Adam Wathan: how small startups hire employees (Tailwind CSS)

Episode Transcript
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Justin (00:12):
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Build your SaaS. This is
the behind the scenes story ofwhat it's like to run, a web app
in 2024 or a software company orany sort of small independent
tech company. And today I'mtalking to Adam Wathan. He had
me on his podcast, HackersIncorporated, and I wanted this

(00:35):
discussion over here on theBuild your SaaS feed as well.
We talk about hiring and how hard it is to hire for a
small team. Most small teamsdon't talk about their hiring
process and most small teamshonestly don't even go through a
hiring process. It's, very adhoc. But Adam decided to

(00:56):
actually do a full, like, openit up to the universe. He got
1600 applications for 2positions.
He had to process them all. It took him 2 months of
full time work to get througheven processing all those
applications. And theneventually he, tried to connect

(01:16):
with a 100 people and interviewmany of them. And he just talks
about what that was like. Andthen the result of who he ended
up hiring really surprised him.
I think this is a reallytransparent look at what it's
like hiring for smallindependent companies. And I
think whether you're hiringyourself as a founder or you're

(01:36):
looking to work for a smallcompany, I think there's lots of
tidbits in here. So let's getinto it.

Adam (01:44):
How's it going, Justin Jackson?

Justin (01:46):
I'm doing well. I'm doing well, man. It's been a
while since we chatted.

Adam (01:49):
Been a I was gonna say that probably I bet it's been
over a year.

Justin (01:53):
No way!

Adam (01:56):
Like, a real call? Yeah. I don't know, man. I'd be
surprised if if not. Time goes ayear is not very much time
anymore. You know?

Justin (02:03):
You know, here's the problem Is the I hired a web
developer, so Josh Anderton isbuilding all my Tailwind stuff,
so I don't need to bug you allthe time.

Adam (02:11):
I just don't have any questions anymore. And I barely
podcast anymore, so I don'treally have a lot to talk to you
about. You know?

Justin (02:18):
I gotta get back to building some stuff just so you
can get some noob questions forme and have to jump on a call.
You you were always, like, superpatient with me or at least,
like, visibly patient. But I dida call a couple times with
Taylor, and he was just, like,sighing audibly every time. I'd

(02:40):
be like, so what do I do here?He's like, just big sigh.

Adam (02:47):
That's funny. That's good. Yeah. I I thought it'd be fun to
chat because we just, like, ranthis big hiring process, to add
a couple people to the team. Andyou guys are a really small team
too, so it's very similar sortof vibe.
And I wanted to sort of talkabout this process while I was
fresh and chat a bit with youabout how you guys are doing

(03:08):
things these days and, just sortof capture it all, like, before
I kinda forget all of the sortof feelings that I have after
after having gone through theentire thing.

Justin (03:20):
In in our past interactions, I think I think
you and I are different in ourin our spirit towards hiring. I
I I think we have a little bitof a different angle. So, yeah,
it'll be interesting how Iprocess this and and, talk it
out.

Adam (03:38):
Yeah. So I guess, like, first thing maybe just to, like,
set some context. I'm curious,like, what's the size of your
team now, and who and when wasyour last hire?

Justin (03:48):
Okay. So we're technically 6 people, 5 full
time and 1 part time right now.We hired about 3 years in, I I
guess, or two and a half yearsin. Actually, that's not so we
hired Helen part time to docustomer support for us pretty

(04:10):
early on. And then she was our1st full time hire.
That was in 2021. And then wehired another engineer to work
with Jon that same year. That'sJason. And then we waited a
little bit. And then I waswatching Jon and Jason have this
interaction on the engineeringside.

(04:31):
And so I was like, I want thaton the marketing side. So we
hired Josh in 20. Well, he's hejust had his 1 year. So that
must have been 2023. I was stilldoing a lot of customer support
during the day.
And I was like, Jon, I wantsomebody to help me in North
American hours so I don't haveto be thinking about this. And

(04:53):
I'd met a guy locally who'slooking to break into tech. He
used to be like a manager atSafeway and was like looking for
his 1st tech job. And I said,well, we can hire you part time
for now. And so he that'sMichael and he's, been working
for us for maybe 6 months orsomething like that.

Adam (05:10):
So Nice.

Justin (05:11):
That's how it breaks down. It's like 2 people in
engineering and one of those isJon who's an owner. 2 people in
marketing, and one of those isme as an owner. And then 2
people in customer service.

Adam (05:22):
Yeah. Got it. So one thing I'm curious about, I guess, is
how you met all of these people.You just explained how you met
the most recent person that youhired. But what about Helen and
Josh and Jason?

Justin (05:39):
Almost every time I've hired in my entire life, it's
been somebody I knew before.Almost always. So before
Transistor, I was hiring peopleat the various startups I worked
at. Before startups, I wasworking in the nonprofit world
and I was hiring all sorts ofpeople, for, like, entire areas

(06:03):
and regions like NorthernAlberta region and all that.
Like, I've hired a lot there.
And then I was when I had oursnowboard shop in my early
twenties, I was hiring justvandals to work there. But in
almost I I can't think of a casewhen I didn't know somebody

(06:24):
beforehand. So Helen was in thisthis Slack group that I run
called Mega Maker. Also, Jasonworked with Jon before and, at
Cards Against Humanity. Josh, Ialso met through Mega Maker.

(06:45):
And then Michael, I met throughjust local tech events. And
actually in every case, exceptfor Jason, but him and Jon had
already worked before together,with both Helen and Josh, and
now Michael, we always startedpart time contracting. And then
eventually, you know, when thetime was right and if it worked,

(07:08):
we built up to full time.

Adam (07:12):
Yeah. Got it. So I think maybe I'll talk a little bit
about this process that we wentthrough just now to hire this
stuff and maybe some, like,takeaways, because that that's
kinda why I was curious to kindahear what your process has been
so far. And, yeah, I I'm curiousto learn more about, like, how
you think about doing it goingforward too and maybe how you

(07:32):
think things might change. So wewere hiring for 2 roles that
took me, like, a year of hummingand hawing to sort of just
commit to and decide on.
I think, like, I was shocked byit's easy to sort of just, like,
lay out, like, a bunch of stuffthat you sort of think you need
help with, but, like, carvingthose into roles, especially on
a small team where you can'tjust, like, wave a magic wand

(07:52):
and all of a sudden be 25 peoplewhere everyone can be pretty
specialized is, like, really,really challenging. I don't know
if you've found the same thing.

Justin (08:01):
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine on your team especially
I remember seeing those thosejob ads. And I mean, you're
offering good compensation,like, they stood out because it
was like, oh, wow. Adam'slooking for a very special
person.
And he's willing to pay a goodsalary for it. But yeah, on

(08:23):
small teams, you're looking forpeople that can do multiple
things. You're kinda lookingfor, like, many entrepreneurs,
you know, people that can workautonomously. So yeah. And is
this addition in addition to the6?
You have 6 right now and soyou're looking to become a team
of 8?

Adam (08:41):
That's correct. Yeah. Posted these postings, you know,
figuring out, like, what to putin each one was really
challenging and what kindacaptured all the things that we
that we sort of wanted. Youknow, eventually bit the bullet.
This was, like, probablyFebruary, I started working on
the postings sort of passivelyand then eventually more

(09:03):
deliberately to try and just getthese massive job posts done and
figure out exactly what neededto be in them and tell the right
story and make sure it's gettingpeople excited while also being
very clear and, you know,authentic in terms of, like,
what the the work is like here.
Mhmm. But posted those tworoles, kind of just following,
like, the 37 signals playbook.You know? Like, I've obviously

(09:25):
been a big fan of Jason andDavid's company, and when in
doubt, I kinda just, like, dowhat they do and hope that it,
like, works for us too. Andthat's kinda how they've always
done things.
You know? They put up a jobposting. They put, like, a
application deadline on it, andthen they just kinda filter
through everyone that sort ofshows up. Right?

Justin (09:44):
And they've created a culture over time because I
applied there early in my techcareer. Got got invited to go to
Chicago and meet them when theyhad that original really cool
office.

Adam (09:58):
Yeah.

Justin (09:59):
And, they offered me the job, and I ended up not taking
it. But I remember I appliedmultiple times and I was just a
student of what they wanted.Like, I was listening to
podcasts of theirs, readingtheir blog, and I had, like,
just seeped myself in, like,okay, this is what they're

(10:21):
looking for. This is what theywant. This is what my this is
what a good application for 37signals looks like.

Adam (10:27):
Yeah. Uh-huh.

Justin (10:28):
I mean, if you can develop that kind of culture for
job applicants like that I'msure they get a lot of bad job
applications, but they they justseem to get these people who are
the the people who end upgetting work there understand
what's at stake, how to applyall that stuff.

Adam (10:46):
Yeah. It's true. They have, like, a a very attentive
fan base, you know, when itcomes to that stuff. But, yeah.
So I I guess, like, something Ieven left out is, like, the
reason that I decided to eventake this approach is because
I've sort of held this belieffor a long time that there's
this massive number of peopleout there that are incredibly

(11:07):
talented and qualified that Ijust don't know exist.
You know what I mean? Becausethey're not on Twitter or
they're not they're not they'rejust, like, not in my sphere for
some reason. May maybe they'repaying attention to me, but I I
don't know about them. Like,there's a lot of people who read
but don't post or you know youknow what I mean? Like, this is
a story that I'm telling myselfand that, like, by limiting

(11:29):
myself to hiring from a pool ofpeople that I already know, you
know, I'm kind of limited to,like I I don't want people's,
like, Twitter celebrity ness tosort of be, like to play into,
like, being a positive factorbecause I actually think it's,
like, not usually a pause apositive thing or or it's not
necessarily correlated stronglywith being good at doing at a a

(11:51):
specific role or being a goodfit necessarily.
A lot of people are just, like,good at Twitter. You know what I
mean? And that's, like, adifferent skill. But I've also,
like, never worked at a real bigtech company. Like, I've worked
at a couple small agencies, sothat's kind of my only
experience outside of running myown company.
So my own network of people isextremely small outside of,

(12:15):
like, my online community that Iparticipate in. Right? So,
anyways, that's, like, the storyI was telling myself is, like, I
wanna put these job postings outthere because I want to see who
I learn about and meet that Ijust never would have met
otherwise. And I bet youthere's, like, some awesome
people who would wanna work herethat, I'm gonna be, like, really

(12:37):
grateful that I posted thesethings and just use it as a way
to get introduced to a bunch ofpeople who I otherwise, like,
wouldn't get introduced to.

Justin (12:44):
I'm, like, dying to know if it works.

Adam (12:45):
Yeah. It's interesting. So we have, like, 1600 people apply
to in total for these twopositions.

Justin (12:50):
Wow.

Adam (12:51):
Which is honestly, like, rough because, obviously, that's
a lot of people, but it it alsomeans that, like, it's
impossible to, like, giveeveryone's application the
attention that, like, itdeserves. Because, like, if if
you figure we spend, like, 5minutes on every single

(13:11):
application, that's, like, a 133hours of just, like, straight
reading applications. You know?And you can't just sit there and
do it 8 hours a day because,like, your reaction to things
just changes over the course ofit. You know?
By, like, the 7th hour oflooking at it, like, you need to
be fresh with a bit more energy.You know what I mean? So

Justin (13:32):
People don't actually talk about that part enough.
I've never had to process thatmany applications, but I've had
to process 30 or 40. And thetruth is is, like, you just
start going through them oneafter the other. And, you know,
you might say, oh, this person'spretty good. That's, like, the
first person you look at.

(13:53):
And then the second, thirdperson, you're like, oh,
actually, that first person'snot as good. You're always like

Adam (13:57):
Exactly. That's the thing. You don't just have to review
each one once either. You haveto read each one many, many
times. You know?
Some you can just filter out.Like, we did get, like, I would
say probably at least half wereobviously, like, disqualified
because, like, for, like there's3 fields. It was your
application slash cover letter,which is where we sort of were

(14:18):
hoping people would send us,like, a Notion doc or something
that's just, like, craftedspecifically for the application
that sort of like, we gave you alot of information in the job
posting. You know? Tell us,like, why you're a good fit for,
like, those specific things.
Like, we we gave we provide somany specific examples of
projects we've worked on,specific projects that are
coming up. Do something to,like, tie in your area of

(14:41):
expertise to those things andhelp me build, like, some
confidence in wanting to, like,meet you to talk about the
position Yeah. Because there'sso many people who are applying.
Right? But, anyways, that's whatyou wanted people to put in that
field.
Then I had another field for,like, your, like, resume, you
know, just your job history. Andthen another one for, like, your
personal site or, like, GitHub.You know, something where we can

(15:04):
just go look at some stuffyou've done. Yeah. And and a ton
of people, like, half the peoplejust didn't do that correctly.
Like, they put just their, like,LinkedIn bio for, like, all
three fields or for, like, thecover letter field, they just
type, like, n slash a. You know?It's just like, oh, this isn't
applicable to me. Like, I don'tneed a cover letter, but
everyone else who applies this.So whatever.
Like, that, you're gonna getthat. You know? You're gonna get

(15:25):
people who just sort of, like,shock and apply to, like,
millions of jobs and aren'treally being particularly
deliberate about it, but we haveto, like, filter through those
anyways. But then you get abunch of real Which by the way,
what a waste of time.
Huge waste of time.

Justin (15:37):
Like, does that work for any of them?

Adam (15:38):
I doubt it. You know? The only place I could see anything
close to that working isapplying for positions that
have, like, really low volumesof applicants, maybe.

Justin (15:49):
Yeah.

Adam (15:49):
You know?

Justin (15:50):
I just what a waste of time to just spray out a bunch
of applications. I was like, on,Reddit, there's always, like
there's a subreddit called datais beautiful. And it's like how
many jobs I applied for and howmany callbacks I got. And
they're just like, you know,sending up thousands of
applications. I'm like, man,maybe just find a company you

(16:12):
really wanna work at and thenjust do a really good job of
applying.
And, you know, maybe you mightneed to apply 2 or 3 times and
then get a chance of working forsomeone great.

Adam (16:25):
Yeah.

Justin (16:26):
That's interesting. 50%. So 800 applications left.

Adam (16:30):
Yeah. But then came comes the hard part now of, like,
okay. Now there's, like,legitimate applications, and we
have to go through and sort of,like, many steps, like, many
passes over the same things of,like, do we think this one is,
like, someone worth talking to?And then you narrow it down to,
like, a 100, and it's, like,crap. Now I still can't talk to
all 100 of these people, youknow, because that's, like, the

(16:51):
other hard part of the processis just figuring out It's not
realistic to, like, talk toevery single person who, like,
passes your, like, bar for,like, being noticeable,
Unfortunately, like, you'd Iwish that was the case that
everyone who applied that seemslike they could be a good fit if
we could talk to all of them.
But, again, if you're gonna talkto each person for, like, 30 to

(17:12):
40 minutes just in, like, aquick quick screening call, 30
minutes times, you know, 20people, that's, you know, 10
hours of time right there, andthat's, like, not 10 hours of
time across 2 days. That's 10hours of time across, like, 2
weeks because everyone'sschedule is different, whatever,
and you gotta, like, prepare forthese things. You gotta take
notes from them. You gottadebrief from them.

Justin (17:32):
Well, I'm I'm curious about so much. I'm curious
about, those original hundred.What got them to a 100? Was it
just that they had done a prettygood job of filling out the
application? And then you'rethis a 100, you're like, now we
gotta figure out who stands out.
Or were these a 100 people,like, everybody who who got on

(17:53):
that list of a 100 had lit hadwritten you a nice follow-up
email? Or, like, what were thesignals that got them in or out?

Adam (17:59):
Good question. So because we had to we couldn't spend tons
and tons of time on reviewingthe applications, I would say,
like, the most superficial,like, first pass thing is just,
like, can I get information fromthis quickly? So a lot of
people, if they sent me, like, aGoogle Doc that was, like, a 5
paragraph, all the same textformatting, just story of stuff,

(18:24):
It's, like, you have lower odds.Like, you had to have done,
like, a really, really, reallygood job there or have something
else that, like, stood outbecause I just can't get the
information out of it, and Ican't sit there and, like,
process the whole thing. Like,the people who got noticed in
that regard, like, just did agood job of, like, highlighting

(18:46):
things with, like, littleexamples.
Like like, the best ones that Ithink we got for the roles were
things where people would, like,inject links to things that they
built that were related. Mhmm.Or even better was for, like,
the design engineering role. Alot of people would would make,
like, a little website. Doesn'thave to be, like, a crazy thing
that you're, like, putting a lotof design effort into or
anything, but website's a nicemedium because you can embed,

(19:07):
like, here's, like, a littlecomponent that I built with
React or something that's kindof similar to something that you
guys have done in the past, andhere's some things that I
thought were interesting aboutit.
Like like the what I'm lookingfor is, like, evidence that they
can do this job. You know what Imean? And that they can
communicate it in a very, like,high, like, signal to noise

(19:30):
ratio way, you know? Becauseeven that skill is valuable even
if that's not, like, the maincriteria.

Justin (19:38):
This is why I personally love a website. I I've I've had
posts in the past and I gotpushed back from this where I
say, the first thing I click onis if you have a a custom
website you've built for thisapplication or a personal
website, I always click on thatfirst personally because it
instantly gives me a flavor forwho you are, what you've done,

(20:03):
or it has the potential to giveyou that flavor.

Adam (20:05):
Mhmm.

Justin (20:06):
And I got pushback from people, I think, who are hiring
more apple applicants. Andthey're just like, you can't do
that. Like, there's just no wayyou can process that. But for
me, that's the highest signal tonoise thing is, like, if you've
made a custom website that,like, addresses things in the

(20:26):
post the job posting directly,perfect. Just show me what
you've done.
Give me a flavor for who youare. Give me a flavor for what
it would be like to work withyou, what you've the kinds of
projects you've built, the kindsof people you know. Like, I just
want, like, a feel for all that.And so people that did that, it

(20:47):
sounds like they got a good thatwas a star on their application.

Adam (20:53):
Yeah. Because, again, like, the whole thing is is just
about, like, give me, like, theconfidence that I need to think
that you might be, like, theright fit, so I I can talk to
you. Right?

Justin (21:04):
Did anyone make a video that you watched?

Adam (21:06):
Yes. There's a couple videos.

Justin (21:07):
Good or bad?

Adam (21:08):
I think I l I like the idea of videos. I think it's
nice to get a sense for howsomeone sort of is able to sort
of, like, communicate, from avideo and sell themselves. I
will say, like, in practice,they were much harder to screen
because, like, you you have tojust watch the whole thing from

(21:28):
beginning to end and pay veryclose attention, which people
deserve that attention on theirapplications. Like, don't get me
wrong. You know?
But, again, just doing, like,the math, it's, like, difficult.
It's it's very unbalanced interms of, like, the amount of
time it takes on on either side.

Justin (21:44):
This is my sense too is it it's just really difficult.
The job I applied for, again,early in my career was customer
support at 37 signals. And myfavorite thing that I did that
they liked was they werethinking about doing phone
support. And so I just recorded,like, 4 or 5 32nd fake phone

(22:04):
calls where I would do a voicefor somebody, you know, I'm
having problems with mywhatever. And then I would
record myself answering it.
And, okay. What browser are youin? You know, like, I would
just, like, go through it. Butif they were really short, and
they said they liked thembecause they were short. And it

(22:25):
was just, like, just thisrefreshing out of the blue.
But it wasn't and even likeaudio was nice because it gave
them a sense of who I was, butthey didn't have to, like, give
their eyeballs to this, like, 5minute video or whatever.
Because yeah. I could see like,whenever I get a video from
somebody, even my team, it'slike, they're they're like

(22:45):
explaining something to me in avideo. I'm like, okay. I gotta
watch this.
It's like homework. It feelslike, difficult.

Adam (22:52):
It's not the same, but it kinda reminds me of when someone
sends you, like, an audiomessage and, like, Imessage or
something. It's like, I have to,like, turn on I can't read this
in the grocery line because Idon't want everyone else
listening to, like, what you'resaying to me. So I guess I just
gotta, like, wait until it'sconvenient. That that's not the
same in case because, of course,you're sitting there actually
processing these applications.But same type of thing.
Like, you can't consume it atyour own pace or in your own

(23:15):
order or, you know you know whatI mean? I'll say, like, the
video stuff we got that Ithought was really great was
when it complimented, like, awritten application, and a
couple people did this, and Ithought these were really good.
They had they'd they'd pointout, like, a couple things that
they'd worked on that theythought were, like, relevant to
the role, And they do, like, aquick, like, 2 and a half minute

(23:37):
video for each thing where theyjust sort of narrated, like,
walking through, like, here'show I did this. You know, this
post hard because of this, this,this. Almost like doing the sort
of thing that I'm gonna, like,wanna ask them about in an
interview, but, like,preemptively.
You know? And it was nicebecause, like, their written
application was strong enough toconvince me to spend the time to

(23:59):
actually watch that. You know?So I thought that was good.

Justin (24:03):
It's so much like a landing page or a good sales
page. Like, every element has tokinda draw you in and that
starts with, like, presentation.Like you said, if there's just
paragraphs and and no structurealready, it's like, okay. But if
it's like well written, thatkinda draws you in. And then it
has, like, nice sections whereit's like, here's a project I

(24:25):
work on, and here's adescription, and here's a
screenshot.
Each of those elements isdrawing you further in your

Adam (24:32):
Yeah. Convincing me to make a little bit more of an
investment into, like,processing it. You know? And
then

Justin (24:37):
it's like, oh, there's a video? Okay. I'm gonna watch the
video because this it's likestep by step. You're stair
stepping the person into a,like, a deeper and deeper. Yeah.
I could see that working well.

Adam (24:50):
So those those worked really well. And then I think,
like, the other thing thathelped us process things that I
didn't expect to use this asmuch of a signal, but, like, job
history, like, was definitely afactor. There was definitely
people whose applications maybeweren't as strong in terms of
the actual application itselfnot being, like, doing a great

(25:13):
job, like, convincing me, but Isaw they've worked at Facebook
or Facebook's not even, like,the best example. Like,
companies that are a little bitsmaller Stripe,

Justin (25:24):
Vercel, anything like that.

Adam (25:26):
Or or, like, Elastic or, like, any of these companies
where and and really all thatwas a proxy for for me is, like,
someone else at a company, like,doing stuff thought this person
was great. You know what I mean?And I know that I've not hired a
lot of people in my life, and Idon't consider myself to be an
expert in it. And that was,like, a really hard part of this

(25:47):
process, and we invested a lotinto trying to figure out how to
do a better job at it. Sogetting, like, some evidence
that someone else who's probablydone a lot more of it, like,
thought this person was wasgreat.
It's like, okay. I'm gonna I'mmore interested to talk to this
person because they were able toconvince somebody else. You
know? I think I think generallythat was a helpful signal, but

(26:12):
it's also, like, one of thoseunfair things where it's, like,
ruling out people who would passan interview at Facebook, but
have just never done one, forexample. You know?
So that I think that's, like,one of the things I've learned
about this whole process ingeneral is that there's no, for
better or for worse, like, itisn't really fair. You know?
Like, there isn't really a fairway to do it.

Justin (26:34):
Was there people that had a good application or other
good signals, but you could justtell wanted it more? Did that
matter at all?

Adam (26:44):
There definitely were people who wanted it more, and
I'm a little bit mixed on howthat influenced my opinion of
their application, if I'm beinghonest.

Justin (26:58):
Yeah. Because want it more could mean different
things. They could want it morebecause they just, like, really
want the money. They could wantit more because Tailwind is
cool. Or, they could want itmore because they just know in
their gut or they feel like Icould really move the needle for
these guys.
Like, this would be the kind ofjob where I'm fully activated

(27:19):
and I could just kill it forthem if I could just convince
them that I'm the right person.Did you have any in that
category where they were justlike, listen. I you I can run
this marathon.

Adam (27:33):
Hard to know. It's hard to know, honestly. Like, I I think
the mindset that I came into itwith like, for these roles in
particular, in my head, I wasreally looking for people that I
could bring on that I would feellike, where I felt like I was
really bringing in expertisethat, like, we could lean on
that would feel like they were,like, supporting leadership in a

(27:54):
way, you know, and they'resupporting me and people that I
could really count on for a lotof, like, on the design
engineering side, someone who,like, could help me figure out
what we should build forTailwind UI even, you know, and
think through that stuff. Andthen on the staff engineering
side, someone who came in withmore leadership experience than

(28:18):
me and is gonna be better atkind of, like, helping helping,
like, motivate people on theteam and mentoring and coaching
people on the team and stufflike that. And I think we got a
lot of people excited to workhere because they were sort of,
like, really excited to kind of,like, get the chance to, like,
absorb our environment and learnfrom us, which is good, but was

(28:43):
in some ways a bit of a negativesignal for me too because it
made me kind of worried that,like, they're not coming in
with, like, the externalexperience that I think, like,
we lack that I want Brock to thecompany.
They're coming in just to, like,oh, I'm in the big leagues now.
You know? Like, I can't wait tojust learn, learn, learn, learn,
learn, which obviously no onewants a job where they're not

(29:03):
gonna learn something, but theperfect people to bring in to me
are people who are gonna come inwith, like, the missing
experience that we don't havethat we need and want to learn
stuff that is, maybe a littlebit, like, unrelated to their,
like, specific experience. So,for example, if we hired, like,
a design engineer who reallyliked the idea of, like, writing

(29:25):
a book one day and was excitedto come work here and bring,
like, a bunch of experience thatthey had that was was gonna be
way better at this stuff than weare, but also was just, like,
excited about the ability to,like, talk to me about, like,
releasing info products orthat's the sort of thing that
feels, like, different thanjust, like, coming into, like,

(29:45):
learn how to build websites orat our level or something like
that. You you know do you knowdo you see that difference
there?

Justin (29:52):
Instead of you didn't wanna bring up someone from the
farm team, you wanted a freeagent or a veteran player that,
you know, could come in and be,like, hey, I've got all this
experience, you know. I've gotplayoff experience. You guys
don't have playoff experience.Let me come in and help you at
that level. And still wants tointegrate with the team and

(30:12):
learn what you're doing, butcould give you this perspective
of like, hey, I've been in theplayoffs before.
I know what to do. You know, I'mI've got experience you don't
have.

Adam (30:21):
Yeah. Like, in the staff engineering role, like, that
perfect archetype that I had inmy mind was, like, someone who
had maybe become, like, anengineering manager at GitHub or
something and barely gets tocode anymore except, like, in
their evenings and weekends, butit's still doing a bunch of open
source stuff. And it's justlike, man, I wish I could, like,
code at work, and I likemanaging people. I I like doing

(30:42):
all this sort of stuff, but Iwould love to be in an
environment where that's, like,5% of the work I do, and I get
to still just build and shipstuff most of the time. Someone
who sorta, like, got a taste ofwhat it's like to go in that
track, but, like, wants to comeback down to something small.
You know? That's, like, thepicture that I had in my head of
the ideal person for that.

Justin (31:00):
I wonder if you should have put that in your your blog
post. I you've got like, when Iread the staff engineer, it's
almost like feels like you couldhave put, like, that little
anecdote just that you had inthere because that's a very
you're painting a very specificpicture. Like, this is the kind

(31:24):
of person that I'm kind ofyou're kinda here in your
career. You know, you don't codeanymore, but you wanna get back
to it. You're hungry.
You know? You've worked at abigger company. You wanna bring
that sensibility to a smallerteam. You have some examples of,
like you've here's some realexamples of projects you would
have worked on in the last fewmonths. And that those are,

(31:45):
like, technical examples.
But I love that bit you justsaid that it feels like that
would have been added some nicecolor.

Adam (31:52):
I don't know how much to, like, lead with those search
lead people with those sorts ofthings. You know? But I think it
I think it wouldn't have hurt,you know, to just, like, paint
that picture a little bit. I Ithink, like yeah. I mean,
there's a million things to talkabout here, but I do feel like
in general, you know, we got wedefinitely got people who fit
that description, I think.

(32:14):
But what I've kind of feared,and this is, like, feedback I
got from a lot of people too,but I don't didn't really know
what to do about it. I fearedthat there would be a really
that there's kind of like a fewcategories of people who are
gonna apply. There's, like,people who are basically
spamming us with nonapplications. Right? So not real

(32:35):
applications.
There's people who are notqualified or not the type of not
the candidate that we're lookingfor and honestly, like, don't
have the self awareness torealize it, so they do have,
like, the confidence to apply,and we definitely got, like, a
bunch of those people too. Andthen I think there's this, like,
big group of people that are abit intimidated by the job

(32:59):
posting because it's got a lotof stuff in there, which I'm
doing it to try and be clear andhelpful, but I think it
especially because we're a smallteam and we're working on wide
variety of things, and you mightbe writing React one day and,
like, Rust the next day. And ata big company, like, that's
never the same person. You knowwhat I mean? Mhmm.
But there's a lot of people whoI think saw that and are way
more qualified than the lastgroup I talked about who did

(33:22):
apply, but don't apply becausethey're sort of self aware
enough to recognize that it'sgonna be, like, a pretty
competitive position. Theircurrent job is already, like,
quite good. They don't, like,really need to leave even if
they think, you know what? Itwould actually be awesome if I
got that. That'd be I'd bepumped about that, but it's
gonna be, like, a bunch of workto apply, and the odds are
pretty low and, you know, so I'mjust, like you know, I they

(33:45):
don't have the activation energyto go through with it.

Justin (33:48):
Did they apply? You are you saying they did apply or
they you you fear that thosetypes of people

Adam (33:53):
I think there's a big group of people like that that
didn't apply.

Justin (33:56):
Didn't apply.

Adam (33:56):
And there's some people in that group that did, you know, a
a small number a smaller numberof people. And then and then
there's, like, the group ofpeople who I think simply don't
apply for jobs, period, nomatter what, because they're
very talented, and they havepeople knocking down their door
for opportunities all the time.And even if they would be, like,

(34:18):
really excited about this job,they kinda still it still just
wouldn't happen unless wereached out to them. You know
what I mean? For better or forworse.
And I've I've known a couplepeople who sort of fit into that
category who I still have heardfrom, but they never apply. They
just kinda DM me or something,and they'll just be like, hey. I
saw you guys, like, post this.Like, I'd be interested in

(34:41):
chatting with you a bit moreabout this and learning a bit
more about it, you know, whichis, like, very, very different
than someone who's just, like,applying. But I think there's
probably a lot of people in thatcategory too.

Justin (34:52):
What what what's the crux like? I it it feels like
you're leading up to something.So I can't tell if you're, like,
leading up to the fact that youyou didn't hire anybody or you
did or you feel like you justcouldn't attract the right
applicants? Like, what's the

Adam (35:06):
the way this all ended is we did so we've hired 1 person,
and we've put out an offer toanother person, and neither of
these people came through theapplication process.

Justin (35:21):
Okay.

Adam (35:22):
And it sucks to even say. Like, I hate even like, I'm a
little bit uncomfortable eventalking about it on the podcast,
but I wanna do it anyways,because I kind of it kinda feels
like, man, it would fucking suckto have applied and then find
that out. You know what I mean?That you put in all this work to
apply, go through interviews,and stuff like that. But that's
why I thought it'd beinteresting to talk about

(35:42):
because I it it was just asurprising experience for me,
and my takeaways from it, Ithink, are relevant to what you
were talking about at the verybeginning of this conversation.
And that's why I wanted to talkto you about it specifically.

Justin (35:54):
Let me just, couch all of that to say I don't think
anybody could you definitely putin the effort. I I'm not even
willing to go through thateffort most of the time because
we're a small company. And forme, it's like I'm gonna be
working alongside these people.I want ideally, I want to have
some former experience with themrelationally. I want to know

(36:18):
them.
And so for you to feel like, youknow what, I want to open this
up to the universe and I knowit's gonna be way more work, but
I wanna run the experiment andgive folks a chance. I I don't
think anybody could speaknegatively about you running

(36:39):
that experiment. That that seemsthat seems like wow. Like, a lot
of small companies wouldn't haveeven subjected themselves to
that. We we don't have theresources.
Like, there are divisions atMicrosoft that don't get 1600
applications. And they haveMhmm.

Adam (36:57):
All

Justin (36:57):
sorts of infrastructure, hiring departments and
recruiters and process, andthey've got all sorts of systems
for going through all thatstuff. But you're you're a 6
person team, like, you're to toallocate the time and resources
to do that, I think, iscommendable. The fact that it

(37:18):
was a bet or an experiment thatdidn't work out, you know, that
I think is fine.

Adam (37:24):
Yeah. So that's what kind of what I wanna talk about, I
guess, is, like, why I feel likeit didn't work out, if it even
didn't work out, because therewere some positive outcomes from
it. But, yeah, like, it wasbasically my full time job for,
like, 2 months. You know? Andthat means, like, I wasn't,
like, building things here,which is what I normally am
doing.
You know? So it's like we'regetting behind on things. It's

(37:44):
stressful, whatever. A crazyamount of effort put into it.
Like, you don't even wanna know,like, every morning at, like, 6
AM, I call Peter while I'mwalking the dog because he's
always, like, pushing his kidaround the stroller at the same
time.
Because in Denmark, I've learnedchildren babies only sleep in
strollers. I don't know. Like,they don't put kids down for
naps in cribs. They walk them inthe stroller until they fall

(38:04):
asleep, and then they leave themoutside in the stroller to sleep
out in nature. This is aninteresting cultural thing I
learned from Peter, but thatmeans he's pushing the kid
around the stroller fucking allthe time.
You know what I mean? He'salways So he's always available
for conversations. We wouldtalk, like, every morning about,
like, okay. Did you read thatlast chapter in the who book
that we're both reading? There'sthis book called who, the a

(38:25):
method for hiring, and we'd be,like, talking about it.
And, like, okay. What whatscreening questions should we be
asking? Oh, I saw this blog postfrom whatever. You know? We we
spent so much time, like, tryingto, like, put together, like, a
a good process here.
But, anyways, ultimately, like,what happened is we filter this
down to, like, those 100 people,then you go through those 100
people again, and it's like, Igotta basically try and stack
rank these people so I can sliceoff the top, like, however many

(38:47):
I have time to talk to and talkand talk to those people. Mhmm.
So we talked to all thosepeople. We did this screening
interview with them. I'm tryingto think, like, maybe I can,
like, go through like, thequestions evolved a bit over
time, and I think we kinda gotbetter at them towards the end.
But the questions were alwaysthings like I'd ask people like,

(39:09):
okay. So what kind of got youinterested in this role, and how
do you sort of see it fitting inwith, like, what you actually
wanna do with your career? Like,why is this, like, the next
logical step for you in in whatyou're doing? Which I thought
was always interesting. I wouldask people, what are you
responsible for, like, in yourcurrent role?
Like, specifically, what are youresponsible for? And I would

(39:31):
follow that with questions like,what decisions are you allowed
to make without asking anybody?You know, like, things like that
just to get a sense for, like,the level of trust that other
people have in them. I'd askpeople about a project that they
worked on that they reallyenjoyed recently so we could
dive into that, and then we'dget into just, like, specifics
about the project, asking them.But whatever sort of just the

(39:53):
leading questions so we couldask whatever follow-up questions
made sense.

Justin (39:56):
Mhmm.

Adam (39:57):
We'd ask them the opposite things. So, like, what's a
project you worked on recentlythat you just didn't enjoy and
try to understand a little bitmore about, like, why they
didn't enjoy it? That those werekind of like the big ones. We
learned a lot from thoseconversations, but, like, a
very, very common thing that Ikept coming away from all these,
interviews with. And these were,like, probably they were between

(40:19):
30 45 minutes long.
I would know pretty quickly if Ijust, like, didn't feel like I'm
gonna really get along with thisperson day to day or that they
just like, in my head, I have,like, a couple tests that I'm,
like, running against peoplethat are very, like, black and
white that are sort of, like,easy ones. So one one is, like,
the team retreat test. You know,does this seem like a person

(40:41):
that I would actually, like,enjoy spending time with on a
team retreat? Like, just askingthat question, you usually have
just, like, a gut reactionpretty quickly after talking to
someone if, like, they're gonnaseem like a pretty good fit.
Another one, like, specificallyfor the staff engineering role
was, like, we always have to,like, work with outside
companies on Tailwind relatedissues.
Like, maybe someone's working onan open source framework. Like,

(41:04):
for example, a team we interfacewith a lot is Vercel because
they're working on something forNext. Js, and they need to make
sure the tailwind works orcustomer's having a problem. And
those, like, communications,like, always come into me. And
one of the things I want out ofthe staff engineering role is
someone that I feel like I canpass those conversations off to.
So Mhmm. One of the questions Ihave in my head is, like, okay.
Like, do they pass, like, theVercel test for me, which is,

(41:25):
like, can I just put this persondirectly in contact with this
other company and trust that,like, they're gonna it's all
gonna go really well?

Justin (41:32):
You know? So so far, the the team retreat test and
whether they could interfacewith external partners?

Adam (41:37):
Another one that's kind of a a good one that you can kinda
just get from, like, thecommunication with people, and
this doesn't really have somejob requirement, but it's just,
like, an interesting questionIt's sort of like the conference
talk test. Like, does thisperson seem like they could go
to a conference and give a talkabout something we've worked on?
You know? Which it's notsomething you're gonna have to

(41:58):
do every day, but, again, thepeople that I'm trying to bring
on, I wanna bring on people thatI can trust to sort of speak for
the company Mhmm.

Justin (42:05):
In a

Adam (42:05):
lot of different ways, whether that's through GitHub,
whether that's talking topartner, whether that's writing
a really good blog post aboutsome deep technical thing that
we did or whatever. You know?But they're just, like,
interesting ways to sort ofcategorize, like, some of the
people that we talked to. But,anyways, all I was really
getting into these conversationsis, like, it was clear when,
like, I I knew enough aboutsomeone that, I don't think this
person's the right fit. Mhmm.

(42:26):
But I never felt like I cameaway from almost any of these
conversations feeling like likeI knew whether they were gonna
be better at the job than I justgot from just their application.
You know? I felt everyconversation, I felt like I was
coming away with, well, yeah,that was like a cool
conversation. I I don't ithasn't impacted my ability to

(42:47):
make a decision, though. Youknow?
Do you know what I mean? Doesdoes that make sense? Like, is
that relatable?

Justin (42:52):
So this this whole time you're talking, I'm just
thinking, like, all thesequestions you're asking and
everything. And I'm like, man,this is just so much easier when
you're not opening it up toother to an application process
and you're just you're justthinking of examples of people
you know that would be great.And

Adam (43:12):
Mhmm.

Justin (43:12):
I have an antenna for this that I think is pretty well
tuned. Maybe it's not perfect.But an example I've even talked
to you about was I rememberseeing Caleb Porzio speak at the
first Laracon I spoke at. Yeah.And at the time, he just seemed
like this younger guy wearingcargo shorts.

(43:34):
But he had this charisma that Ireally liked. He gave this this
talk that I didn't understand,but I could see how it was
resonating. And I remember afterhe had made an impression on me
that afterwards I talked to youabout him quite a bit. I was
like, man, this this guy is justand he was doing stuff, like,

(43:58):
he's he started making thesevideos in his closet with the
early versions of LiveWire. Andthere was something about him
that I was like, I would hirethis guy for almost anything.
Like, I would just hire him towork with him because I like
this whole this whole package,this whole picture is just, you

(44:22):
know and he was working forTitan at the time, but I was
like, this guy has got somemagic that and as you continue
you know, as I continue tofollow him and then saw him
release stuff, and even, like,release early Livewire stuff and
get kind of push back from thecommunity but still be

(44:43):
enthusiastic about it and stillbe willing to dig into it and
describe it, It feels like Iwas, like, dating him from afar.
Like, I'm just getting all theseimpressions of him and then
start listening to his podcast.And then I'm like, oh, I'm
getting like this guy would befun to be on a retreat with.
He'd be fun to work with. He'dbe the kind of person that would

(45:04):
just be, you know, alwayspushing things forward.
He's got interesting ideas.Those are the kinds of people
that I'm like, oh, man. Like andI probably even talked to to Jon
about it. I was probably like,man, it would be sweet to hire
somebody like Caleb because he'sjust got this thing, you know.
And you don't need, you don'tneed to speed date, like speed

(45:28):
dating where you're just askingthem a bunch of questions and
then you're doing a phone call.
Like, somebody like Caleb, Icould, like, meet him and then
get a sense and then, you know,kind of follow his progression
and then see him again.

Adam (45:42):
And if he did apply for a job and you'd never met him
before and you just had, like, a30 minute call with him, like,
you just you

Justin (45:48):
might not have known.

Adam (45:49):
I'd

Justin (45:49):
he he would have been maybe he would have been nervous
or yeah.

Adam (45:53):
That's the other thing. Like, you're not you're never
meeting, like, the same personthat you're gonna hire, you
know, and not not in anymalicious way. It's it's just a
different atmosphere. It's adifferent condition. That's You
know?

Justin (46:05):
And I mean, I do miss it. To to your point, I know I
miss out on good people,especially because one of the
factors that I really like ischarisma. And so I overrank on
charisma. And sometime thismight come to bite me at some
point, but I just like peoplewho are making videos and doing

(46:27):
podcasts and writing blogs andcan give a conference talk. I
like people who can be engagingand entertaining, and I over
index on that.
But part of that's okay toobecause I can't I I've gotta
choose a criteria. And part ofthat is I just like working with
those people. I also likeworking with cranky introverts

(46:48):
too. So I'm I'm

Adam (46:50):
I'm on I'm on

Justin (46:51):
both sides here. But, you know, like, I I do and, you
know, our team is definitelyprobably more on the very
different than me. They'rethey're they're more introverted
and more cranky kinda craftspeople. And I I'm I'm I have a
ranking algorithm in my head forthat too. Getting vibes of
people and being able to followpeople's careers, there's just

(47:15):
some people that have a certainmagic and a certain work ethic
and they have a slot in my head.
Jason Beggs is another one.

Adam (47:27):
Mhmm.

Justin (47:28):
Just in my head, he's just like this solid worker.
Like, if if we needed that slot,I'd be like, man, Jason would be
freaking awesome at that. He'sjust like solid, plows ahead. It
seems like everybody has hiredhim. Everybody has had a good
experience with him.
He's got a slot in my head oflike, oh, man. If we ever needed
a person like that, he would beideal, you know. And I just have

(47:52):
this kind of Rolodex in my headof people that I've been
impressed by. And not every rolethat comes up matches up with
that. But you know what I mean?
So that's kinda how I thinkabout it. And it just seems like
that is the way with smallteams. Most teams do end up just

(48:14):
hiring that way because it'ssuch a risky endeavor. And to
get all of that context from anapplication and then an
interview, it's just putting alot of pressure on a couple
interactions that you know, I'vehad bad days and good days and

Adam (48:36):
And even the thing is even if it's a good day, it's just
like the impression has to sortof sit. You know? It needs to
you I don't think it can't beshortcut that way is what I feel
like I learned. Like, I I feellike there was no way to sort of
condense, like, 18 months ofsort of passively getting to
know someone through a bunch ofdifferent ways Mhmm. Into, like,

(48:59):
reading something, a a 30 minutecall, maybe, like, a pair of
programming session or whatever.
I again, I was just not comingaway from any of these things
feeling feeling like I knew theperson well enough to hire them.
You know? Like, that I guess iswhat it comes down to. Although,
like, the the the 2 candidatesthat we made offers to are

(49:19):
different in terms of, like, howI know them. You know?
Which I think is maybeinteresting to talk about.

Justin (49:24):
Okay. I'm curious about this too. I'm also curious if
the artifact of having the jobposition open in public was
actually helpful. And I had thisother insight which is and and a
reason I'm, like, thinking aboutthese anecdotes you've given me,
like, really what I'm trying tohire the staff engineer for is

(49:46):
to be the kind of person thatcan talk to me about things at
this level and that I candelegate this kind of work to.
And, like, these examples yougave, one reason I like like, if
you had a couple paragraphs likethat, there I think where those
are helpful as an artifact isthat the people that aren't

(50:07):
applying and the people thatmight not apply because they you
know, they're very they areconscious of themselves.
I think what paragraphs likethat would achieve is people
that work with them would DMthem and say, hey, this guy is
looking for someone that soundslike you. Like, you work for a
big company. You're alwayssaying that you wanna get back

(50:28):
to programming. You wanna getback to grassroots stuff. Like,
you know, Janet, I think youshould apply for this because
this feels like you.
You you you've been saying foryears you're kind of sick of
working at Microsoft, like,maybe you should apply for this.
So it it it's the kind ofartifact that, gets noticed by

(50:48):
friends of people that mightwanna apply. And the more that
you can kind of paint a picturerather than just have some
bullet points, You're painting apicture so that Bill, who works
with Janet, recognizes that thatreally sounds like Janet and
then brings it to her and saysyou should apply.

Adam (51:06):
I think that makes a lot of sense and is true, but then
you still have this problem of1600 applications come in. You
know what I mean? So maybethere's a way to do both, but or
to kinda get the best of bothworlds.

Justin (51:18):
If the best situation is when Bill knows you, and Bill
reach reaches out and says,listen. I saw this application,
and my friend would be perfect.But she doesn't think she's
she's she thinks she probablydoesn't have what it takes. But
I'm telling you, she's got whatit takes. Like, you should you
should at least have a call withher.

Adam (51:37):
Yeah. A 100%. So, yeah, let me kinda tell a bit of the
story. Like, I I can't give awaytoo much information because,
you know, it's still early here.But, I'll say, like so one of
the people that we hired issomeone who I've known for
years, and they kinda fall intothat bucket that I mentioned

(51:57):
before where they saw theposting and kinda didn't feel
qualified for it even though,like, I knew the whole time that
they would be, like, perfect forit.

Justin (52:06):
Mhmm. Did you think of them initially?

Adam (52:09):
Yes. Definitely.

Justin (52:10):
Okay.

Adam (52:11):
They were, like, on my it was, like, it was, like, a
person I was almost, like,trying to describe in a lot of
ways. And I I wasn't even surethat they would be, like,
interested in the role becausethey had a good role somewhere.
In a lot of ways, I kinda feltlike I missed my chance to kinda
work with this person.

Justin (52:26):
Interesting. Okay.

Adam (52:27):
But it's also someone that, like, we had done some,
like, contract work with in thepast, like, helped us out in a
pinch, like, when I needed,like, a couple bit of extra
manpower on something. Mhmm.And, yeah, again, just someone
who I'd had, like, a lot ofconversations with over Twitter,
over the occasional call here orthere, just followed, like,
their work, just a lot of timeto just, like, feel like you

(52:50):
have a pretty complete pictureof this person. It's it's
obviously never as complete aswhen you actually work with
someone day to day. You're gonnalearn things about someone that
you don't know and, you know,and get to know someone better.

Justin (53:02):
Did you hire Ben Orenstein?

Adam (53:04):
No. But, so that was kind of the, like, the first the
first person. And I basicallyjust reached out to them saying,
listen, Luke, we've intervieweda bunch of people for this role.
I haven't found the rightperson. In my head, I keep
comparing everyone we're talkingto to you, and I still would
rather hire you.
So I'm just gonna take a shothere. Like, do you are you

(53:26):
interested in this? Because I'dlove to talk to you about it if
you are. And that that kind ofcame together. You know?
So really excited about aboutthat one. So that's just someone
I knew. That to me is similarto, like, the stories you've
talked about where it's, like,just someone that has been on
your radar for, like, a a longtime, and you've been able to
see a lot of different stuffthat they've done and feel like
you have some trust built up.The other one was someone I

(53:48):
didn't actually know, though. SoI think this one's kind of
interesting in other ways.

Justin (53:53):
Is is someone trying to steal your car right now?

Adam (53:55):
No. I don't know why. Something's beeping out there,
but, unfortunately, I have nocontrol over it. Okay. Someone
will, someone will do somethingabout it.

Justin (54:05):
But, by the way, just just on that person, that first
person,

Adam (54:15):
other ways, no, but the the no is only because I don't
think I would have, like, hadthe confidence that I do now in
how we should hire going forwardif I didn't go through this
process and really learn thatthis is, like, not a good
approach for our size of teamand, like, the amount of

(54:35):
applications that we're gonnaget and whatever. It'd be yeah.
I would've saved myself a lot oftime probably if I just, like,
reached out to them in thebeginning.

Justin (54:42):
Was that person aware of the posting and had they thought
about applying?

Adam (54:46):
They were aware of it and had read it and didn't really
think that they were the rightfit in their own mind.

Justin (54:52):
You wrote that for them. You wrote that posting as a love
letter to them, and they didn'teven

Adam (54:58):
Yeah. Well, that's the I mean, that's kind of what I was
saying where I think, like, alot of really talented people
are pretty modest too. Yeah. Youknow?

Justin (55:05):
This is like writing a a a a love poem in your school
newspaper hoping, you know, youryour your crush sees it, and
they don't see it at all. Orthey see it and they're like,
that couldn't be me.

Adam (55:18):
Yeah. Exactly. And then the other so the other person I
found this person by taking thejob posting and sharing it with
some people that I've known fora while that I do trust Mhmm.
And just saying, have you workedwith anyone that you think would
be good for this role? Andthat's how I met this other
person.
So I didn't know them before. Iprobably could have found them

(55:40):
if I turned up my sensitivity alittle bit on just, like, my
networking. You know, over thelast couple years, I met this
person. They were we had areally good conversation, and
and, honestly, like, it'sinteresting to think about,
like, how the conversation wentdifferently maybe because of the

(56:01):
fact that I just I reached outto them versus, like, them
applying. You know?
Maybe it's more comfortable.Maybe it's less nervous.
Whatever.

Justin (56:09):
Can you say which role this was for?

Adam (56:11):
This was for the staff engineering role.

Justin (56:12):
Okay. This is for the staff engineering role. And you
went to some other founders orsome other CTOs or who did you
go to?

Adam (56:20):
Yeah. Just like an another really senior developer in my
network that had done leadershiproles and stuff at other
companies.

Justin (56:29):
Okay. And you said this is who I'm looking for, and they
said did multiple peoplerecommend this one person or
just this one person?

Adam (56:36):
Ultimately, yes, but in, like, sort of a roundabout way.
So this was just through oneperson. I met them, really
enjoyed the conversation withthem, did, like, a pair
programming session with them,and it was, like, really, really
fun. We were both kinda justlaughing the whole time trying
to figure something out and justcame away it just went really
smooth. You know?

(56:56):
Yeah. Just felt like I wouldenjoy, like, working with this
person every day, like, based onthis. But also the fact that
this person that I know, like,worked with them for multiple
years and speaks really highlyof them and was the immediately
the person who came to mind andgave me a bunch of evidence of
examples of, like, when thisperson did things that I checked
the boxes. Like, I think onething I learned from this whole

(57:17):
process is that a referral or,like, a recommendation from
somebody else counts for so muchmore than what the person can
tell you themselves aboutthemselves, even if it's a
referral from someone that youdon't even know that well. You
know what I mean?
Because it's still, like, a realexperience that person had
working with this other person.

Justin (57:36):
Think about the stakes. The stakes are different there
too. Because if you ask forreferrals in a resume, of
course, they're gonna findsomeone theoretically who's
gonna give them a good referral.But the stakes are just
different as opposed to talkingto someone in your network and
saying, like, who's been greatthat you've worked with? And
they're thinking, oh, it's rightin this dynamic.

(57:59):
It's my reputation that's on theline here. I gotta recommend
somebody that I actually trulyand even just, like, the dynamic
of that conversation is totallydifferent. Mhmm. I'm saying
like, who's amazing? And the thepeople that come to mind when
you think, like, who have Iworked with that's amazing or
that really fits thisdescription, totally different.

(58:20):
Right? It's just it's the it'sthe Jason Beggs thing. It's just
like, who

Adam (58:23):
who have you worked with?

Justin (58:24):
It's, like, well, I've worked with Jason a bunch of
times, and if you need someonelike him, like, who's just a
workhorse, like, hire him. Like,for sure.

Adam (58:32):
Yeah. So it was interesting. Right? Like, to to
go through that experience. Andthen so I was already, like,
really confident about thisperson, and, you know, was
hoping that we can make an offerto them.
And then we were at reactconflast week, and I just happened
to meet someone for the firsttime who I'd never met before,

(58:53):
who through conversing with themlearned that there's a chance
this person knows this person.And then I asked to them, and
they were like, oh, yeah. Ihired that person when they were
at job x y z. Wow. They'rethey're amazing.
They're good at this, this,this, this, this, this, this,
this. And it was just like,okay. So now I've got 2 really
strong referrals from 2 peoplewho now this person I just met,

(59:15):
but their, like, pedigree isextremely strong. You know what
I mean? Like, this person knowswhat they're talking about.
It's just amazing, like, thelevel of confidence that that
gave me versus anything I wasable to, like, suss out myself
from meeting strangers for thefirst time effectively. You
know?

Justin (59:32):
Conference gossip is actually a great signal. Like,
that's the thing is that peopledo talk about other people. And,
you know, when you're that's onereason I like I'm going back to
Laracon for this reason. I justwanna get back in the mix of
being around people and hearingabout who's doing things. And

(59:52):
it's almost always somebodysaying, did you hear about what
this person's working on?
Or have you seen this thing thatthey just did? Or have you met
this person? They've done this.

Adam (01:00:05):
Exactly. Dude, it was Underrated. I've never been to a
conference with, like, an sortof a networking mindset before,
and I did go to this conferencemore being more deliberate
about, like, wanting to meetsome new people. Yeah. And it's
just it's it was awesome.
You know? Base basically, like,I think, like, the takeaway so
couple things. I learned fromtalking to a bunch of people

(01:00:26):
even at this conference andoutside of this conference
who've done a lot of hiring. Youknow, I've been asking a lot of
people, like, how do you hire atyour company? Yeah.
And especially at, like,somewhat bigger companies, like,
even, like, 50 people and uptype of companies, it's so the
the most common answer fromeveryone was we we basically
exclusively hire from employeereferrals. We just ask people

(01:00:46):
who already work here, who haveyou worked with before that you
liked, and that's basicallywhere they find everybody. So
which kind of lines up with theexperience that I am talking
about here. You know?

Justin (01:00:57):
Mhmm.

Jason (01:00:57):
I

Adam (01:00:57):
think the other, yeah, the other thing is just, like, I
think what I recognized is ifI'm gonna have the most
confidence and sort of the mostluck hiring people that I know,
and there's people that maybe Ilike, this person that I made
this offer to for this staffengineer role, like, if if like

(01:01:18):
I said, if I turned up, like,the sensitivity on, like, my
paying attention to people thingjust a little bit higher, I
think it's, like, pretty highalready. Like, I'm I think I I
somehow know a lot of people,and I've never really tried to
meet people. You know what Imean? So what happens when I I

Justin (01:01:32):
don't know if this is true, but

Adam (01:01:33):
a bit harder.

Justin (01:01:34):
I I don't know. No. You're like

Adam (01:01:37):
I don't feel like I've ever deliberately tried to, like
I wanna make friends with thisperson. You know?

Justin (01:01:41):
I To me, you're the king of the cold DM. Like, hey, I'm
working on this thing. Let's I'dlove to dig into this with you.
Or back when you had FullstackRadio, that was, like, your bit
is that you would DM people thatyou wanted to, like, get in
with. I think you're very goodat this, personally.

Adam (01:02:00):
I must be because, like, I I consider myself, like, friends
with a lot of people that Inever would imagine I'd be,
like, friends with now. LikeYeah. I like me and DHH message
each other on signal, like,every week about random stuff,
you know, and, you know, JasonFried DMs me about things. You
know? It's like a wild spot Ifeel like I found myself in.

(01:02:20):
I do think I could be moredeliberate about it. Like, I'm
already, like, following morepeople on Twitter. Like, even at
the conference, I was meetingpeople and, like, it's it's
almost like you know what itkinda reminds me of is something
that, like, I've always advice Ialways give people who, like,
wanna work in public is to justturn on this little background

(01:02:41):
process in your brain that's,like, paying attention to
everything you do and trying tonotice, actually, someone else
might think this wasinteresting. I should, like,
share it. You know what I mean?
That's how, like, we've alwaysmarketed everything that we've
done. It's just find ways tosort of, like, find little
takeaways and share them withpeople. Mhmm. I feel like I I'm
now doing the same thing with,like, meeting people.

Justin (01:03:01):
Yes.

Adam (01:03:01):
It's just, like, this extra little thing I've turned
on in the back of my brainthat's not just meeting people
and, say, I meet someone, I metsomeone, whatever. There's a
little bit more of, like, payingattention to, like, where I
should put this person in mylittle, like, personal CRM in my
brain. You know?

Justin (01:03:18):
This is I actually one of the first apps I built on my
own was this first start up jobI had. I was helping hire and we
went through the same thing. Wewe were getting cold
applications. And then at theend, I'd be like, I've known
this person forever. Let's hirethem.
They're gonna be great. Andthey've they ended up being

(01:03:40):
great. And I I said what I needis a CRM, but for, tracking
relationships for people I couldhire or work with.

Adam (01:03:50):
Mhmm. Now

Justin (01:03:51):
that's in terms of my market, there's not a big enough
market there for for there to bea product. But it's the the
spirit of that is actually, Ithink, the right spirit. You
kind of file it away in your ownlittle CRM, like, okay. Yeah.
And it almost happens well, ittotally happens organically.
It's like you interface withpeople a few times and then it's

(01:04:15):
like all of a sudden you'rethey're on your radar. Like, oh,
man. This person I would love towork with that person. Or

Adam (01:04:23):
Mhmm.

Justin (01:04:24):
Man, they would be super good at whatever. And then what
I also love doing is I love,like, making a note, like,
that's the kind of person Iwould hire for whatever and then
tracking those people. Andinvariably I mean, maybe there's
a confirmation bias. But it inmy head, at least, I have a high

(01:04:44):
hit rate of people that Inoticed and end up

Adam (01:04:47):
End up doing doing pretty good stuff. Yeah.

Justin (01:04:50):
Really cool stuff. I I felt like this, I mean, I I a
lot of people felt like thiswith, with Aaron. So Corey
Griffin was this other guy justnoticed and I just loved his
vibe. He was, like, makingvideos. He was explaining stuff.
Ended up doing a phone call withhim. We were interested in
hiring him, but I think he gothired by I think it was I think

(01:05:11):
he got hired by Shopify and thenApple. And he was just, like,
out of our but he's just had agreat career. Yeah. So I I like
turning this background processon.
And then you just notice it andthen start tracking people kind
of just in your head, but andthen noticing, oh, look what
happens. You know? And then atyour level what's great about

(01:05:33):
your level is I feel like youhave the resources to hire and
are doing interesting work thathas such a massive surface area
that you could hire there's yourpool of people that I think
would wanna work with you is isbigger than most. Like, you have
the resources to hire them andyou're doing the kind of work

(01:05:56):
that attracts people that wannado that kind of work. You know?
Like, the the impact is big.

Adam (01:06:01):
Yeah. It's, like, pretty high impact projects that we
work on for sure. Yeah. Like,outsizingly compared to the size
of the team for sure. So it's aninteresting interesting spot.
I'll say, like, one thing, evenrunning this, like, hiring
process, like, even though Idon't think we're gonna do it
this way in the future, and Iactually, I know with certainty
I'll never do it again this wayin the future. It's tough though

(01:06:21):
because, like, Robin who workshere, I did find him to put
through this process. You know?And, that's worked out really
well. He's been here for years,and he's awesome.
So I know it can work, and I betyou it could have worked here
too because we did meet, like, abunch of people that I knew were
skilled and talented people, butI just, like, never mustered up

(01:06:42):
enough to feel, like, certain.You know? Yeah.

Justin (01:06:45):
I think the difference is that the risk with hiring
someone like Robin is greater.Like, you're taking a bigger
risk on making a fairly bigdecision. And I know you don't
like hiring and firing. And soYeah. If you have an aversion to
that, in my experience I mean,there's always gonna be the

(01:07:08):
chance you're gonna need to letsomebody go at some point.
Like, that's sure. That is justthe way things work. But if
you've had multiple, you know,touch points with somebody in
the past and they know peopleyou know and people you know
know them. And there there'sthis kind of just simmering of

(01:07:29):
getting who they are.

Adam (01:07:30):
This isn't enough, like, what is enough? You know what I
mean? In terms of confidence.Yeah. It's kind of like

Justin (01:07:34):
And there's also the counterfactual which is you
could have met Robin if you'drun this playbook. You might
have still found found them.

Adam (01:07:41):
Yeah. That's kind of what I mean with the sensitivity knob
thing, you know, because he wasat, like, Lyricon EU that I was
at once. He was alreadyfollowing me. He was already in
our, like, tone CSS Discord. Youknow what I mean?
I never noticed him before, butI think I maybe I would notice
someone like that now, you know,because I'm paying a bit more
attention. And the other thingis, like, when we hired him,
like, I was a lot more naive.Like, the very first person we

(01:08:04):
hired, man, I just emailed himand was like, do you wanna work
here? Like, we have too muchwork to do. I'd never done a
call with him.
I'd never had any conversationwith him. He just worked on an
open source thing that I thoughtwas good, and he's like, sure. I
wanna work there. Then we did,like, one call where I, like,
answered some questions for him,and then he took the job, and it
worked out great for many years.He was not with us anymore, but
it was awesome.
And that was just like, wow.This hiring shit is easy. You

(01:08:24):
know? And then with same withRobin. You know?
He joined when I was in thattotal naive stage where I I
never had any issues or neverhad to make any hard decisions
yet or any any of that stuff.Right? So maybe maybe now I
still wouldn't have even feltconfidence to hire him even
though, of course, like, itworked out the first time, but,
you know, now maybe I'm morefearful, and I I wouldn't have

(01:08:46):
been willing to take the chance.You know? And and that's the
thing.
Like, it's not like the peoplewe interviewed were definitely
not the right people. It's justI just didn't have enough
confidence, and I don't think Icould have, like, got I don't
think I can get it without just,like, knowing them for a long
period of time. So, like, a nicetakeaway is now there's, like, a
bunch of people that I did meetthrough this process that, like,

(01:09:09):
I'm following on Twitter andlooking forward to, like, paying
attention to what they do for alonger period of time and
building relationships with morepeople like that, and and maybe
they'll turn into somethingeventually. You know?

Justin (01:09:20):
I mean, I for me, I think there's a few things. 1,
this is a perfect hackers inctype conversation because you
often will go and do these hardthings and then report back. And
you just ran the the hardplaybook. Like, maybe I am
missing out on somebody. So thatwas the hypothesis.
Maybe I am missing out onsomebody. I should really make
this, like, agnostic, fullyopen, fully accessible, fully,

(01:09:47):
anybody can apply. It's it'sdemocratic. And I'm gonna see
how it works out. And yourconclusion was for a team our
size and for me personally, asthe owner, this isn't the best
playbook to run.
Yeah. Right?

Adam (01:10:03):
It's it's shocking though or or hard in some ways because,
like, it's hard for me toreconcile the with that with the
fact that, like, it works for 37signals. You know? Like, works
really well for them. But I alsowonder if they were our size,
would they be doing thingsdifferently than

Justin (01:10:19):
I think I mean, I also think they they have the benefit
of people are in theirecosystem. And, I mean, even I
applied twice. You know, Iapplied the first time, and
maybe that was when they startedchecking me out. And then I
applied the second time, andthat was what got me a call. And

(01:10:41):
so I think you could also usethat process as relationship
building.
Like, you do a you know, you geta bunch of applications and
you're like, oh, wow. Thesepeople are folks I wanna keep an
eye on. And then, you know, youkeep an eye on them. And then
the next time they come up,you've got all these
subconscious interactions withthem. And you're like, oh, wow.
This person looks interesting.So you can play that playbook if

(01:11:04):
you want to, you know, open itup that way. The other thing is
that doing a company, you'reoften playing to your strengths.
And so Mhmm. I'm a relationshipperson.
Like, I like meeting people. Ilike, I like meeting people and

(01:11:24):
almost instantly, I'm, like,impressed by what they can do or
the vibe they get give off orwhatever. And so I'm tracking
that stuff. And I have funworking with people. Like, I
like doing projects with people.
I like pair programming withpeople. I like that stuff. And
so if I have those experienceswith folks and it's super fun,

(01:11:49):
then, you know, I kinda filethat away. And that's just part
of my personality. I don't wannaopen it up to the universe and
then get thousands ofapplications and be like I just
have no idea who this person isbeyond this a 180 pixel avatar
that I'm seeing.
And I that to me is not as fun.And so as a founder, I just

(01:12:10):
wanna play to my strengths,which is I'm good at this. I'm
good at going and meeting abunch of people and, increasing
the luck surface area forpotentially meeting people that
I could collaborate with in thefuture. And so if you're the
kind of founder that likes thator wants to get good at that,
then that's what you should do.

Adam (01:12:31):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel good about, like, where we I've
sort of landed in terms of, likeI feel like I know how I wanna
do things moving forward. I dosaw a little bit of that concern
of, like, who we missing out on,but maybe not. Again, I kinda
think I can compensate for thatwith just, like, a little bit
more.

(01:12:51):
Just, again, just paying alittle bit more attention than
than maybe I've paid in thepast. The advice that everyone
has been giving me, which is,like, hard to accept, but I know
is true, it's just, like, thereality is in when you're
running a company, you're takingchances on people, and it's not
always gonna work out. And theodds of it working out are
actually sort of lower based onthe conversations I've had with

(01:13:14):
people than maybe I thought.Like, a fairly common number
that I've been hearing is, like,if you have, like, a 70% hit
rate on someone you hire workingout, like, that's pretty good,
which means, like, a lot ofcompanies are firing, like, 3
out of 10 people that they hirewithin, like, the first few
months that they're at thecompany. That just, like, I I'm

(01:13:34):
glad to know that's the realitybecause it, like, helps me feel
like my sort of paranoia is,like, reasonable, but I also am
just, like, I don't know that Ican, like, ever get good at
being comfortable with, like,just, like, letting someone
letting that percentage ofpeople go and taking chances
like that.
You know?

Justin (01:13:55):
Yeah. That's hard. That is a hard reality company.
There's all sorts of reasons youmight need to let someone go
too. Like, sometimes, you know,the the company's not doing as
well or whatever.
But I I guess I just mean interms of just, like,

Adam (01:14:06):
being wrong about someone. You know what I mean?

Justin (01:14:09):
Yeah.

Adam (01:14:10):
And I don't wanna be wrong about people because I don't
wanna put people through that.And,

Justin (01:14:17):
yeah. I mean, this is a bad metaphor for me because I I
haven't dated since I was 18.But, the the thinking about
dating is, like, if you're onthe apps, you're just getting
all the people on the apps. Andit's like you put out a job
posting for yourself, and thenyou just see who applies. And

(01:14:38):
you get these, like, very youryour interactions all of the
depth of your humanity is justreduced to chatting and, like,
pithy one liners that you'regonna start with.
I always think, like like, hereand where I live, we live in
this ski resort town. The datingadvice I hear people giving is,

(01:15:00):
like, if you, like, are reallyinto skiing, for example, you
just get a get up to the resortand just hang out at the ski
resort all the time. Join somegroup skis. Go to some events.
Like, you just gotta putyourself in that It's

Adam (01:15:16):
like a luck surface area thing, you know.

Justin (01:15:18):
Yeah. That's fear. And and rather than sitting in town
on the apps and just sayinglike, having skier in your bio,
it's like you're not gonna getthe fullness of really running
into people and havinginteractions and, you know,
going for some runs with themand sitting on the chairlift,

(01:15:40):
and then going in for coffee.And, you know, I've met tons of
people up at the ski resort justhanging out. And, you you know,
you meet one person and then allof a sudden you're riding the
chairlift with some more peopleand pretty soon you just know
all these people.
And, you know, if I'm lookingeven if I'm just looking for

(01:16:00):
some friends to go riding with,it's kind of the same chat,
like, who's about my level? Who,like, do I vibe well with? Who
you know, there's all thischecklist. And eventually, it
kind of sorts itself out throughmultiple interactions. And, I
think it'd be a lot harder forme to get the right people if,

(01:16:23):
in every once I see peopleposting on Reddit in, like, our
city's subreddit.
Like, anybody here intoknitting? You know, it's like,
well, you're just openingyourself up to whoever's on
Reddit.

Adam (01:16:35):
Yeah. I

Justin (01:16:35):
mean, even that is at least increasing your luck
surface area, but I'm justsaying there's something about
getting out of your house andfor both job applicants and
people looking for to hire, forme, it's like almost all about
going to conferences. That'sactually the biggest one. It's
just going to conferences andmeeting people. And you don't

(01:17:00):
need to be a celebrity evenlike, I've met so many cool
people that have never given aconference talk, have never you
know, they don't have a bigTwitter following, but they're
just, like, super cool. And theneventually, you realize they're
doing cool stuff, but they'resuper understated online or, you
know, not giving talks

Adam (01:17:21):
or whatever. Exactly.

Justin (01:17:22):
That's kind of the I I think the if I was if I had
applied for the Tailwind job andI'm listening to you right now,
I personally wouldn't be, like,upset. I would just be like, oh,
wow. Okay. The what I need to dois I need to increase my luck
surface area and just get outmore. I just need to be in the

(01:17:42):
sphere of Adam Wadden and, youknow, not in a try hard kind of
way, but just in a, like, I'mgonna I feel like him and I
would get along.
I feel like, I would love tohang out with him and talk shop.
Those kind of activities arewhat that's a relationship. Then

(01:18:02):
you're starting to, you know,eventually, you get into the
orbit of those folks. And if ifthey find you cool, then then,
you know, it'll get reciprocatedand, you know, maybe
opportunities will come out ofit.

Adam (01:18:18):
Totally. Yes. Something I've thought with this whole
thing is I almost wish we werelike a local company because I
feel like it'd be even easier tohire people then because you
could just go to meetups andmeet people and you know? Like,
it's it's like it's easier toget a little taste of people
that already live near you thanto have to, like, travel to
conferences and

Justin (01:18:38):
stuff like that. This is why I almost think either you
need this role or, like, you'reif you ever do another tailwind
event, depending on how muchenergy you have to give to
things. But one of my favoritething about, like, MCing at
Laracon is it wasn't evensomething Taylor told me to do.
But I just loved, like, being onstage, but then thinking, like,

(01:19:02):
I'm actually, like, just a hostat this event and just going
around in the hallway and justasking people if they're having
a good time and, you know, wherethey come from, what are they
working on. I just love thatrole.
And your next tailwind eventfeels like you could do that or
somebody at your team could dothat. They're just being the

(01:19:25):
master of ceremonies, but forthe community. And you're just
like, hey, where'd you comefrom? What's going on? And
thinking like this is my firstinteraction with this person of
what could be many, you know.
Like, I'm just like meeting thisperson and there could be this
could start like, that was likeI met Jack McDade that way. I
have no idea who Jack McDadewas. Don't know what he can do.

(01:19:48):
Don't know what he nothing. Justsat at a table with him.
You know, I worked on it withhim on on doing my personal
website, and it was, like, stillone of my favorite things that
has ever been, you know, I'veever worked on. And he did most
of it. Right? It was just likeYeah. There's certain people you
can meet and get a sense of andthese are the other thing is

(01:20:12):
these people just tend to keepbubbling to the surface.
It's like again, maybe I'm overindexing for charisma. But
again, I again, most of my teamis introverts, so I don't think
this is true. I've just there'scertain people that can even as
introverted people can stillkeep bubbling to the top. It's
like you just keep seeing them,keep seeing stuff they're

(01:20:34):
putting out, keep, you know,they touch base every once in a
while. That rule seems to beit's almost like the number of
impressions of positiveimpressions is what ends up
getting you you reach thisbenchmark and then it's like,
oh, man.
That's that's the kind of personI wanna hire.

Adam (01:20:53):
Yeah. It's totally true. It's, yeah. I don't know. I I
guess yeah.
This process has made me a lotmore comfortable with just,
like, putting that constraint ofjust, like, hiring people that
this isn't the first time I'veseen their face, you know, at a
minimum. Like, there's some sortof history there. The thing I
was thinking about too, like,it's so funny. I I have this,
like, vivid memory of this beingtrue, and it turns out it wasn't

(01:21:16):
true at all.

Justin (01:21:17):
Okay.

Adam (01:21:17):
That you remember, like, when, when, Jason Newstead quit
Metallica. Right? And theyneeded to find, like, a new bass
player. I swear, I remember themdoing this, like, a worldwide
bass player search where, like,they were holding auditions in,
like, big cities, and peoplewere lining up the door, like,
you know, like, fucking what'sthat show that, like, Kelly
Clarkson was on? Oh, shit.

(01:21:38):
You know?

Justin (01:21:38):
Like, American Idol or something like that?

Adam (01:21:40):
Yeah. Like, American Idol style for, like, auditioning to
be, like, the bass player,Metallica. And everyone got,
like, 30 seconds to, like, playsomething. And and I remember I
remember I've I swear I believethat that happened, and that
they didn't pick anyone. Turnsout that never happened, words
worth.
I have no idea, like, how thatgot planted in my brain, but
never happened. It's one ofthose bears seen bears things.

(01:22:03):
You know what I mean? Like, I II swear I believe this happened
to the point where I feel like aguy I know's cousin auditioned.
You know what I mean?
But Yes.

Justin (01:22:12):
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam (01:22:13):
Yeah. Went and watched, like you know that they did
that, like, some kind of monsterdocumentary DVD years ago, and,
like, a big part of that DVD isthem, like, finding a bass
player. And you just look at,like, all the dudes that they
brought in that they auditionedfor the band. It's like none of
these people are people, like,they don't know. It's like the
bass player from bands thatthey've toured with or that was,
like, referred to them from aband that they toured with or

(01:22:34):
someone that they knew from,like, back in the eighties when,
you know, when they when theywere a lot smaller and it was a
little bit more relatable.
And, that was just like I'vealways thought of the Our
Company as a band. You know?Like, that's kinda what I want
it to be in my head. So to findthese, like, these, like,
comparisons is always is alwaysinteresting to me, but it also
kinda speaks to the point wewere talking about earlier where

(01:22:55):
it's like, there's somethingthat feels, like, a little
tricky about, like like, ifMetallica was to bring on, like,
someone who's just, like, a purefan into the band, it would feel
like a weird dynamic for a longtime. You know what I mean?
Whereas if they bring on, like,Pepper Keenan from Croznan
Conformity, it's like, yeah. Hemight be, like, a little bit,
oh, man. This is the big leaguescompared to, like, what I was

(01:23:16):
doing before, but it's stilllike, oh, like, we played shows
with these guys in the eighties,and, like, I've known them
forever, and I see them atparties and you know?

Justin (01:23:24):
There's so much more in that too, which is, like, if
you're hiring someone that'sbeen referred to you or that
you've worked with, you justhave so much more context of
like yeah. Like a fan has neverdone any of the work to be in a
band. They haven't been in thevan. They haven't put in they
likely haven't put in the hours.So they might be great

(01:23:45):
technically, but there's likeall these other things that you
need for a role that kindaspeaks to what you're saying.
Like, it's like your vibe checkwas like would I go to a
conference with them and couldthey give a conference talk. And
there's like all these otherthings. Like, can these guys
last 48 hours in the tour buswith us? Sure. Do I wanna spend

(01:24:06):
48 hours with them in the tourbus?
Like, that's a big deal. Howelse are you gonna get that
besides, you know, through yournetwork and talking to other
people? Like, what was it liketo tour with, you know, Bruce?
And you're just getting a senseof, well, this is what it was
like, right away. All that

Adam (01:24:27):
Like, we played 3 shows with these guys, and, you know,
they were around all the time.So I saw this guy a lot, but I
also had the ability to sort ofescape from him when necessary.
So it's not like the big crazycommitment that this, like, you
know, just hire someone. That'swhy I, like, yeah, contracting
with people is nice. And wedon't we don't have as many
opportunities as I wish we didfor for that.

(01:24:48):
Like, it's a lot of the work wedo here is, like, very ongoing
work. It's not like this is,like, little project that we can

Justin (01:24:54):
bring someone on for. Although that's a good muscle to
keep going is I personally likeif there's a small project. I
just like keeping that in play.I'm like Mhmm. Yeah.
And I do it for company projectsbut also personal projects. It's
just if there's something thatneeds to be done now, I just
wanna, like, find somebody andhire them for something really

(01:25:17):
small. And, I like having thatin motion. Constantly be working
with new people and going, howdid that feel? How did that work
out?
Did they do everything did itend up blowing up later? Or, you
know, I just like it's like anice practice even if you don't
really need it to bring someonein and even bring someone in for

(01:25:43):
like again, you have thisopportunity if you ever do
another tailwind event. Bringsomebody in and say, why don't
you emcee it?

Adam (01:25:50):
Yeah.

Justin (01:25:51):
Or why don't you be our you know, we're looking for
someone to do this there.

Adam (01:25:55):
Yeah. Totally. Like, I I would love to hire, like, a sort
of a developer relations personmaybe one day. You know what I
mean? And that would be, like,an interesting example of, like,
a way to to test that out.
Like, obviously, it has to besomeone you already know a a
bit. Mhmm. You know? But maybeyou never met them before. You
wanna spend a bit more time withthem.
You wanna see how they really doin, like, a real situation or

(01:26:15):
whatever. You know? Yeah. Ithink that's I think that's
smart to, like again, it'sanother, like, knob to turn up a
little bit, like, payingattention to, like really trying
to pay attention to things thatcould be sliced off as projects.
You know what I mean?

Justin (01:26:28):
And you are I mean, this is gonna be your challenge all
the time. Is that you're you'revery like, you still do a lot.
Mhmm. I would love to hear, howTaylor Otwell is thinking about
this right now. That'sinterested to me because he's
doing all this hiring and hiringpeople outside of his network, I
think.

Adam (01:26:45):
That's Yeah. I I mean yeah. Maybe it's a conversation
to have with him. I know a lotabout it, but I don't know how
much I could say or how much Ican't say. I know in the
engineering side, he stillreally hires people from the
open source community.
You know? And they have a realLiravah has a really strong
community of contributors andstuff. We've never been able to
really build that. I think wehave a weird tool where the

(01:27:07):
people who use it are, like,very it's very uncommon for them
to be qualified to build it,whereas Laravel is like, you're
using Laravel to buildapplications with PHP. Like, you
can probably go into Laravel andmake some changes to the PHP
there.
Ours is like, you're stylingthings on a website, but the
tool to build that thing is likethis complex no JS library. You

(01:27:29):
know? They're, like, sodifferent from each other. I
wanna believe that's the reasonthat we haven't been able to,
like, there there's a few. Youknow what I mean?
But Laravel is, like, incredibleamount of people in the
community doing stuff.

Justin (01:27:40):
If that's true, then I think you need to either run 2
events or be involved in 2events. 1, Tailwind for the
Tailwind people and fans, andthen a Node. Js conference
whatever. So you get you'realways in that like, if that's
in some ways, most things arelike that, like we're in the

(01:28:01):
podcasting industry, but mostpodcasters can't build a
product. And so we have to be in2 worlds.
We have to be in the techproduct world and then we have
to be in the podcasting world.Yeah. Yeah. And developing both
at the same time. So maybethat's how you gotta think about
it.
And that's why I wanna startgoing you know, I I've just been

(01:28:23):
going to podcasting events andI'm like, I gotta get back to
tech events and business eventsbecause I want I want some of
that juice too at the same time.

Adam (01:28:36):
Did you go to MicroConf this year?

Justin (01:28:37):
No. I thought about it. I it's just one thing I the
other thing I like about techevents is it's like the nerds I
wanna hang out with, like, thereally technical people, but
then there's always the kind ofbusiness people I like are often
there. So it's like this niceslice of, you know, the

(01:28:58):
ecosystem. You just get, like,business people and you get tech
people, and you get a mixture ofboth.
But I would love to be go backto another MicroConf too.

Adam (01:29:09):
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely wanna do a lot more conferences
in general if I can figure outhow to do it. The hard thing is,
like, a 6 year old, a 3 yearold, and a 9 month old. So,
like, getting away, leaving mywife with that crew on her own,
for extended periods of time is,is a hard one.

Justin (01:29:24):
This is why I'm curious about the staff engineer. If
there's people on your team thatcan do part of that for you too,
I haven't really figured thisout on our team. Like, I'm
definitely the most I'm I'm themost equipped to go out and
network. Mhmm. Jon is prettygood at it too, actually.

(01:29:46):
So when he gets out, he does, hedoes it. He's good at it as
well. I I started going down thepath of, like, oh, this would be
a cool thing to delegate. But inpractice, I think it is just
harder to delegate some of thisstuff. It's just nice to be the
person that's, you know, doingit.

Adam (01:30:05):
Cool, man. Yeah. Maybe a good place to wrap it, but, glad
to have the chance to kinda getthis all out of my brain while
it's still fresh so I can listento it in a year from now if we
ever wanna hire again and remindmyself of of what it was like.
But, interesting takeaways atleast. You know?
Even to just feel like I knowwhat I wanna do next time, I

(01:30:26):
think is is enough, but, man, itwas a big commitment to run that
experiment.

Justin (01:30:33):
I would definitely be curious if anyone's listening
and they've had the oppositeexperience. Small team, opened
it up to the public, and foundjust had a process that had
amazing results.

Adam (01:30:43):
Real hidden gems. You know? Yeah.

Justin (01:30:45):
I would love to hear about that.

Adam (01:30:46):
I mean, I'm the thing is I'm sure we had them apply. And
that that was one of the otherthings that sucks about having
1600 people apply and having to,like, somehow get through all of
them is this, like, constantworry of, like, I I'm almost
certain the the best person forthe job is somehow in the
disqualified pile. You know whatI mean? Because they just didn't
stand out in the application theright way and didn't get a

(01:31:09):
chance to, like, talk with us,but I don't know what else I
could have done about that. Youknow what I mean?
But there's just But

Justin (01:31:14):
I think that's kinda like thinking, like, I'm sure
there's someone that would loveto date me that just never saw
my profile. And so and, like,thinking about it too much is,
like, yeah. But in reality, thekind of person I'm gonna date,
or the kind of person I'm gonnahire, or the kind of person I'm
gonna work with is I'veinteracted with them at some

(01:31:35):
point. Like, that's that's morelikely in my head.

Adam (01:31:39):
I think that's I think you're probably right. And it's
it's helpful too to just, like,think about just start going
through people I know and justthink, like, I don't even know
how I know this person. You knowwhat I mean? I didn't have to
try, but I know them, and I'mglad I know them. And that just
means that's gonna keephappening no matter what.

Justin (01:31:55):
Yes. You know? And and to not exclude people like,
there's there are lots of peoplerunning their own companies that
you could actually probably alsohire. You know what I mean?
Like, that that pool is alsoopen.

Adam (01:32:10):
Yeah. Yeah. That's something I'm trying to learn,
honestly. It's, like, I think II think I I don't even try to
recruit certain people becauseI'm just, like, well, they only
started at that job 9 monthsago. So, you know, the that's no
chance I'm gonna do that.
And then what happens is, like,there's one person that I've
wanted to, like, work with for along time that I've held that
belief in my head, and now I'veseen them at 3 different jobs.

Justin (01:32:31):
Yeah. Exactly.

Adam (01:32:34):
Actually, 4.

Justin (01:32:35):
And also don't don't, like, people that are working at
big companies and you'rethinking, well, they'd never
wanna leave. A lot of thosepeople wanna leave. They there's
a lot of people that want towork for a small indie company
where you're doing way more coolstuff and you're way more hands
on and you have way moreleverage in terms of what gets

(01:32:55):
built. Like, you can be inthere. I love small teams
because it like, if you wannamake a difference, you can,
like, get in there and just workand get a lot of leverage on a
small team if you're willing togo after it.
So I think those people are outthere. I I I think that's the
other lesson.

Adam (01:33:12):
Yeah. They are for sure. For sure.

Justin (01:33:14):
Alright, dude.

Adam (01:33:15):
Cool, man. Alright. I better get to dinner before, the
kids start yelling at me thatthey're hungry. But, yeah, it
was good to catch up to. I'mglad we got to do this.

Justin (01:33:23):
Oh, dude. Yeah. Let's talk again soon.

Adam (01:33:25):
Looking forward to seeing you in, whatever the hell Lair
Con is. August?

Justin (01:33:28):
August. Yeah.

Adam (01:33:29):
Texas and August, baby. Bring your shorts.

Justin (01:33:34):
Yes. Yeah. I'm gonna I'll be dead, but, yeah, I'm
looking forward to it. Alright.See you.

Adam (01:33:39):
Alright. See you.

Justin (01:33:43):
Alright. Hopefully you enjoyed that. If you have
feedback on any of that stuff,reach out to us on Twitter. I'm
m I Justin on Twitter and Adamis Adam Wavin. I wanna give some
shout outs to the folks whosupport us on Patreon.
We've got Pascal fromSharpen.page, rewardful.com,
Greg Park, Mitchell Davis fromrecruitkit.com.au, Marshall

(01:34:05):
Follett from we are bold dotaf,Bill Kondo, Ward from
memberspace.com, Evander Sassy,Austin Loveless, Michael
Sitford, Dan Buda, Colin Gray,and Dave Junta. We'll see you
next time we post an episode.Thanks, folks.

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