OK, of course we'd love to have everyone use Entelo to find their engineering hires. Our customers are having a lot of success these days but the challenges of finding engineers when you are an early-stage company can be a bit different. You don't have an established brand yet and there's often a lot of risk, especially if you pre-funding.
Generally speaking, if you're an early-stage start-up looking for an engineering hire, odds are that they will come from your network. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it's someone you already know. More often that not, it will be a friend of a friend. While you may know hundreds or even thousands of people, when you think about all of the reasons why someone isn't a fit with your company (or vice versa), the field narrows quite a bit. Which is why you almost always have to look to your extended network (people that are two degrees away from you).
Here are some steps you can do to give yourself the best odds of finding those key early hires:
#1 - Do a scan of your network and try to figure out who within your network has the highest probability of knowing the type of person you'd like to bring onboard. Let's say you have a few target schools that might have grads that might be a good fit for this role. Who in your network went to those schools? Same thing for companies previously worked at.
#2 - Now the heavy lifting comes in. Set up meetings with as many of these people as you can. Ideally you do these in person. Phone is fine but expect your results to not be as great (unless you have a very strong pre-existing relationship with the person). My recommendation is coffee meetings and generally speaking, you'll be going in the direction of the person you're meeting with.
#3 - During the meeting, give an update about what you are working on. However, make sure to spend at least half the time talking about what the other person is doing. To the extent that you can, look for ways that you might be able to help out this person. Be genuine. If you can't help there's no need to offer but in many cases you'll be able to find a way to add value.
At some point in the conversation the other person may say "Is there any way that I can be helpful?" That's your opportunity to make an ask. Share with this person that you're looking to connect with a person for the role you are looking to fill and ask if they might know anyone you should connect with. They may have a name or two and if they do make sure to write these down. They also may not have anyone but might know of someone who might know the type of people you're looking to connect with.
#4 - Follow up after the meeting, making sure to do at least three things. First, thank the other person for taking time out of their busy day to meet with you. Second, if you promised you'd do anything for them, follow through on that promise, ideally as quickly as possible. Third, send them an email (often this is best done as a separate thread) asking for any intros they offered.
Make sure to mention the name of the person. Don't say "I'd love to get those intros to the two guys you mentioned." By the time they get to the email they may have forgotten who they offered to intro you to. Also, remind them of any context ("I'd love to speak with him about the CTO role we have at our company.").
Include a short, one-paragraph (no attachments, etc.) blurb about your company. Your goal is to make this email as easy for the other person to forward as possible. The person making the intro may connect you directly or may reach out to the other person first to ask about whether it's appropriate to make the intro.
You'll likely need to take dozens or even hundreds of meetings to find the right person. Guess what? It's well worth it if you do. And all these meetings will have the ancillary benefit of surfacing all sorts of other things such as other potential hires, investors, ideas about your business, etc.
As you get larger, you will start to exhaust your network. This is where tools like Entelo come in. We've aggregated an incredible amount of data from around the web to help you better locate the right people to be talking to about joining your company. We're operating with the belief that the amount of professional data on the web is both exploding and fragmenting. Sites like Github, Stack Overflow and Dribbble are now way more data-rich in terms of helping you vet candidates than resumes ever were.
So certainly take a look at what we've built and continue to meet with folks to surface extended network connections.
