Where do a startup's best hires come from: long-cultivated relationships or recruiters and one-time intros?

Casey Winters · Sep 22, 2021

Most executive recruiting for founders is long-horizon relationship building rather than a hiring process, so founders should meet many smart people and keep close the ones they can't hire yet

Executive recruiting can take a year or longer, and candidates a startup can't afford or doesn't need yet may become hireable or become advisors later

20:09 Welcome 20Growth: How To Hire a Head of Growth? What are Signs of World-Class Talent? How To Structure the Process? How To Onboard Growth Teams? The Relationship Between Head of Growth and CEO and more with Casey Winters, Chief Product Officer @ Eventbrit

Eléonore Crespo · May 9, 2025

Great hiring depends on proactive sourcing: scouting talent very early like a football club scouting 16-year-olds, constantly asking everyone you meet who the best people they know are, and identifying which companies are the best 'schools' for a given role.

The best people are locked into their companies indefinitely and only become available around defining moments

19:03 20VC: Four Traits of the Most Successful Founders | How to Hunt and Close Talent Like a Pro and Where All Founders Go Wrong | Lessons Raising $397M From the Best Investors in the World with Eléonore Crespo @ Pigment

Harry Stebbings · Jun 27, 2025

Great people always have two or three great former colleagues they would work with again, making them a reliable source of referrals

42:42 20Sales: How to Layer Enterprise Sales on PLG | How to Sell AI Tools To Enterprises That Are Scared | Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline | Mistakes All Founders Make When Moving From Founder-Led to Rep-Led Sales with Kim Graves

Kim Graves · Jun 27, 2025

Referred candidates make the most successful hires

Scope: based on Notion's own hiring experience

42:53 20Sales: How to Layer Enterprise Sales on PLG | How to Sell AI Tools To Enterprises That Are Scared | Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline | Mistakes All Founders Make When Moving From Founder-Led to Rep-Led Sales with Kim Graves

Paul Erlanger · Jun 27, 2026

The best hires come from relationships built over months, not from recruiters or one-time intros

All of their best hires have come that way

23:17 20VC: How We Got Fred Wilson, Benchmark and Index to Invest $94M | Why Robinhood's Strategy is Wrong | Why 1-1s are BS and What Every Founder Gets Wrong About Equity | Why Taste Beats AI But How AI Kills Org Charts with Paul Erlanger, CEO @ fomo

Sri Batchu · Jul 26, 2023

Senior growth candidates should be sourced through the network of your investors and executives, identifying companies one to two stages ahead of you and using their people to find and reference-validate more candidates

That is what companies actually do in practice, as summarized publicly on Twitter

19:57 Source senior growth candidates via investor and executive networks targeting stage ahead companies

Eléonore Crespo · May 9, 2025

Executive talent should be tracked like a sales pipeline — using search firms and an internal team to monitor when candidates become 'warm' — and you should start conversations with them long before they are available

It's the same as watching a prospect become warm and hot before they buy

21:39 Track executive candidates like a sales pipeline until they go warm