So startup folks can be a quirky bunch. And that often means, they’ll break a little glass from time-to-time. That maybe one of their bosses … they didn’t quite get along with. That maybe as an organization scaled, they had a bit of trouble fitting in as it got 10x, 100x bigger, etc.
I think that’s OK. You want to hire Pirates & Romantics into your startup and even your scale-up as long as you can.
So if you do reference checks, expect one or even two to be bumpy. I find most Stretch VP of Hires that you really love often had one boss that they didn’t mesh with — and that won’t give them a reference, or won’t give them a great one.
I do think that’s OK.
And also, folks since the world changed in 2020 just in general stopped doing as many reference checks. And the ones they do, they often only do after they’ve made the decision to make a hire anyway.
Ok so let me make at least one suggestion to save yourself from a lot of pain: for sure, hire a manager or VP with a chip on their shoulder. Don’t expect every reference to be strong. But they have to have one boss that said they were — amazing.
Just one. One boss you can respect. One boss they delivered for, not just for a few months, but over an extended period. One is enough.
But don’t make this hire without one. And don’t let 1 or even 2 bad references discourage you, either.
Find one great boss who said they’d hire them again in an instant — and why — and push and make sure you find our why. And if that sounds like the person that will succeed at your startup, too. Then I say make the hire.
But if there’s no boss they worked with for a while that will say that, or if 100% of their references are from peers or reports … that hire almost never works out for a manager or above role. Almost never.
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Jason Lemkin, Khareem Sudlow
