Hiring founders & CEOs is one of the toughest things for venture studios.
Studios know that the success or failure of the startups they build depends on the quality of the founding team. It doesn’t matter how much validation a studio does. They could spend a year researching the space, conducting user interviews, prototyping, building an MVP, securing early customers—all of that work is for naught if they recruit the wrong people to take over.
Before reading more, I want to highlight a role that we’re hiring for at Highline Beta: CEO (Stealth B2C Mobile Startup). I’ll share more at the end of this post.
I’ve started analyzing the Founder-in-Residence, Founding Team Member, CEO / C-level and other founder-related roles from Jobs @ Venture Studios. There are some clear similarities between what studios are looking for:
1. A balance between founder & operator experience focused on 0 to 1
Every studio requires 0 to 1 experience. They use terminology like, “worked at the ground floor” or “built from scratch” to indicate they’re looking for ex-founders or ex-operators that joined a startup very early on.
There’s a preference for repeat founders over operators, but some studios are OK with the idea of turning an operator into a founder/CEO.
Here are some examples of requirements from job postings:
“Track record of building and leading a successful D2C business as a CEO, President, COO, Product Executive, or GM with P&L ownership”
“You are an entrepreneur and leader with a proven track record of success, ideally with experience managing a successful startup exit.”
“Experience from a fast paced fintech, where you joined early enough to build it’s growth and lead on successful funding rounds”
“Commercially savvy operator - you can prioritize the right features to drive most value”
“We’re looking for an experienced operator with entrepreneurial ambitions to lead a new venture as Founder & CEO with our investment”
You’ll have to dig into each studio and their job postings to really understand what they’re looking for. The balance between founder and operator isn’t always clear. Some will clearly say they’re looking for repeat founders, but that’s a small candidate pool, which leads studios to open the aperture up to non-founding, early stage operators.
The spectrum from operator to founder is also impacted by when studios recruit. If they recruit founders/CEOs/founding team members very early in the validation process, they’re looking for more of a founder mentality than operator. If they recruit people much later in the process, they’re searching for operators.
If you’re looking at CEO/Founder roles in venture studios you need to understand how they operate. One of the key decisions studios make is when to recruit founders. At what stage of the validation process do they bring someone in to take a leadership role? This has a significant impact on whether they’re looking for a founder or operator, compensation, etc.
2. Domain experience
It’s clear that domain experience (or even expertise) is highly regarded. I’m not convinced domain experience is necessary, if the person has founder experience. Founder experience, truly going from 0 to 1 (and ideally beyond) is so incredibly hard to come by. It means the person knows exactly what it’s like to ride the rollercoaster. Studios can supplement that with domain experience and connectivity into the vertical. In fact, vertical venture studios should excel at this.
Repeat founders w/ domain experience and a desire to jump back into the same vertical may be the Holy Grail. Although they come with baggage.
In a job posting from Rainmaking for a Venture Business Founder in Hospitality, they ask for, “…at least 10 years in hospitality and training space, with at least 3-5 years of work experience within KSA” (KSA = Saudi Arabia; so industry and geographical experience matter).
“Experience leading an organization developing enterprise SaaS products”
“Strong experience in the financial services industry, ideally in credit/lending”
Great founders/CEOs have superpowers. Those superpowers may come from their expertise in a specific vertical or their experience/expertise going from 0 to 1 (or both). Different types of startups warrant different types of expertise.
For example, an enterprise B2B play in financial services may benefit from someone with financial services/banking experience. Going into that market blindly will be painful. It’s helpful to understand how the financial services market works. There’s not an enormous amount of room for naiveté (although sometimes the most “naive founders” are the ones that simply keep going; they don’t know any better!)
On the other hand, a B2C startup may not necessitate domain expertise in a specific vertical, but will require B2C experience. You’ll have to know how to capture “lightning in a bottle” with a focus on user acquisition/growth. A B2C growth marketing wizard may be able to point their knowhow at any B2C space.
Most studios seem to hire in the top right quadrant, followed by the top left. I haven’t seen any hiring in the bottom left, and very few in the bottom right.
3. Sales (+ Funding)
People often ask me, “What skillset is required to be a founder?”My answer: Sales.
I look for “generalist-specialists”—people with a wide range of skills and/or an eagerness to jump in and figure things out. Founders/CEOs going from 0 to 1 need to be multi-talented, because they can’t afford to hire specialized talent for everything. You might not have a world class product manager, designer or even developer on the team. You won’t have a marketing/growth team on-staff. You definitely shouldn’t have a VP Sales going from 0 to 1. The common refrain is “you’ll wear many hats” and it’s true. I focus on generalists with diverse experiences and a willingness to get their hands dirty and figure things out.
At the same time, it’s interesting if founders/CEOs have a specialty as well, because that’ll reduce the need to hire for that role (and in turn save money & extend runway). That specialty could be almost anything (although I’d lean towards product, design or biz dev).
Regardless of the specialty, founders/CEOs have to be salespeople. They don’t have to be the best, but they have to be comfortable doing it and willing to get better.
Almost everything from 0 to 1 is sales:
You have to convince people to join your startup (often at a discounted rate)
You have to convince a co-founder (or co-founders) to join (if you’re a solo founder)
You have to raise capital (which is sales)
You have to convince partners to work with you, distribute your product/service, etc.
You have to get design partners, beta users/customers and actual customers
Here are some key points from venture studio job postings:
“Reach 500K ARR in 6 months.” → I love the precision!
“Secure funding for 18 months (you’ll do the heavy lifting, we’ll provide expert advice, connections, and lots of feedback on these pitches).” → I love the honesty; if you join a venture studio don’t expect them to lead fundraising
R-Labs is hiring a CEO/Co-founder, and 2 of the 7 responsibilities in their job description are:
“Raise capital”
“Drive customer acquisition and sales”
If you can’t sell, you’ll have a tough time as a CEO/founder of any company, including those emerging from venture studios.
This should come as no surprise. Every job posting for a Founder-in-Residence, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Founder, Founding Team Member or CEO highlights team building.
What’s not clear is when you’ll be able to recruit the team. CEOs/Founders of early stage startups have to be excellent at simultaneously balancing a 2 foot and 20,000 foot view. They have to be “in the weeds” with “dirt under their fingernails” executing work. But they also need a strategic, future-focused vision and an eye to building + scaling a winning team.
“Risk appetite - you’ve directly been involved in building something from the ground up”
“Grit - you can showcase how you’ve overcome difficult hurdles in your life”
I’ve met a lot of people that get excited about the team building part, but less so jumping into the nitty gritty. These may be “wannabe founders” who romanticize being founders and building 0 to 1 but don’t have the stomach for it.
What is the ideal founder profile for venture studios?
There’s no simple answer, but there are commonalities. It depends on each studio’s design and how they’re operated. There’s so much variety in venture studios that you can’t look at the Founder role in one and assume it’s going to be incredibly similar to the same titled role in another.
Amanda Poole is VP Talent at DVx Ventures. She spends most of her time recruiting Founders/CEOs for venture studio companies. I asked her what DVx looks for and she provided an awesome response:
“We have two sets of criteria, functional experience and personality traits. On functional experience, we rate as: demonstrated experience, transferrable experience or potential. By rating on this scale it helps us be honest on how much we are betting on potential vs. what they've already done. Early in the hiring process we determine if this experience exists, then later in the interview process we transition to assessing the quality of that experience. Ideal candidates have demonstrated experience in all criteria, but very often we'll bet on transferable experience or potential in a few criteria - which helps clarify where to lean in and where to hire around them. Here’s a screenshot of our scorecard…”
Candidates: I recommend you do a lot of research into a venture studio before applying for a role. You need to understand how they operate, the types of ventures they create, the services/value they provide and how they engage with founders/CEOs.
Highline Beta is hiring a CEO for a new startup
I mentioned this at the beginning of the post. We’re hiring a new CEO to lead a mobile B2C startup. We’re looking for someone with:
✅ Past B2C mobile app experience (as CEO, product, growth lead)
✅ Growth/marketing experience
✅ Marketplace experience (helpful)
✅ There are other requirements too (check out the job posting)
Candidates can be located anywhere, this is a remote opportunity.
Here’s the introduction to the job posting:
Highline Beta is hiring a CEO for a stealth B2C mobile app startup, currently being developed in our venture studio. The new startup is focused on the loneliness epidemic. There is a widespread and growing feeling of social isolation and disconnection among individuals. Despite increased connectivity through social media, many people report feeling lonelier than ever before. Loneliness has been linked to a range of negative health outcomes, including mental health issues and physical health problems.
Our mission is to reconnect humanity 1 to 1, helping people get one step closer to happiness. This is not a dating app.
We're aiming to launch in early 2025.
Work has already begun on validating the opportunity, product scope, brand and more. Highline Beta is developing this startup with a partner (to be disclosed in the future).
As CEO you will lead the company with a focus on go-to-market strategy, user acquisition and partnerships. Highline Beta will lead product development capabilities. Our partner is leading the initial pre-seed and seed financing.
Despite the CEO title, you will need to get your hands dirty and work with a small, nimble team. This startup is going from 0 to 1 and we are not looking for a "manager" but someone that can execute work at the grassroots level.
Ben - do you usually have CEO's come in with a board seat? What if the company has been operating within the studio for a while and the studio chooses to bring in a new CEO to complement the founder?
This job post has a lot of requirements but nothing on why a right candidate should apply. Perhaps that could be a game changer for getting more applicants?
Ben - do you usually have CEO's come in with a board seat? What if the company has been operating within the studio for a while and the studio chooses to bring in a new CEO to complement the founder?
This job post has a lot of requirements but nothing on why a right candidate should apply. Perhaps that could be a game changer for getting more applicants?