Secrets of Startup Recruiting in the US AND Japan! (feat. Sho Takei) | E2233

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Northwest Registered Agent - www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist Caldera Lab - http://calderalab.com/TWIST Pipedrive - http://pipedrive.com/twist Today's show: TWiST is coming to you all from TOKYO as we launch Japan's first-ever Founder University! That's right, a full week of key insights from Japan's top founders, investors, and tech visionaries… when we can pull ourselves away from our favorite izakaya spots, that is. First up, Jason welcomes HyreSearch.com co-founder Sho Takei, a veteran of Uber and CloudKitchens who now helps startups recruit top talent from around the world. Together they discuss the massive changes AI is bringing to every facet of the hiring process, Sho's experiences working for infamously "super-pumped" Travis Kalanick, his tips for for establishing a corporate culture when hiring your first few employees, why being a co-founder is just a bit like getting married, and LOTS MORE. Timestamps: (00:00) We're in TOKYO JAPAN for Founder University with Hyre co-founder (and Uber vet) Sho Takei. (03:13) The challenges of early Uber recruiting in Asia (05:22) Are Japanese workers motivated by stock-based compensation? Or is cash still king? (08:24) Why tax rates give Singapore and Dubai a competitive advantage. (09:17) Do in-person startups have an edge against entirely remote companies? (11:50) How Jason thinks Hyre could grab their ultimate domain name… (13:26) Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist (15:32) Just because a startup tactic works in the US… doesn't mean it will work in Japan (17:39) Travis Kalanick and Uber's unique "super pumped" approach to recruiting (20:01) It's hard to fire someone in Japan! The high stakes for hiring mistakes. (23:35) Sho's tips for establishing a culture and hiring your first few employees ("hiring is guessing, and firing is knowing") (25:33) Why being a co-founder is kind of like getting married (27:46) Caldera Lab: Whether you're starting fresh or upgrading your routine, Caldera Lab makes skincare simple and effective. Head to http://calderalab.com/TWIST and use TWIST at checkout for 20% off your first order. (28:59) How AI is revolutionizing the hiring process, and why you still need a human in the loop (34:02) How do you win over amazing talent that's already happy at another company (39:47) Pipedrive: Bring your entire sales process into one elegant space. Get started with a 30 day free trial at http://pipedrive.com/twist (43:19) How Hyre operates as an agency and also an in-house recruiter (44:57) The surprising importance of "candidate experience" when hiring in Japan * Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com/ Check out the TWIST500: https://twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons * Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm/ * Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis/ * Thank you to our partners: (13:26) Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist (27:46) Caldera Lab: Whether you're starting fresh or upgrading your routine, Caldera Lab makes skincare simple and effective. Head to http://calderalab.com/TWIST and use TWIST at checkout for 20% off your first order. (39:47) Pipedrive: Bring your entire sales process into one elegant space. Get started with a 30 day free trial at http://pipedrive.com/twist

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jason Calacanis?

  Hiring here, what are the best practices in Japan to find somebody truly talented? And then I guess our people also, I know a lot of colleagues have moved here.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Their main goal is like just live here, like quality of life and things. But you know, they're always saying like, oh, but like, well, I guess from you, I asked the tax is quite similar.

• 0:16Jason Calacanis?

  Remote has changed everything.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yes, and also that affected the talent market a little bit because now everyone's like, hey, I only want to do remote or like, I only want to go to the office twice a week.

• 0:25Jason Calacanis?

  The return to office culture, do you believe a startup, five days a week in the office, six days a week in the office, just really crushing it, has a major advantage over those that allow work from home and remote?

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I always thought about this as a founder as well, right? Because actually hires are remote first. I would like to have like everyday office culture, especially in kind of our stage of the business because it's like we're just starting, we want to hustle, we want to be aligned, spend time together and yeah.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  This Week in Startups is brought to you by Pipe Drive. Bring clarity and control to your sales process with Pipe Drive, the number one CRM for small and medium sized businesses. Supercharge your sales today. Start with a 30 day free trial at pipedrive.com/twist. Caldera Lab, whether you're starting fresh or upgrading your routine, Caldera Lab makes skincare simple and effective. Head to calderalab.com/twist and use TWIST at checkout for 20% off your first order. Northwest Registered Agent. Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity. Learn more at northwestregisteredagent.com/twist.

• 1:39Jason Calacanis?

  All right, everybody, welcome back to This Week in Startups. Welcome back to Twist. I am here in Tokyo for Founder University. Yes, we took our Founder University pre-accelerator, we brought it to Japan with our partners, Jetro, and we're doing our first Founder University. So this week, I thought as a special treat for our listeners in America and around the world, we would meet with some founders here in Japan and some investors and do some live episodes here. I have a live audience here of over 30 different startups and we're going to be doing the show live. All right, there you go. If you're interested in coming to Founder University,

• 2:23Jason Calacanis?

  it's occurring now on three continents in three cities. Occurring in the United States, occurring in Saudi, and occurring here in Tokyo. You can go to tokyo-launch.co. Tokyo-launch.co. We've been trying to save up to get the M, but somebody else has the .com. So today on the program, I've got the CEO of HIRE, H-Y-R-E. This is a startup that helps people recruit talent using a data-driven approach. And the co-founder is Shou Takei, like George Takei.

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 2:55Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, my.

• 2:58Jason Calacanis?

  I do have a number of impersonations. Okay. Shou, you previously worked for a friend of mine and Will's, Travis from Uber, and you worked with him at Cloud Kitchens as well.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:13Jason Calacanis?

  Tell me, what did you do for Travis at Uber and Cloud Kitchens?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  First of all, thank you so much for having me here. And hi, guys. I'm Shou. Yeah, I joined Travis, like Uber, in 2015. So actually, back then, it was still, you know, it's a 4,000-person company, so it was still massive. Like, I couldn't, I didn't talk to Travis then, early in Asia. So I was based in Hong Kong, but I was looking after APAC recruiting. When I joined the office, there was only four people in Japan.

• 3:39Jason Calacanis?

  Wow.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  And, you know, of course, Uber was a sexy brand in the US, right? But in Asia, it was still like, "Oh, it's like an illegal taxi company. What is this? Like, I don't want to get in strangers' cars." So it was like not as easy as you would think to recruit here.

• 3:53Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  But yeah, so recruited for Travis. And then after Travis left, I saw his tweet, so I actually shot him a message.

• 4:01Jason Calacanis?

  A famous tweet where he said he was working on something new?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:04Jason Calacanis?

  And to DM him.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I didn't DM him like Ryan Graves did, but I shot him an email. I didn't think he would ever reply back, but I, you know, told him my stats at Uber, and I was like, "I'm going to come build with you." He replied back, "Let's get you in the process," and joined as the 50th employee.

• 4:19Jason Calacanis?

  Oh, at Cloud Kitchens.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20Jason Calacanis?

  Amazing.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  50th, second in Asia.

• 4:22Jason Calacanis?

  All right, so let's talk about how the United States and a company in the US can come to Japan, and then we'll talk a little bit about the nature of startups in Japan. You mentioned something I thought was pretty interesting, which was... It was a little bit hard to get and to recruit talent for Uber, and I'm assuming Cloud Kitchens maybe a little bit less because Travis had a track record, for this crazy new American company. Why is that?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, kind of-

• 4:48Jason Calacanis?

  And you can be candid.

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Okay. Yo, I'm gonna be like, just maybe focusing a little bit on Japan's situation. I mean, I've done all of like, global recruiting, but I think Japan is quite interesting because, I mean, as you guys know, like, Japan is quite a candidate-driven market, very passive. I feel that, you know, candidate market in Japan is a little bit more like, they're trying to find like, more risk management, whereas in the US, it's like, they're trying to see like, what if I join this company? What is my opportunity cost if I don't join this company? So they're always looking for the growth.

• 5:23Jason Calacanis?

  Is there a stock-based compensation driver here in Japan or around the APAC region like there is in the US? And has that changed over the decade you've been doing this?

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think like, Uber was really one of the kind of first companies in Japan to like, offer stock to employees, in my opinion. And of course, Uber was a, is a generational company. There's not that many companies that's gonna be like that.

• 5:52Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Like, you know, your investment also-

• 5:54Jason Calacanis?

  A hundred billion dollar company, yeah.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Correct. Yeah, I mean, the concept is new. Like nowadays, if you're trying to work for a startup, it's like, kind of expected in Japan. It's like, well, I don't get stock? Oh, not really interested.

• 6:04Jason Calacanis?

  But that changed just in the last 10 years.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, correct.

• 6:07Jason Calacanis?

  And what is the impact of the people who worked at Uber, who then saw the company go public? How did that occur here in terms of the notability of it? Did the press pick it up? Did entrepreneurs here say, wow, the stock options are really where it's at? Because I have heard in the past from entrepreneurs in the US looking to expand in Japan and other places, just people are conservative, they think stock options are a scam, they think it's not real, so they think it's a way to pay you a lower salary. So what's the best advice, the best practice today? And how do people look at it? And what was it like when maybe there were some Uber millionaires or even more here?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good point. And like, well, just to kind of like, to that point, in the past five years, there's a lot of like startups been coming into Japan, like a lot of foreign tech startups. But then they will like, you know, bounce, like exit the market in like a year. So that kind of ruined the momentum of like, hey, stock is great. Cause like Uber did it. People really saw like my ex colleagues, you know, who joined in 2012, 2013. They're like not working anymore and have like venture capitals of their own.

• 7:17Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  But I think nowadays, Japan like still, they, they still need cash, right? Unless you're coming from like investment banking or like management consulting, who, who, you know, already saved up enough money to be able to take that risk. They will, but usually like people still want cash nowadays in the market.

• 7:37Jason Calacanis?

  And hiring for a startup here, so let's say you're a startup based in Japan. You're looking to address the US market. Let's talk about talent going that direction. And even hiring here, what are the best practices in Japan to find somebody truly talented? And then I guess our people also, I know a lot of colleagues have moved here because of the quality of life and because you can get a visa here and you can work here now. As an American, I think a little more fluidly. So talk a little bit about that.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Are we talking about like Japanese trying to go abroad, right?

• 8:06Jason Calacanis?

  Sure.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  For the US, for example?

• 8:07Jason Calacanis?

  Japanese going abroad. And then I guess the sub part of that is Americans coming to work for a Japanese company here.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think what I see is, so that first case where like, you know, people from the States that want to come to Japan, like, yes, their, their main goal is like just live here. Like quality of life and things, but you know, they're always saying like, oh, but like, well, I guess from US, the tax is quite similar, their rate. But if you're coming from like Singapore, Dubai and all these lower cost tax places, then it becomes a little bit challenging.

• 8:36Jason Calacanis?

  Ah, because they have no tax or a five or 10% tax.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 8:40Jason Calacanis?

  And you can go work there. So that is a competitive advantage for the Dubais of the world.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Right, and that's why I see.

• 8:45Jason Calacanis?

  But then you also have to live in Dubai.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:47Jason Calacanis?

  Which might, if somebody's making a choice, maybe Japan has a bit of an edge culturally.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I see, um, you know, a lot of, uh, sort of like, let's say YouTubers, for example, right? They are Japanese, but they live in Dubai. But they travel here, back to Japan, but they don't stay over 183 days or they go to different places, right? Cause they can, their remote job anyways.

• 9:07Jason Calacanis?

  Remote has changed everything.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yes, and also that affected the talent market a little bit because now everyone's like, hey, I only want to do remote or like I only want to go to the office twice a week. But we are starting to have that return to office culture back, right?

• 9:21Jason Calacanis?

  Let's talk about that. The return to office culture, do you believe a startup, five days a week in the office, six days a week in the office, just really crushing it, has a major advantage over those that allow work from home and remote?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I always thought about this as a founder as well, right? Because actually hires are remote first. But I see a lot of these companies that is in tech startup, they just started and I think like the energy that they have, the mentality that they have, you know, kind of go on the field, fight on the field and leave everything there. I see that a lot with like the return to office and I see a lot of like startups who have a return to office like five days a week. Yeah, they're crushing it, right? But then there's remote where of course there are distractions. So it's kind of hard to find the right balance, but with remote, you can actually access good talent as well, right? So it's really the trade off, but if I could, I would like to have like everyday office

• 10:18Speaker 01

  culture, especially in kind of our stage of the business because it's like we're just starting, we want to hustle, we want to be aligned, spend time together and yeah.

• 10:28Jason Calacanis?

  And it's hard to reverse it once you've gone down one of the different paths. We as a company have done return to office as an investment firm. We now have, I think, 12 of our 20 people in office. And I told everybody, you can work from home if you're in the top 25% of the company. And I said that when the company was 100% remote. And they said, well, what happens to everybody else? And I said, I don't know, what happens to everybody else? And performance went up. We do allow some remote work, but those people are expected to really be the highest performers if they want to have that ability. Talk to me about the funding requirements here in Japan for starting a company and the funding environment.

• 11:11Jason Calacanis?

  We're going to have our Angel University for the first time here in Tokyo on Thursday. Today's Monday when we're taping this in January. And so there's started to become a bit of an angel syndicate building up here. So tell us about it.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  I think the funding requirement is not that difficult. I mean, in my space, like recruiting, like Japan is a quite regulated recruiting market. So you need a license.

• 11:34Jason Calacanis?

  You need a licensed type of recruiting.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, staffing agency, you have to have a license. It's super proper. You need to have, yeah, you need to take a course and everything and have a proper license. But that requires like five million yen. So you just need five million yen in the bank.

• 11:46Jason Calacanis?

  Okay.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  And then you're good to go. But that's just recruiting. Every industry has different standards, but.

• 11:50Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about your startup, H Y R E dot com, dot A I. What is it?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  hyresearch.com.

• 11:57Jason Calacanis?

  hyresearch.com.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, someone took dot com, I think.

• 12:00Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, I mean, getting a four-letter domain name in twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  We actually contacted the owner and we were trying to buy, but they were quoting like five hundred K U S. I'm like, no.

• 12:09Jason Calacanis?

  Five hundred K U S.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, for H Y R E dot com.

• 12:12Jason Calacanis?

  You can get it for two hundred. We could talk about the negotiation. So, yeah, what you do is you buy, we'll do a little mini tactical talk here. You buy like four variants of it. You tell the person who has it, hey, listen, I have these four variants. I have the trademark. We don't need it. It would obviously be nice to have. Our company's growing. We're venture backed. We'd love to buy from you for two hundred plus a kicker if we raise our next round. And we raise over three million, we'll give you the other, another hundred K. And then if we ever go public, we'll give you two hundred fifty K. So we'll give you six hundred K total, whatever it is, a little bit more than yours, but you'll get to have a little upside there. Or one percent of the company, something like that. And that can sometimes shake it loose. It depends on, are you dealing with the owner or the broker?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  A broker.

• 12:58Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, that's the problem.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  So also like I, we also don't really have any plans to like go public or, yeah.

• 13:04Jason Calacanis?

  Doesn't matter, they don't know that.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  That's true, yeah.

• 13:07Jason Calacanis?

  All right, when we get back from this important break, a little pause for the cause. I want to talk to you about the differences in building a company here versus the U S. And the lessons from the U S that work here and the ones that don't when we get back on this week in startups.

• 13:27Jason Calacanis?

  Being a founder is a lot of work. You have to focus on your fundraising. Then you gotta hire the perfect team. Oh gosh, product market fit, finding your first customers. But all of this means nothing if you're not actually a real business that's structured properly, giving your investors and clients the confidence to partner with you. At launch, we're constantly recommending Northwest Registered Agent to our founders because for just $39 plus state fees, they will act as your registered agent. That means they take care of all the paperwork, making sure your business remains compliant, protecting your privacy, and more. And as a founder, hey man, there are so many organizational odds and ends that you have to worry about. So why not have a partner who can focus on all those little details? Then you can obsess about your customers.

• 14:11Jason Calacanis?

  And Northwest Registered Agent is even going to help you set up a phone line, a professional email account, and find you a great domain name. So here's your call to action. Go to northwestregisteredagent.com/twist to get your company set up the right way.

• 14:28Jason Calacanis?

  All right, we're back with This Week in Startups, live from Jetro in Tokyo with our guest today, Sho Takai.

• 14:39Jason Calacanis?

  Differences in the customer base and running a company here? What are the things that when Uber or Cloud Kitchens operated here worked exactly the same as they would in the US? And what was challenging or different for cultural, regulatory, any reasons? Yeah, talent reasons?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  So I think for, well, like going back to the Uber and Cloud Kitchens experience, because I've actually like, when I joined the company, like we were very small and I was involved in the US recruiting as well. So I hired up several talents over there. So I kind of got to see that market, which was quite interesting. I think for, like, for me, whatever kind of works in Japan, like operational and process wise, could potentially work, you know, in the West, right? But whereas... What they do in the US and try to bring it here might not be so accepted. So I see a lot of like the startup like like an Uber or like different other startups that will, you know, from the US will come to Japan. They think because it works in the US, it's gonna work in Japan.

• 15:42Jason Calacanis?

  What were some examples with Uber specifically that didn't work here?

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it was very challenging because like, for example, the Uber interview process, right, it's very different. Like you'll have an analytical exercise where you get like an online thing. You have to pass like certain marks and it's a multiple choice, right? And as a candidate, it's like, hey, this is what you do first. Okay, sure, like maybe it's like a sort of like a logic test or whatever. Then you go through interview process. Then you have this deep dive where it's like a one hour take home exercise, put together a strategy and then present it to a panel, right? That was like, happens in the West, but in Japan, like the interview process does, don't really do that right before.

• 16:19Jason Calacanis?

  How did they see that? They thought it was overbearing, insulting, what?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  So for the right, and that process, the Uber process really helped kind of filter out who's the right candidate for Uber, right? So like someone who was more startup-y, who's hands-on and willing to like do these, open to doing these kind of things, like generally was like a very good culture fit, right? So, but people were like, wait, why are you testing me? And we were just like, yeah, red flag, yeah, that's gonna happen, but.

• 16:48Jason Calacanis?

  Ah, fascinating.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it was a good way to filter out cultural fit and how much they wanted the job as well.

• 16:55Jason Calacanis?

  It's, everything's a test and it's a little bit of spec work. You're doing some work that you're not being compensated for, right? They wouldn't give them a hundred bucks to do this.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 17:04Jason Calacanis?

  So you really had to see how much they wanted it. And if they were a nine to five or maybe a big company person, that would not be appealing to them.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 17:13Jason Calacanis?

  That's fascinating. What else was unique about Travis's ways of recruiting talent?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Oh, there was a lot. I mean, that's why I'm so fortunate to like, I mean, Uber was basically my first job and I had no experience, right? But I was able to, you know, surround myself with these really entrepreneurial, experienced people and got to learn really fast. Saw how, you know, one thing about Travis was like. He put recruiting function as one of the frontline functions. You know, usually companies would put sales first, right? Because I mean, it's a revenue driver.

• 17:45Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  But Travis actually like prioritized recruiting. So like operations function, obviously most important, but recruiting was like equally as important.

• 17:54Jason Calacanis?

  And you knew that because he spent time on it?

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Correct. He would spend time with the recruiting team and, you know, he will give us an hour every week just with the recruiting function. He wants to hear what's working, what's not. And when you're recruiting for that type of founder or leader, like, yeah, I mean, it's, you, recruiting becomes fun, basically.

• 18:13Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I think like Travis did a really good job and he still is a big fan of like recruiting. And that's why I think he's.

• 18:19Jason Calacanis?

  What did you learn from him in terms of recruiting? Like, did he have some other unique ideas about having people who were super pumped? Was, you know, his, you know, either you're super pumped or you're not here kind of a situation like?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:32Jason Calacanis?

  And how did you test for that? Because like maybe some people are performative and they're extroverts and they would do very well on a super pumped kind of, you know, interview over video or even in person. But that might be performative, not reality when they get on the job. And somebody who's introverted, who, you know, how do you know that they're super pumped? How do you filter for something weird like that?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Travis was quite open about like different functions. So like, you know, everybody's different, right? Like if you're a salesperson, you're naturally extrovert. If you're an engineer, maybe you're more not like the talking type. So he kind of understood that. And how we assess like the culture fit of super pumped is like, do you ride Uber? Or like, do you, I don't know, share promo codes or like, tell me about Uber? How much do you know about Uber? Why are you interested in Uber, right? The more they can say, obviously, it's, they're, yeah, super interested.

• 19:26Jason Calacanis?

  So they've done their research when they're in that process. They have ideas, they're super pumped to get the job and they're following up with you, et cetera.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he also didn't want someone who's just gonna like do things. He wanted someone who is willing to push boundaries. So like, see like how much can they like push to like, you know, they don't want to just be stuck in a box, right? Like if you, if you are asked to launch a city and if you're like, oh, we can't do this because of this government, like, no. You have to have that.

• 19:55Jason Calacanis?

  Aggressive.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Aggressive.

• 19:57Jason Calacanis?

  We're gonna win no matter what.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  We're gonna change the world. If you have that safe mentality. Uber is not for you.

• 20:02Jason Calacanis?

  How did you deal with mistakes? Because when you're hiring, you have a couple of days, couple of weeks to make a decision, and you're gonna make mistakes. What was his instruction and what have you learned that you've carried forward in terms of when you make a mistake, you realize you hired the wrong person, getting them out?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  In the US, or at least in the West, I think, you know, firing someone or letting them go is a lot easier than Japan. So actually, like, when you're hiring in Japan, it's a lot more difficult because like, it's hard for employers to fire in Japan.

• 20:35Jason Calacanis?

  What do they have to do?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Oh, if you want to fire someone in Japan? Well, there's different ways.

• 20:39Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Tactical ways. Um, but.

• 20:42Jason Calacanis?

  Such as?

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Well, there's one of this thing.

• 20:44Jason Calacanis?

  Not relating to any of your prior work experience, but what would be the things that people would talk about if we were having drinks with a bunch of HR people in Japan? What would they say are the backdoor ways to do this?

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so one of the big corporations would do is like, they will make a new department, say like, "Hey, we're gonna launch like Malaysia, like, you wanna, you know, it's a new business, it's a new business vertical, I think you should run it." Open the function. Get them to be like the launcher or whatever it is. And then like, "Hey, we're shutting down the function, so bye."

• 21:15Jason Calacanis?

  So you put all of the weak people on a boat? You send them out to sea?

• 21:20Speaker 01

  You don't want to do it that obvious?

• 21:21Jason Calacanis?

  And then you sink the boat?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Pretty much. I mean, there's different ways, but yeah, that's one of the big corp moves.

• 21:27Jason Calacanis?

  Ah. So create a division and then shut the division?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:30Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, that's pretty hardcore.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Generally, it's really hard to fire in Japan. So when, and this is for US companies as well, like foreign tech startups in Japan, when they hire in Japan, they're a lot more careful than in the US.

• 21:43Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Because US, you can just.

• 21:44Jason Calacanis?

  Can you hire people as consultants for some period of time? Put a limit on the length of the relationship and do people use that technique to, for both parties?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:54Jason Calacanis?

  To try before you buy kind of situation?

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Jason Calacanis?

  To date before you get married?

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Sure. There is one rule, like, you don't want to hire someone on a contract basis, knowing that they're basically gonna be doing full-time stuff, right? Because there's like that gray area. But let's say like, I mean, actually, a lot of the companies that we work with, they don't have an entity in Japan yet, right? But they want to test the market. So there's a couple of ways of hiring these kind of people. One is, you know, you hire them as a contractor, right? Like a freelancer, test them out. With the understanding of like, hey, you do well, you set up the entity, you're coming full time with us.

• 22:28Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  There's that way. And there's a few companies out there like, you know, like a EOR. You can, you know, there's companies like that where you can hire someone if you don't have an entity. Cause again, Japanese people, they like stability. Some people are okay. Actually, a lot more people are starting to like freelancing cause like they can write off tax and all these things, right? But if you're a full-time staff, then you gotta pay all the taxes possible, right?

• 22:53Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  So, but you have all these benefits of like medical health insurance, pension, all these things that you get.

• 22:59Jason Calacanis?

  And that might correlate with the type of employee you want or you don't want. If you're a founder and you've got an at-scale business, you might be looking for stability the same way employees want and you just want the operation in another city, in another country to work, you know, in a tight fashion and maybe you're not looking to push people to do all the innovation in that region. You just want them to operate the business really well.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I see a lot of situations where a company will ask, I don't know about Japan yet, but can you? Yeah, basically they'll find a consultant to kind of greenlight the market just to see like if this market is worth it. Then they're going full hard.

• 23:36Jason Calacanis?

  Tell us about hiring your first or second or third, those first two or three positions. You know, after the co-founders, let's say you have a three-person team, you're all co-founders, you have equity. How do you go about hiring those first two or three people and the big C-word culture?

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:54Jason Calacanis?

  How do you make sure that their culture fits and you're starting off correctly? What's the best practice for you?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like to say like hiring is guessing and firing is knowing. So, you know, we, when I look for people, like I wanna work with someone that, you know, obviously I can trust, right? Cause it's such a small team, you know, even if the person's like super competent. But if you can't trust them, like, you know, it's gonna be a huge thing, right? So.

• 24:20Jason Calacanis?

  And how do you filter for trust? What are the techniques that you would advise a friend who's starting? Like, here's a way to figure out if you can really trust that person to be that fourth, you know, first outside hire.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  So, the strategy here, well, all the tips here will be like, try to get referrals from friends that you trust. That's in a similar industry, that kind of helps.

• 24:41Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  And usually like when you're a startup, like you won't completely hire someone that you don't know. Or maybe you will. But usually you want to start with someone that you you can trust and maybe it's a friend of a friend referral. So that you know if anything happens you're like, hey, what the hell, right?

• 24:55Jason Calacanis?

  Why did you refer this person?

• 24:58Speaker 01

  So I mean, if usually if you're a friend and if you know your friend is like legit, you usually people around them will be kind of similar, right?

• 25:04Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  So that's how actually we went about it. By the way, there's levels of friendships as well. It's not like, hey, I met this guy like two weeks ago, like at a club and you know, he seems cool.

• 25:14Jason Calacanis?

  Who's popping bottles.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He seemed cool like it's really gotta be someone you spend a lot of time with.

• 25:20Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Like someone you can really trust your life with.

• 25:23Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  And especially these is so important for co-founders, right? I think a lot of here like maybe you you have your own startup, but maybe you're only one person. And or maybe you're trying to find another co-founder like if you can like you you want to find someone that's like ideally a friend of yours that's been with a lot with you, right?

• 25:42Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  That's ideal, but if not, I would recommend to have like a founders agreement. Cause then it's kind of like getting married, right? Like if anything happens.

• 25:49Jason Calacanis?

  What should be in that founders agreement?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, things like, hey, what's like your role? What's the expectation? So it's like very aligned. And like, hey, what if this happens? What do we do? How do we split shares? Whatever it is.

• 26:01Jason Calacanis?

  Right. And this is why the vesting schedule for the founders is important. And a lot of people don't even have a vesting schedule until they get to the seed round. Or their series A and then the V C say, hey, listen, we've seen this movie before. We need to everybody to be on a vesting schedule to make sure this goes tightly. And if you don't have a co-founder and you can't find a co-founder. What does that say about the founder in your mind? Again, we're on this week in startups, we're on twist, permission to be candid.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  I mean, I've seen both sides, like I've seen a single person founder. You know, struggled to find a co-founder, so maybe they found a C O O, but that's not a co-founder like title. A lot of times they'll not last very long. If you're a single co-founder, that's still okay, because I have a lot of friends who do that as well.

• 26:48Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, most investors are a little concerned. It's a pink or a red flag, especially in an accelerator. How many people here are solo founders? Any solo founders? One, two, three, so four. So about, yeah, four out of thirty are and for our program here at Founder University, we. Always pick multiples. We don't want solo co-founders unless they are extremely, extremely good at recruiting and talent. So we filter for that. So for the four people, you're good at finding talent, I assume? You're terrible at it? Or you're good at it? Okay, good. Yeah. Okay, we'll work with you. All right. When we get back from this quick break, I want to ask you about the impact of AI on hiring and which positions

• 27:33Jason Calacanis?

  you think will be gone or will be very different in the future, and then how it's actually impacting the hiring process when we get back on This Week in Startups.

• 27:48Jason Calacanis?

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• 28:32Jason Calacanis?

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• 28:54Jason Calacanis?

  We're back here for Twist in Tokyo.

• 28:59Jason Calacanis?

  Thank you. Wow. So let's talk about AI. It's obviously impacting every job. Startups are resource constrained. So startups use AI tools much more often than in regular companies because they're always trying to do more with less. They're always very inquisitive and interested and curious about tools. It's kind of their advantage, right? But then there's also AI tools that are coming out to help people sort. So I was at a dinner in Singapore last year and I asked 12 founders, how many people have hired an outside HR person or recruiter to write a job description? I'll ask it here. How many people have hired an HR person to write a job description in the last six months? Okay, nobody. How many people have used ChatGPT or another large language model to write a job description? Raise your hand. Hi.

• 29:45Jason Calacanis?

  Okay, it's literally almost everybody. And if we were sitting here 20 years ago, the first thing you did was hire an HR person, a talent person, part-time, fractional, and they wrote your job descriptions. Now, the job descriptions coming out of AI are better than anything you could write. I think. You tell me if I'm wrong. And then I think sorting through them. So I'll ask here. Has anybody here used AI to sort through applications? Raise your hand if you're using AI to sort through applications. One, two, yeah. So that's going to be the three. That's going to be the next trend because that's what I'm hearing from sophisticated founders is they put all the resumes into Notebook LM or whatever and say which ones are best suited for this job and why. So tell me a little bit about AI first in the hiring process.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  So I think as long as like companies need to hire humans, like there always needs to be a human in the loop, I think. Like for how I see AI as like, it's by the way, AI is like game changing, right? It's kind of like before, like 30 years ago in recruiting, we had like rolodex and like a phone call, like a phone, right? But now then like LinkedIn came around. And then I think this phase now with the new AI technologies, like this is where like the new world is going, right? So. For for myself, like actually, you know, we actually build our own internal tools like a software that, you know, it's a database, but it's sort of our CRM or ATS, if you will, right?

• 31:08Jason Calacanis?

  Applicant Tracking System, CMS Content, um, Contact Management System.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:12Jason Calacanis?

  What did you say, CMS?

• 31:13Speaker 01

  CRM.

• 31:14Jason Calacanis?

  CRM, sorry.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  So, yeah, customer relationship management.

• 31:17Jason Calacanis?

  I have CMS on my brain constantly because I was in the content business for so long.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we built the software like so, for example, like in my world today, when we do calls, like, let's say we we speak with a candidate, right? After the candidate interview is done, usually traditionally, people will have to like write notes and like, oh, what did I do? Yeah, sure, there's AI note taker and then you kind of cut. For us, we built the system where soon as you're done, everything's integrated, everything's in place, all the salary information, all that everything one candidate wants. And then our system goes, okay, based on the CV and the the note that you did, there's these other candidates that is in the database that could be good. So it kind of pushes like, hey, you pitched this role. There's a bunch of different candidates that comes on on to the platform.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Also, the client side, so like, hey, you pitched this company, but there's four other companies right now actively that you can actually introduce the candidate.

• 32:10Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  So it just kind of, it it makes us become like 10x recruiter, right?

• 32:15Jason Calacanis?

  Because the original recruiters, after 20 years in Silicon Valley or here, they would be like, you know, I think you would fit the culture of these other companies. Do you want me to try to get you an interview there? But in reality, AI does that so much better because it's going to be able to look under in in so many different corners and find trends that maybe the recruiter wanted, couldn't find.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, but for AI, I really think really like the admin and the sourcing part is where the AI can replace.

• 32:44Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, like, it is a human business and recruiters need to influence. Like, nobody wants to talk to a robot and join a company, right?

• 32:52Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  So I strongly believe recruiters will not be replaced, but it's just going to help a recruiter do so much more, like 10x what they're doing.

• 33:00Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Similar to an engineer, right?

• 33:02Jason Calacanis?

  Similar to an engineer. What do you think of these AI interviewers? People are using AI interviewers. I've been given this pitch by a number of different startups. Hey, we can use AI to interview somebody and people are complaining now, at least in the United States, that they've sent, you know, 200 resumes, done 100 AI interviews, it's not even a human on the call. And they feel a little bit insulted by that, that a human didn't even take the time to consider them. And then they never hear back from the robot.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  It could work really if it's like a really volume like it could be a factory thing or whatever it is. But it has to be super volume, right? Cause then that's the only way you can really hire that many people at once.

• 33:43Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  So if you need to hire like a thousand people a day, I think that works. But if you're like doing a full time, you know, if you're hiring an operations manager, like of course, like the person, person's gonna join a company that had a human in the loop, right? At the end of the day, doesn't matter how great the company is. If they're not even gonna take the time to like have someone speak to them, of course, it's not, it's a great, not a great experience, right?

• 34:04Jason Calacanis?

  Best advice on shaking talent loose who are in an existing job that they like or love even. They're at a company and this is, I think, really something you have to think about because somebody who's on the job market and who doesn't have a job. Man, that says something, right? That's, I think you would say the, the, what's left in the bushel at the orchard or whatever, at the farmer's market. And then there's the people who are thinking of leaving and they're putting out feelers. And then there's the people who are not even looking. But maybe, you know, they would consider it, but probably not. So I think it's pretty obvious how you get the first two. They're curious or they're desperate. But what about this third group who they're not in the market?

• 34:47Jason Calacanis?

  They don't even have a LinkedIn or their LinkedIn isn't updated. How do you get those, the really great, great, you know, talented individuals who can change a company forever? But, you know, who are coveted by their bosses currently?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  There's many candidates like that in the market, in the real market, being able to convince. And yes, you're right. I mean, everybody, every candidate has different situations, different contexts. Maybe they hate their manager or situation changed or something. So I typically don't try to discount, but yeah, when you look at a profile, you kind of know if this person hopped around so much, like, why would they stick in your company for the next one year, two years? Right? So in Japan, like a lot of people are like, oh, this person's too hoppy, too jumpy, not stable. Like, nah, we don't like that. But yes, you're right. Like, I think a lot of these people in the company that stays for a long time, hard to get, and the market is so small, especially in tech. Everybody knows each other, and if you see a profile, it's like, yeah, someone, like, do you know this guy? Yeah, he's very good. So you get that kind of reference check very easily.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  But in order to really convince the person to like leave a job is like, yeah, you gotta like really throw. I mean, at first, you gotta like really understand what drives them and what motivates them. If it's like growth or whatever the reason might be, you do have to basically throw out a lot, like roll the red carpet, basically. Like, whether it's equity, give them 1% of the company or 2%, whatever it is. And of course, use referrals to kind of get them chatting. And that's kind of what happened with Uber as well, right? Like, Dara, he didn't want the job. He was at Expedia for a while, and, you know, people kept like going at him, full-court press.

• 36:22Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, like, really good recruiter really sold it to him, right? The vision in the future.

• 36:28Jason Calacanis?

  So those folks, you're gonna need to find their friends to get the entree. You're gonna have to really understand them and listen to them and figure out what it is that drives them.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:39Jason Calacanis?

  Typically, those high performers are already gonna be in the top compensation bracket. So if it's not comp, it's what?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Could be the manager, right? Or the relationship that they have.

• 36:52Jason Calacanis?

  Got it.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Or maybe, maybe they're not, they don't wanna leave. Maybe it's too risky to leave that job, right? So, but everybody has a price, and you just have to push and push those questions to really find what is...

• 37:05Jason Calacanis?

  Would they tell you when you're on the phone what their salary is and their comp?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  If you get enough trust from them, yes. Because you're trying to help them, too.

• 37:12Jason Calacanis?

  Right. And what is the number that makes a top performer leave? In terms of if you were to just pick a percentage increase in their total comp? What would the total percentage where they take the phone call, they listen to you, they engage? What's the number?

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Usually, like, a tech executive here, like, would be like a million US comp.

• 37:34Jason Calacanis?

  Wow.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:35Jason Calacanis?

  And...

• 37:35Speaker 01

  So if you say, yeah, we can offer 1 million, they're like, yeah, okay, I'm listening.

• 37:39Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah. So, and, but what percentage more than what they're currently making kind of wakes somebody up? And they say, take the call?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Well, if it's like a really hard person to get, like, they've stuck in the business for like 5 years or 10 years or something, and they're an executive, I think... You know, somewhere like 50%. I mean, maybe not even 50, maybe it's like 80. But you know, there's a lot of uh.

• 38:00Jason Calacanis?

  So it has to be a big jump to shake one of those people.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Or it's like, hey, we'll pay for your housing, all your kids tuition. You find those kind of ways.

• 38:07Jason Calacanis?

  Holy cow.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Help them reduce tax, whatever it is, whatever the problem they have. You find that problem and solve it for them.

• 38:12Jason Calacanis?

  Wow.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:13Jason Calacanis?

  That's hardcore.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz at the end of the day, yes, they love their manager, they love their whatever. But at the end of the day, if they have family, they're gonna take care of their family first.

• 38:21Jason Calacanis?

  This is a great story I heard, just as an aside. There was this famous studio head. I think it was Mike Ovitz. And Mike Ovitz wanted this director to do the film Tootsie with Dustin Hoffman in it. But the director he wanted didn't like Dustin Hoffman. But Ovitz, if it was Ovitz, might have been another person. Had dinner with the director and his wife and went to the house. And the driveway was ripped up and was kinda damaged. And he got to the house, he's talking to the wife and he noticed the driveway. And he said, oh, this is incredible house you got and whatever. And you know, what's your plan for it? They had just gotten this house. And she's like, yeah, you know, but I gotta redo this driveway in LA.

• 39:04Jason Calacanis?

  It's notorious for being very expensive. And so Ovitz told her, I have these great contractors and they're gonna do a project for my house. But I'm going to um, I can push mine back six months. I'm gonna get these guys to come and fix the driveway for you. And I'll pay for it if you can get him to do the movie. And she said, excuse me, you're doing this movie with Dustin Hoffman and just close the deal right there. And it was all because this driveway was making his spouse insane. And that was gonna cost $200,000 to re-level it because they were in the Hollywood Hills. And he solved that problem for them. So this is very interesting. When we get back from this quick break, I wanna hear all about your startup, how you're doing it, how you make money. When we get back on This Week in Startups.

• 39:49Jason Calacanis?

  You can't have an effective sales team without an effective and above all organized sales process. Trust me on this one. I've seen thousands of startups basically fail because they had messy, chaotic systems in the sales department. It's one of the biggest red flags there is. This Week in Startups, it's about helping founders. So I want to tell you about the tool we use to stay organized here on This Week in Startups. It's called Pipe Drive. They bring your entire sales process together in one clear, easy to understand and centralized space, giving you just one place to check for all the customers and deal information you need. I'm a big fan of data, right? Especially here at This Week in Startups. So, teams that use Pipe Drive close an average of three times more deals

• 40:33Jason Calacanis?

  every month. It could be you. Join over 100,000 companies using Pipe Drive. And when you use our link, you're going to get a 30-day free trial. No credit card or payment is needed. Just go to pipedrive.com/twist to get started. That's pipedrive.com/twist.

• 40:50Jason Calacanis?

  All right, we're back, Twist, in Tokyo. We're here for Founder University. One of the great joys of my life is helping people on the margins, my team and I at the Launch Fund, just helping founders start their companies. We're doing it in the US, we're doing it in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh with Sunable, and we're doing it here in Tokyo with Jetro, an incredible organization that really supports founders and does so many different accelerators and programs. And we're the latest to join the movement here in Tokyo in helping founders. If you want to learn more, go to tokyo-launch.co. We're going to be doing this again, but literally, this is the first week that we're doing our 10-week program. What do we do in Founder University? We help founders get product-market fit, build out their team,

• 41:35Jason Calacanis?

  understand their first couple of customers. It's generally companies in year zero or year one, and we invest in some of them, and we build a deep relationship with them. Although, we don't have to. Sometimes, they don't need money. They're doing so well. Okay, so you started a company, hire. Worked for Travis, two tours of duty. That was enough?

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, so, yeah, worked with Travis, you know.

• 41:56Jason Calacanis?

  For those of you listening to the audio. Shaw goes, "Yeah."

• 42:01Speaker 01

  No, no, but really.

• 42:02Jason Calacanis?

  And he raises a "Yeah." I mean, he's intense.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:06Jason Calacanis?

  But you now carry that intensity forward, yeah?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  No, I'm all about it. Like, uh, I really see myself as a, as a builder as well, so. I think for, for Cloud Kitchens, like, beginning was really cool, cause like, small team, like. Travis was, I was on Travis's, like, interviews with, like, general managers that I was hiring for him. Around the world, got to work with him super closely, but like. As the company grows, you're gonna just get, like, layers and layers and layers, right?

• 42:29Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah, sure.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  So that became like, just two years in Cloud Kitchens, I felt like, okay, it's becoming Uber again for me.

• 42:34Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  So, this was in 2020, during COVID. I was comfortable, but I wanted to feel very uncomfortable. And so, I was like, you know what? I'll leave Cloud Kitchens. I even left some, you know, like, equity that was almost about to vest, but.

• 42:49Jason Calacanis?

  Oh.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I left. I still. I'm, I'm still a shareholder as well, but. Started 2020 with my co-founder, and, you know, like, when I was at Uber. I was looking for, like, agencies that could support me, right? Because I was hiring, like. Fifty people in Japan, like, by myself, like, I need help, right? So I was getting external, you know, support and. I didn't find a lot of recruiters in Japan that understood tech yet.

• 43:14Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  At the time, this was like, 2015, right? So. Uh, it was really hard to find a few, and then, you know, of course, I ran into my co-founder. He understood, we worked together, and then we were like. Yeah, why don't we start our own thing, right? Cause like, we bring like, an in-house experience. Like, we built Uber, built Cloud Kitchens, helped recruit in Japan, APAC Global. And bring that agency side of things, right? So how we're different is like, we mix. The in-house, the strategy that, you know, we have, and the, the execution and the experience, and then mix it with the agency side, right? So, now, we work with a lot of these, like, you know, we, we brought Asana to Japan in 2021, uh, 20, 2020. We did their Japan launch and Singapore launch. We worked with Figma, Pinterest, we brought them all here, right?

• 43:56Jason Calacanis?

  Wow.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  So, with that, cause we, we, how we partner with them is like. We will become your in-house recruiter. But we will operate as an agency. So they thought, like, they saw the value in that, right? We're not just introducing candidates, but we were like really hustling alongside these founders and these management people, right? So we work with like a lot of startups, CEOs. And personally for me, like, I like to work with companies that's like not well-known in Japan. Or like elsewhere, right? Like, so that's kind of like my personal passion, because I get to work with the founder and CEO very closely. I help them with their talent strategy, HR, recruiting, whatever, all that stuff. But also, like, just go out in the market and just sell that company into the market. Because people are like, what is this company, right? And I spend a lot of time pitching.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  And, you know, a lot of the startups, what they would do is like, they'll interview the candidate, like, let's say a founder, oh, there's a candidate, let me interview, and they grill them, right? But it's like, the candidate doesn't even, like, it's not even sold on the opportunity yet.

• 44:52Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  So I always tell my founders, like, hey, spend, if you like the profile, spend thirty-one hour, minute, uh, sixty minutes, selling the company. They want to hear from the founder.

• 45:01Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Right? And that helps these passive candidates to become more active.

• 45:06Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Right? So a lot of these companies, like, even Uber, when they came to Japan, or wherever, they grilled them super hard, right? Like, even if it's like a outbound, hey, let's chat, I want to talk to you about chat, I want to chat with you about Uber, let's get on the chat, and they start asking questions. It's like, no, you gotta like, sell the company first, get them excited, get them pumped.

• 45:25Jason Calacanis?

  You want to transfer that enthusiasm to them, and then that makes it much easier to close and convert.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  Right. Some candidates are like, they speak to a really nice startup, and they're like, I didn't like how they rolled and just grilled me, I don't like this company. And then they lose that opportunity.

• 45:41Jason Calacanis?

  So that bedside manner, that, you know, the interview process is a major part of closing.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Candidate experience, like, it's really super important in Japan. I've seen a lot of great candidates fall out of the process, because like, they were taking like, a week to schedule, or like, you know, they were like, not updating them, and like, these are small things.

• 46:05Jason Calacanis?

  Well, it kind of matters. If you are not consistent, you're not attractive, you're not thoughtful during the recruiting process, a really high-end candidate's going to say, well, what is it going to be like when I come work for you? You're gonna be even less responsive, you're gonna give me even less attention, you're gonna be cause now I'm in the building, you're gonna be on to the next one. So you do wanna feel special if you're making that big change.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so candidate experience is like super important in Japan. So you gotta like follow up, keep them updated, make them feel like they are wanted. Cause they might just think like, oh, I'm not important and like there's another candidate they might wanna hire and drop out of the process.

• 46:46Jason Calacanis?

  What are some of the most intelligent tactical things you've seen a founder do to recruit talent?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:53Jason Calacanis?

  Like any weird anecdote that you can come up with, yeah?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, well, actually, like, well, I don't know if I can say this, but like this was during Cloud Kitchens as well, like, you know Travis.

• 47:03Jason Calacanis?

  You can say it, it's okay.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. I really.

• 47:06Jason Calacanis?

  I give you permission.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  I really, like, again, I said Travis really puts recruiting number one, right?

• 47:11Jason Calacanis?

  Yes.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  So, I mean, this is not like super strange or whatever, but he hosted like a global tour back in 2018. So he was hosting in every major cities like Beijing and, you know, Seoul, Shanghai, and he was trying to recruit for Cloud Kitchens.

• 47:27Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Right, so he would like, he would ask his team to like, hey, all the great profiles, let's invite them to a happy hour. And then Travis will show up and he'll do like a happy hour, like thirty minutes, sixty minutes happy hour and sell Cloud Kitchens to like an audience of a hundred people, great people, and then they'll apply after.

• 47:46Jason Calacanis?

  Wow.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  He did this tour and I missed that leg by like one month, but like they, they did a private jet tour. So a lot of my like colleagues, like they were on the private jet with Travis going around these cities. If I joined a month earlier, I could have done that, but I actually met Travis in Seoul, like the event. And then, yeah, saw that happen. And so that was a really great strategy, like founder taking time to like recruit

• 48:07Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  A-level talent and just mingling with them and interacting with them.

• 48:11Jason Calacanis?

  It really is interesting. They, um, somebody told me. When I was talking to somebody about parenting and they had particularly great kids that had come out really well. And I said, what's the secret? And he said, oh, do you know how kids spell love? And I said, no, uh, tell me, because I know it's not L O V E. There's some insight here. And he said, T I M E. And so, yeah, don't cry, everybody. But that's how kids spell love. Now, if you're talking about a family and a team, and you're building a team, the founder, the most precious resource they have is time. Giving and spending that time is how you show love. It's how you show respect, right?

• 48:54Jason Calacanis?

  And in an adult context, it would be more like respect and honor.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Just talking about time, like, as a founder myself, also like, you know, it's been like six years in entrepreneurship. And I'm always in my office, like hustling and just working. But I, like, this was last year. Actually, I was thinking, and I was like, why am I hustling so hard? Why am I like trying to outwork everyone? Like, why am I just in the office all day, right? What am I working for? And I was trying to find my why.

• 49:20Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  And my why was like my family. But then, am I spending time with them? Like, my, my, my son is four years old, right?

• 49:26Jason Calacanis?

  Right.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  And he's only this young once. So as a founder, I kind of like, okay, I made a rule, like, when he's home, two hours after school.

• 49:34Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  I'm gonna spend as much as time as I can with him.

• 49:37Jason Calacanis?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  And my family. But then after that, I'm gonna go hustle.

• 49:40Jason Calacanis?

  Well, this is another tip I have for you. It's not the quantity of time, it's the quality of the time. And so many parents are at the park with their kids and they're playing Candy Crush, or they're texting their friends, or in the group chat. And really, it's can you put this away? And can you be present? I can tell you, like, just thirty minutes present with a child doing an activity, or going skiing for two hours. Any of that, like, just really being present, man, it really matters.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:12Jason Calacanis?

  Uh, I think.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:13Jason Calacanis?

  And then, the other thing I've told founders is, well, if you're doing this for your family, and you're gonna create a better future for them, and they get to see their parent, their mother, their father, whoever it is, both, working really hard and being productive in the world, that's what makes great. Adults out of those kids because they have a model. My father, my mother worked hard. They worked hard, they cared about us. I saw them on a Saturday, take care of us, go to the office for two hours, take a business call, then cook us dinner. Wow, they were hardworking. And there's a whole generation maybe who is less hardworking and resilient. But if you teach them to be entrepreneurs and you teach them to be resilient, you teach

• 50:55Jason Calacanis?

  them to have a work ethic, that's the most beautiful thing I think you can do for kids, especially in the age of AI, especially in an age where maybe their futures are uncertain. All right, listen, if anybody's hiring in APAC or even in America coming here. Global everywhere. Global everywhere, go to hire. Search. Hire search, H Y R E search.com. Show, thank you for sharing so many tactical lessons with us. You did a great job on your first This Week in Startups experience. Let's give them a big round of applause. Thank you. And let me say thank you to my team working really hard. Bianca, Lon, Ricky, I think that's everybody from my team who came, all of our mentors, Will Barnes, Amanda, such a great team here, making this amazing experience.

• 51:40Jason Calacanis?

  All of our partners at JetRO, who have been working hard with us for months to bring this together. And for the companies in our first cohort of Found University here in Japan, do the work and work harder, okay? That's my advice for you. Work harder. All right, we'll see you next time. Bye. Thank you.