these decisions, there's always two doors. And if there's if the door
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  kind of lied to you to come back, you can always kind of say, Hey, you're right. Let's go now build
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  this and you now have a bedrock of information that you can now quickly speed up to in order to kind
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  of solve the solution again versus not going at all. So that's how I think about it. And as a result,
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  like I said, like it's really elevated our ability to have a better employee experience in the
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  company. That's smart. I like that. Okay. So you're hiring talent. Speak to me about investing in
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  talent. So do you try and bootstrap? Do you try and find the cheapest option and train them up?
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  Do you look for certain maybe soft skills as opposed to ex experience with a certain hard skill
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  or in a certain position? How do you go about that? I think there's always a trade off depending
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  on your financial situation. My first business I was bootstrapped. You know, I penny pinched.
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  I come I come from immigrants, right? So we really try to stretch the dollar there. And
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  you know, I think what we ended up happening is we really hired for like that
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  can do attitude, the hustle mentality instead of experience. And while that is great, the the
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  challenges and I think the key what I've learned from the best in the business in the tech space at
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  least is you want to scale yourself as an individual. And in order to scale yourself as an individual,
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  you need to create ownership. And there are moments and times where inexperienced hustle is
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  exceptional for the job, but you have to then delineate of you have to in that in this scenarios
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  when you want to invest in that that your time and energy is going to be there to up level and train
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  them, which is always part of the job. And then there's going to be positions out there where
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  you really need to get the top talent in. So what I like to do is I look at the job position
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  or the roles or responsibilities and say, if this is going to really transcend the company or
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  hinder the company, do we want to make a bet on someone that's going to be rock, have a whole
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  bunch of hustle or hire someone that has top talent. And I found that my decision-making process
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  at Curify, given that we're bootstrapped, I would often kind of curb to inexperienced. And
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  while I might have had the money, but it's if you know, I might have shaved off another month
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  of runway or you know, it would have been tight and wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't be able to hire
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  three people, I would be able to hire two. Like if you start to have those conversations in your
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  head, where you're trying to humming and awing about the quality of a quantity aspect, go after
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  quality hands down, especially if the job title and the job position is something that is very,
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  very pivotal for the organization itself. And I think the answer, no, go for it.
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  No, I was going to say so. So Curify, you did, you did bootstrap because I just want to highlight
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  that the difference. So Curify, you did bootstrap and you were going for cheaper hustle. And then
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  with Magical, you are hiring, you're trying to push your budget for the talent that you're bringing
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  in so that you aren't as a CEO, as a founder, as an entrepreneur, spending your time trying to
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  upscale these people, you're trying to get people that are walking in that do have the experience,
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  especially in those executive or like key integral roles, right? That's what you're doing with
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  Correct. Right now. Yes, we're paying above then what public companies will pay simply because
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  we want it to be a place where people can get ownership and you don't have to think as an entrepreneur
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  for that line of business. Now, there's always going to be problems, right? But you're creating an
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  instilling trust in that person to get the right to get the job done. And hopefully his or her
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  respective career and experience can can be something that you can lean on while making decisions,
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  while they're making decisions as well. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable,
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  don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive
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  deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode.
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  See you in the next one.