April 22, 2025 • 32 mins
In this episode of The Nearshore Cafe Podcast, host Seb Wichmann talks with Brian Samson, founder of Plugg Technologies, about scaling remote tech teams by hiring elite Latin American software engineers.
Brian shares authentic hiring strategies, from using video job descriptions to running pop-up coding challenges, helping U.S. companies attract and retain top-tier nearshore talent.
If you’re a founder, HR leader, or tech recruiter looking to build or grow your nearshore development team, this episode offers practical tips and fresh insights on strategic hiring and culture alignment.
🎧 Listen now:
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6KYcgpmN77fJm6B25469B8
- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nearshore-cafe/id1775525954
- Website: https://www.nearshorecafepodcast.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-nearshore-cafe
📢 Don’t forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS for more insights on Latin America’s growing tech scene! 🎧🔥
_________________________
🔗 Connect With Us
🔗 Stay Connected:
✅ Host: Brian Samson | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansamson/
✅ Sponsor: Plugg Technologies | PLUGG.tech
✅ Follow The Nearshore Cafe Podcast for More Insightful Episodes!
_________________________
Our social pages:
🎵 Spotify podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6KYcgpmN77fJm6B25469B8
🌎 Website: https://www.nearshorecafepodcast.com/
🔥 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-nearshore-cafe
🎙️ Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nearshore-cafe/id1775525954
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome listeners.
I'm Sepp Wichmann, your host ofthe Do Good Insider, where we
dive deep into raw andmeaningful conversations with
visionary founders and CEOs whosee beyond profits, elevating
the lives of employees andvendors and the planets we call
home.
Today's guest, let's welcomeBrian Sampson, founder of Plug
(00:50):
Technologies.
With extensive experience inbuilding and scaling teams,
brian has navigated theintricate challenges of aligning
company culture, strategichiring and leadership.
Plug's mission reflects hispassion for creating impactful
teams and solving realoperational pain points for
(01:10):
businesses by placing LatinAmerican-based engineers and
other talents with US-basedbusinesses.
Join us as Brian sharesinsights on fostering a strong
workplace culture, best hiringpractices and overcoming
operational hurdles like remotework and scaling.
Whether you are a CEO, founderor a leader curious about the
(01:35):
behind the scenes of running asuccessful venture-backed
startup, this conversation ispacked with actionable advice
and inspiring lessons learned,so welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Brian, how are you, a pleasure to be here.
Thanks so much for the invite,sam, amazing Good to have you.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So let's dive right in.
So you guys are experts inhiring, placing top talents in
the Latin American region inUS-based companies.
I'm sure that you guys havelearned.
You know left, right and center, everything from hiring to
technology, to whatever it isthat really makes a good hire
(02:14):
being placed in the rightcompany.
I would love to start withlessons learned.
You know the companies,founders, ceos, hr-os that are
listening right now.
They all have expertise inhiring.
But really I would love to diveinto the details today.
Talk me through a scenariowhere you guys looked at the
(02:35):
cultural fits with the profiling, where you went through your
processes from interviewtechniques, the right questions
asked to the cultural match,from interview techniques, the
right questions asked to thecultural match.
What is this moment where youthought this just didn't go
right and what were thoselessons learned?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, seb, there's a lot to unpack there and I will
tell you, I've been doing thisfor about 20 years and sometimes
I feel like I'm just scratchingthe surface.
There's so much to talk abouton this topic.
I think where a good place tostart might be my days working
for VC funded tech startups whenI lived in San Francisco.
(03:13):
Eventually I was a head oftalent and you know, maybe like
a really interesting place wouldbe.
I was working with this techstartup Gosh.
This is probably 12, 13 yearsago and I remember I was dating
my wife at the time and I wastrying to find a way to break
through all the noise.
(03:34):
So even then, even 12, 13 yearsago, you walk down the streets
of San Francisco, you throw acoin, you'll hit 50 different
startup guys.
They're everywhere, right, liketech startup after tech startup
after tech startup.
So it's really hard to market,really hard to position, because
you just kind of blend in witheverybody else.
(03:56):
If you were in you know a muchdifferent place, you know you
might be like the startup guyand really interesting, but out
there you're the phrase like adime, a dozen.
So I had a friend who was also astartup guy, but his startup
was creating video jobdescriptions and this was like
brand new concept, you know, 13,14 years ago, and I think I
(04:20):
learned a lot about this justgoing through the process.
So I was trying to get thisstartup out.
That was kind of early stageand I had my buddy come by and
we spent time with the hiringmanager.
You know, put it all on film.
We tried to make it like reallyauthentic, you know.
so it's not overproduced, withlike jet planes going through
(04:43):
and graphics.
Just, you know, hiring manager,you know on camera and it I
learned a lot, just about, like,probably what I had missed in
the past before I had ever donethis.
So, number one, I can't thinkof a single candidate that
wouldn't want to know what theirfuture boss is like.
Right, but the thing is there'sa million companies hiring and
(05:07):
every recruiting process istimely for a candidate.
Okay, I've got to spend timeanswering emails, then I've got
to talk to this recruiter.
Maybe eventually, like after acouple rounds, I'll finally talk
to the hiring manager.
But what if I could just watcha five-minute video from this
hiring manager?
Gosh, like who wouldn't want toinvest five minutes into
(05:28):
learning who their future bossis?
Now, on the other side, what doyou do on this video?
Here's something else that I hadlearned is that you really are
doing a disservice to yourcompany if you're trying to be
everything to everybody and yeah, that sounds like OK, whatever,
brian, that's kind of genericadvice, but you'd be surprised
like a company really needs totake a stand.
(05:51):
Like, if you're for thesecouple things, that means you
should be just as easily againstthese other things, and I'll
even give like a kind of a funnyexample.
So the word or the phrasedata-driven is thrown around all
the time Like yeah, that soundsgreat.
Who doesn't want to be datadriven?
Well, guess what?
There is a counterweight tobeing data driven.
(06:12):
It means you.
If you're so focused on gettingdata to make a better decision,
you're going to be a littleslower.
You're not going to be thefirst out there to make a
decision so like, but that'sokay, you're just making a count
like a clear decision.
We are going to be a littleslower, but a little more
(06:33):
thoughtful, right, that's whatit means to be data-driven.
Or maybe somebody else isprioritizing, like speed and
aggressiveness, right, but it'sokay.
So you want to decide who youare, but that also means who
you're not.
Now back to when I was with mywife we're still married but
when I was dating her.
So I was so intrigued by thisconcept of video job
(06:57):
descriptions.
So this company had like adozen startups as their first
clients you know, I was one oftheir first ones and I started
to show her all these littlevideos and she said something
that like-.
So the videos.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So let me just ask the videos from founders or from
the hiring or from the businessowners.
What are the things that you?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, in some cases it was the same one of the same.
Like early companies, thefounder might be the hiring
manager, right, right?
Or maybe the founder makes aquick 30 second cameo.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I've seen that before , like years ago, and I'm
curious to see how that went.
How that went or not.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, so my wife said something that like blew my
mind and it really just hit thatnail on the head in like the
series of videos that I'mshowing her because I'm so
excited, like watch this, watchthis, like this is so much
better than reading thejavascript on.
Indeed, and we watched thisvideo of uh like a total
pro-typical founder, right, likelike you know he it's this,
(07:49):
this guy with his hoodie, hisstartup hoodie you know like an
like a really industrial loftoffice in the background with
like the ducts and the air ductsand, um, you know like exposed
everything brick.
Um, there's like seven otherdudes in the background.
All look the same and they'relike riding around the office on
(08:11):
skateboards in the back whilethis guy's, you know, telling
about the company.
And what she said wasincredible.
She said, oh my god, I wouldnever work there.
But that was brilliant, becauseimagine how much time is spent
wasted for both parties, like ifshe had just seen a job
description, let's say it's likea marketing manager job or
(08:33):
something and she applies, goes,goes through the process, waste
her time, waste the hiringmanager's time.
But by her investing, like sheprobably knew, in 30 seconds,
right, like, this is not theculture for me, but so she saves
her time and on the other side,the hiring company saves their
time because, like, people thatreally want to be in that
(08:55):
environment are the ones thatare implying.
Now, obviously there are thingsto worry about later if you get
too homogenous and yeteverybody's like the same thing.
But the concept of who you areand like, be authentic, be real,
put it out there.
But it also means who you'renot and it saves everybody.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So that is so interesting.
Yeah, yeah, thank you so muchfor sharing that.
Like I remember I don'tremember anymore.
You know, during my years ofbeing an employee it sounds like
a world ago, lifetime ago Ithink, in my time, and I haven't
had heaps and heaps of jobs,but, fair bit, I had, you know,
10 years or so of roughly, ofmaybe not quite of employment
(09:37):
like solid employment, higherranks, team leader, managerial
director positions and so on inL&D.
I think I remember once ortwice having had such a process
where I think I was able to getto see and feel and read.
This is what we do.
We are picking up on thisenergetic stuff where we like, I
(09:59):
like this person, or I reallydon't like this person at all,
and the background looks like Iwould never work there, right?
yeah, I had an opportunity,brian, where I saw the person.
I got got to feel into thisperson, if that's a thing, and
it also helps me to to be morein sync and comfortable with
maybe recording a video myself,with even going on a call.
(10:21):
Like you know, we have metbefore.
We jumped on this podcast hereand that gives us a sense of
familiarity where I'm like, Ikind of I feel like I know Brian
.
And I feel like I know, seb, andthat just gives us a totally
new dynamic, much more acomforting dynamic.
Right, we all are creatures offear, if you will, humanity in
general living in duality inthis world here.
(10:45):
Is that what you have learnedfrom those early days that I
don't know.
Candidates get to be morecomfortable, get to be more
themselves by having seen thehiring manager prior, or what
were the other challenges, maybefrom the hiring manager that
they didn't want to go on, orthey maybe weren't sure who they
(11:05):
are, or talk us through that alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, well, I think I mean there's no science behind
this.
This is just my experience.
But AB testing this, you know,like a candidate that is only
going off of a writtenJavaScript and a candidate
that's going off of a video, Ithink the one that watches the
video and decides to continue inthe process is going to be way
more enthusiastic, engaged.
(11:29):
I love what you just said aboutfamiliarity.
It's all.
It all works really welltogether.
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Let's talk about plug technologies.
Let's talk about also the wideryou know.
Let's also bring, let's takethis into a wider context.
What are those?
You know?
Video, for example.
What are those?
I mean video.
Nowadays we pretty much onlywork with video in terms of
within the hiring processBecause, again, there's so much
(11:58):
it's so and there's so many datapoints we can elicit for our
clients and for us internally,where we're like you know what,
this person just fits reallywell into our culture or vice
versa.
Right, what have you learned?
What are those golden nuggets?
Just let's grab two, threegolden nuggets where you feel
and think like this is detailthat really would our, our
listeners would really value tolisten to.
What are you doing that'sdifferent?
What are you doing that youhave realized over the years
(12:20):
that works really well?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, so I'll just give a little background on Plug
for a second and then maybeI'll share a broader experience
that I've had.
What Plug is?
It is an opportunity to createtalent arbitrage for companies.
We have discovered LatinAmerica.
I found Argentina about 10years ago.
It changed my life.
(12:42):
Could not believe that therewas this level of talent, this
level of flexibility, ability toovercome adversity, grit,
intelligence, english, all on mytime zone, and nobody was
talking about it.
I couldn't believe it.
And that's really whatarbitrage is.
It could be financial, it couldbe anything, but it's finding
(13:02):
value where others aren't.
And I think in the US market,hiring managers have worked with
Asia forever, usually due tocost reasons, and they started
to work with Eastern Europe andAfrica was up and coming and I
don't know why, but LatinAmerica was just kind of skipped
over.
And then, all of a sudden,covid happened and time zone was
(13:24):
everything.
So we've just seen a massivegust of wind in our sails with
what we call nearshoring, whichis basically labor, that's on
the same time zone as you.
It's almost often a developingcountry supplying a more
(13:45):
developed country, and then youhave this leverage dynamic, this
arbitrage dynamic.
So to plug we happen to beexperts in Latin America.
Labor, it's one thing, to beself-serve and go on Upwork and
try to find somebody.
It's a whole other thing tofind a person that is a really
(14:05):
good cultural fit, a really goodtechnical fit, domain knowledge
fit, senior level, speaksEnglish, and these candidates
would rather work with us too,because places like Upwork take
a big part of their fee, justlike Uber takes a big part of
Uber driver fees and Airbnbtakes a big fee.
(14:25):
We don't do that to thecandidates, so they come to us
for better opportunities and thecompanies come to us because we
have access to that cream ofthe crop Latin America talent,
something that I wanted to share, seb, that might be kind of
interesting for your audience.
So maybe another tale ofSilicon Valley that kind of
helps put all the cultural stufftogether.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, I would love to hear.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, this is probably, you know, a good 10
years ago.
So I was head of recruiting fortwo different companies and I
think, like the comparisons aregoing to be really interesting
here.
One of those companies is acompany that's not public called
Lending Club.
So I was there during the preIPO days.
(15:09):
You know, hot fintech, and itwas really interesting.
When I first started workingthere, everyone in finance knew
who it was.
It was like this really coolfinance story, but it wasn't
really known in the techcommunity.
So the company was kind ofstalled out.
You know, around 19, 20engineers, despite being almost
(15:31):
a unicorn valuation, unheard of,right.
And and I was trying to likethink, okay, you know, we're
kind of struggling to find theright engineers.
Um, and our culture was a littlebit different.
It wasn't.
It didn't look like any coolsilicon valley office that I'd
ever been to.
You know, it looked like a lawoffice, honestly, you know, you
(15:52):
go in and it's like drab, graycubicles.
Everybody in there was probablyin their like 40s and 50s and
but I try to think like, okay,how do we make this an advantage
, right?
So so you know, as we startedto do some more pattern
recognition, that meant thateveryone in there was quite
senior.
(16:13):
They liked working with othersenior people.
If they're that age theyprobably have other priorities
and obligations, so they don'tmind going to the office, but
they don't want to be there at10 o'clock at night.
They want to leave around fiveor so.
They all were working rightdowntown San Francisco, so they
needed access to the train,because who wants to drive there
(16:34):
?
And then we also had quite afew people that were interested
in visa sponsorship.
Okay, so I kind of put all thistogether and I started to see
there was a pattern of not onlythe ones that worked there but
the ones that had gotten faralong in the process, like
on-site interviews.
It was kind of a big signalbecause if someone makes it that
(16:54):
far, there's probably somethingthere.
Either they move forward or not.
The ones that aren't there,that don't make it that far, you
know there's probably somethingmissing.
So long story short kind ofcircled the city called Fremont,
which is about an hour trainride to San Francisco, and I
took me and my small recruitingteam.
We went down to Fremont,recruiting team.
(17:15):
We went down to Fremont and wespent instead of spending like a
couple like our normal weekbehind our laptops in our
downtown office sending emailsaway to candidates and just
crossing our fingers and hopingthey respond.
We got out in the wild.
So we set up one of those likebig giant, 10 foot tall, coding
exercises.
It was like a, you know, like abig sign with a coding problem
(17:39):
on it, and we put these littleflyers together like as a test
on the street.
You mean yeah, yeah, and like weput these flyers together like
only looking for senior leveltalent.
You know, normal business hours, piece of sponsorship,
competitive salaries, somethinglike that.
You know, just kind of nice andeasy apply here you know, to
get to the funding club.
(18:00):
So we go there and um, uh, youknow, every eight minutes a
train comes through.
The morning was a littlechallenging because people are
on their way to work and youknow they don't, they don't have
time for this Four o'clock off.
From four o'clock to seveno'clock, wow, it was a gold.
Nine-seven Every eight minutes.
(18:20):
Big rush of you know couplehundred people Every eight
minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
you knew your recruitment team would arrive.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You knew candidates who would be shipped.
Get these like big crowds ofpeople around our sign.
They're straining their necks,trying to solve the puzzle.
They're not in a massive rush.
What if they had a bad day atwork?
They are eager to talk to us,you know, and we got so many
applications and it was likeright in that center thesis that
we talked about.
(18:46):
So was that?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
for Plug or for clients.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So this is for this company, lending Club.
Yeah, just like you knowsomething for your audience as
you start to do like patternmatching within your own company
and candidates that get reallythat go really far.
You try to find an alternativeway to recruit.
Now I took this same lesson toanother startup that I worked at
(19:10):
called Soch, which waseventually bought by Postmates
and then Postmates was bought byUber.
So Soch was, you know, a 40person, hip little startup.
Everybody there was 23 yearsold and, you know, stayed till
midnight playing video games atthe office.
So could I take some of theselessons to Soch?
Well, what I did is we foundlike a food festival, like a
(19:35):
food and beer festival, made ourown little coding puzzle and
they were not going to be, andyou know, same thing happened,
but it was like that right groupof crowd.
You know, we were like this isthe kind of company where, you
know, nine o'clock on a Tuesdaythese because these, the, your
co-workers become your bestfriends, right, and that's what
what people were kind of optinginto.
O'clock on a tuesday thesebecause these, the, your
co-workers become your bestfriends, right, and that's what
(19:55):
what people were kind of optinginto.
And long hours not necessarilylong work hours, just long hours
because you're taking breaks tohave dinner and video games and
be on the same sports teams andthey're your saturday night
friends and that works like acharm.
So, uh, if your audience isthinking about recruiting, it
doesn't always have to beinternet, right, it doesn't
(20:16):
always have to be web recruitingand try to think like where are
my?
and, by the way, for a companylike Soch, future employees were
probably users too of theproduct.
So we went to where like a userof our product might be.
We went to where futureemployees would be, get offline
Circles.
Back to the original lesson ofknow who you are, but because
(20:39):
you know who you are, you alsoknow who you're not.
You know, and then people kindof self-select in.
Someone that worked at LendingClub has nothing in common with
somebody that worked at Soch andvice versa, you know.
So you're kind of appealing tothe audience and potential
employee group.
If everyone is a futurecandidate for you, then nobody's
(20:59):
a future candidate becauseyou're not clear enough on who's
the right fit for your company.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
That is so interesting.
Thank you for that.
Sharing, brian, this notion, Ialmost feel that it's kind of
this default, this total defaultthat we say of course we hire
online.
That's just the way we do that.
Have you seen, like, how wouldyou operationalize this If we
have somebody sitting thereright now listening or watching
(21:26):
that, watching our podcast here,like it is?
You know, we have the workflows, we have the processes of
knowing how to go about thehiring process online.
We have seen success.
You know it seems clear cut tosay that I would argue that
probably no company right nowhas a best practice really
(21:47):
physically being out there anddoing that hire the way you just
described, which is usually, ifI look at the landscape in
general, polarization or doingthe things that nobody else does
, is usually the right way to goabout it from an operational
strategic perspective.
Are you right now, have youoperationalized this within Plug
(22:08):
?
What is your recommendation forcompanies really kind of trying
to wanting to test this out?
What are the next steps?
Like, how do you even come upwith the idea of where to
position yourself, knowing whoyou are and where your market
hangs out?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.
So I think it's still as RonaldReagan used to say it's
mourning in America.
I think it's still mourning innear shore, in Latin America.
So you think about the books,like I've seen the of early
(22:56):
adopters and you know lateadopters, the places that aren't
on the radar for most Americans.
Less than 25% of Americans thisis an unfortunate statistic
less than 25% have passports.
Most that have ever been toMexico or Latin America have
gone to Cancun or Cabo.
(23:16):
That's their view, right.
So, but it's to our advantagebecause they just don't know
enough about it.
They're not recruiting thereaggressively.
So our competition is domesticcompanies and we have a massive
advantage over them.
We pay in USD, we have accessto really interesting projects,
(23:37):
really interesting customers,and then it's really about
helping these companies find thenuance or the arbitrage that
best fits them.
So, for example, if you have avery hardcore hardware
requirement, I might steer youaway from Argentina, because
it's very difficult to gethardware in and out of that
(23:57):
country, right, but if it's abring your own device type of
thing, then amazing place.
If you're more concerned aboutcost than anything, like cost
and English language are themost important things, I would
steer you towards Nicaragua andCentral America.
(24:19):
If you want to have everybodyin one country and then one
specific city.
A place like Monterrey, mexico,was a great arbitrage three or
four years ago.
Today, with convergence andcompetition, office space, labor
, the prices are going up.
So I think that's the valuethat we're trying to add for our
(24:42):
clients and maybe how we'retrying to operationalize it, by
providing all of our firsthandknowledge in country and
steering companies and hiringmanagers to the right country
for the right scenario.
It's just not a bigone-size-fits-all.
Try Latin America.
Latin America has a lot ofunique and distinctively
(25:04):
different countries.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, it seems like Plug has a great service there,
as you mentioned, and I wasn'taware about this until recently.
I found out myself that notmany Americans have actually
passports.
I thought that to beinteresting.
You know, coming from Germany,for us it's like you're kind of
running with this thing, justyou know over our shoulders.
It's just like where do I go now?
(25:25):
Not in Europe, of course, butif a company has rigorous
processes right now, may doesn'twant to use Plug as a service,
which is totally fine as well.
What are those?
You know, square stacks, whatare those different methods of
hiring that you just mentioned?
Around having a booth outsidethe school, outside the train
(25:47):
station?
You know, again, they don'thave the refined processes to
even understand how to go aboutit, because its default is
around we just hire online.
This is the way we do it.
What is the next step for themif they want to trial this Like
where do they actually put up apop-up booth?
How do they find where theircandidates run around?
(26:09):
Have you been able tooperationalize this insights
plug as in?
Are you still doing it?
Did you see validity in it?
Do you see that?
Look, it's not needed?
And not just plug related rightnow, but in general, like,
what's your recommendation interms of other hiring strategies
?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
places, but online, I think what?
So maybe there's two lessonshere.
The first is you know what didWarren buffett always say?
You know, when there's blood onthe streets, right like bye,
you know, and um and when likeeverything looks like right.
It's you know, it's just heightsright right, or like when your
taxi driver is giving you stocktips, it's time to sell.
(26:47):
So there's some analogy thereof if your labor market is so
overheated, you probably needsomething different, like a
different way to attract talent,different way to source talent.
With plug, we um, we're notthere yet.
(27:08):
With latin america it's it'snot that competitive or crazy.
We've been able to focus on,like again, who we are and who
we're not.
We're not a full dev shop andmaybe I'll I'll talk about that
for a second we're really arecruiting expert for latin
america and there's a big reasonwhy I fundamentally decided to
(27:30):
build plug and think about ourvalues around that.
If, if you're organized like adev shop, what does it mean to
be a dev shop?
It means that you're doingfixed price projects.
You know.
You ask for a scope and youcome back and say, okay, we'll
build this for a half a milliondollars and I'll have it done in
six months.
That all sounds great, you know, for a company, but you have no
(27:52):
idea what's really happeningbehind the scenes.
You know the two developersthat sounded so great.
They might never touch yourproject again, right, and it's
all done by, you know, like anarmy of junior people that are
cycling through and who knows ifthe code is good or not, and
you're often dealing with thislike massive overhead.
(28:14):
Again, you don't really knowwho's working on the project.
You're talking to architectsand project managers Sure eight,
that's really how they'remaking money.
It's just very it's not.
It's not good for the client,and you also have this concept
(28:38):
of the bench.
So that means that the worstthing that a dev shop can have
is somebody who's on theircompany but not billing.
They're just burning a hole inthe company's cash, right?
So let's say you're an okayJava developer, your project
just ended, your company, yourdev shop, is dying to get you
(29:01):
billing again.
A client comes through yeah,you know, we need a Java
application bill.
Great, take this guy.
And it doesn't matter if thisguy is going to be good or not.
For them Now it's no longer acost, it's revenue for the
company.
So I took all those lessons andbuilt Plug around bespoke,
(29:22):
on-demand Latin Americarecruiting.
You get what you pay for, andthat's a huge principle for us.
So you're only working with thedeveloper that you've
interviewed and you've hired.
They're part of your team.
There's no middlemen, there'sno architects, there's no
project managers, there's nojunior person secretly doing the
(29:44):
work.
You get what you pay for andwhen that project is over, the
project is over.
It's not burning a hole in ourcash.
So therefore, is over, it's notburning a hole in our cash.
So therefore, we don't need toovercharge or desperately try to
get our hot potato over to yourbooks.
So back to your originalquestion.
There Seb is operationalizingthis.
(30:05):
I think we found a really niceniche because we know who we are
.
We're just looking for seniordevelopers, senior technical
talent that want to work withgreat US companies.
We're not dealing with juniorguys.
We're not dealing withexecutive search and all this
other random stuff.
We know exactly who we are andthe types of companies that
we're going after.
(30:25):
We've been entrenched, you know, for a decade.
We know all the right people.
Our network is really vast.
We've worked enough with onesthat weren't the right fits
either.
So our network, I think, ispretty legitimate and we've gone
through the 10,000 hours ofgetting this right so our
customers are able to benefitAmazing.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Brian, I want to thank you for your time.
It's an amazing experience toget you on today.
Thank you so much, and I hopeour listeners have received a
lot of value.
You know, if I reflect on thisconversation, there are two
things that really stood out forme, One of which is know who
you are.
When you do, you know whoyou're not and you know that's
(31:07):
maybe a point that our listenerswant to take away from this
conversation to ask themselveswho am I in the context of my
hiring practice for smallerscale-ups, who are we as a
company and who are we lookingfor?
And therefore figuring out whowe are not, so that we don't
(31:28):
waste time, don't waste ourresources and make sure that we
get the rights higher.
And the second point that stoodout for me was this piece around
let's try different things aswell.
You spoke about video 12, 13years ago.
Nowadays, it's kind of likeprobably the way to go, I
(31:48):
wouldn't say the way mostcompanies go about it.
I think we're still kind of setin our old ways of just it's
weird, because it is such an oldprinciple of here's a text that
you can.
You can at times, you know,write down whatever you want if
you're creative, right.
So, let's be honest, but youcan't fake things.
In a video, right, you?
You can see experienced hiresor hiring managers.
(32:10):
Rather, they see through BS.
Right, and try things that aredifferent, don't?
You know?
Don't hide away from giving ashot, maybe to go out on the
streets and put up a booth andsituate yourself near a train
station or put a coding, youknow, I mean, it depends on who
you hire, but just, let's be abit more experiential, let's try
new things.
(32:31):
You know, the world hasn't grownand evolved because we have
been doing the same things overand over again.
Definition of insanity I thinkthis also is a point that we may
want to think about reinventing.
Thank you so much for your time, Brian.
It was a pleasure hanging outand have a nice day.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Wonderful Thank you.
Welcome listeners.
I'm Sepp Wichmann, your host ofthe Do Good Insider, where we
dive deep into raw andmeaningful conversations with
visionary founders and CEOs whosee beyond profits, elevating
the lives of employees andvendors and the planets we call
home.
Today's guest, let's welcomeBrian Sampson, founder of Plug
(00:50):
Technologies.
With extensive experience inbuilding and scaling teams,
brian has navigated theintricate challenges of aligning
company culture, strategichiring and leadership.
Plug's mission reflects hispassion for creating impactful
teams and solving realoperational pain points for
(01:10):
businesses by placing LatinAmerican-based engineers and
other talents with US-basedbusinesses.
Join us as Brian sharesinsights on fostering a strong
workplace culture, best hiringpractices and overcoming
operational hurdles like remotework and scaling.
Whether you are a CEO, founderor a leader curious about the
(01:35):
behind the scenes of running asuccessful venture-backed
startup, this conversation ispacked with actionable advice
and inspiring lessons learned,so welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Brian, how are you, a pleasure to be here.
Thanks so much for the invite,sam, amazing Good to have you.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
So let's dive right in.
So you guys are experts inhiring, placing top talents in
the Latin American region inUS-based companies.
I'm sure that you guys havelearned.
You know left, right and center, everything from hiring to
technology, to whatever it isthat really makes a good hire
(02:14):
being placed in the rightcompany.
I would love to start withlessons learned.
You know the companies,founders, ceos, hr-os that are
listening right now.
They all have expertise inhiring.
But really I would love to diveinto the details today.
Talk me through a scenariowhere you guys looked at the
(02:35):
cultural fits with the profiling, where you went through your
processes from interviewtechniques, the right questions
asked to the cultural match,from interview techniques, the
right questions asked to thecultural match.
What is this moment where youthought this just didn't go
right and what were thoselessons learned?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, seb, there's a lot to unpack there and I will
tell you, I've been doing thisfor about 20 years and sometimes
I feel like I'm just scratchingthe surface.
There's so much to talk abouton this topic.
I think where a good place tostart might be my days working
for VC funded tech startups whenI lived in San Francisco.
(03:13):
Eventually I was a head oftalent and you know, maybe like
a really interesting place wouldbe.
I was working with this techstartup Gosh.
This is probably 12, 13 yearsago and I remember I was dating
my wife at the time and I wastrying to find a way to break
through all the noise.
(03:34):
So even then, even 12, 13 yearsago, you walk down the streets
of San Francisco, you throw acoin, you'll hit 50 different
startup guys.
They're everywhere, right, liketech startup after tech startup
after tech startup.
So it's really hard to market,really hard to position, because
you just kind of blend in witheverybody else.
(03:56):
If you were in you know a muchdifferent place, you know you
might be like the startup guyand really interesting, but out
there you're the phrase like adime, a dozen.
So I had a friend who was also astartup guy, but his startup
was creating video jobdescriptions and this was like
brand new concept, you know, 13,14 years ago, and I think I
(04:20):
learned a lot about this justgoing through the process.
So I was trying to get thisstartup out.
That was kind of early stageand I had my buddy come by and
we spent time with the hiringmanager.
You know, put it all on film.
We tried to make it like reallyauthentic, you know.
so it's not overproduced, withlike jet planes going through
(04:43):
and graphics.
Just, you know, hiring manager,you know on camera and it I
learned a lot, just about, like,probably what I had missed in
the past before I had ever donethis.
So, number one, I can't thinkof a single candidate that
wouldn't want to know what theirfuture boss is like.
Right, but the thing is there'sa million companies hiring and
(05:07):
every recruiting process istimely for a candidate.
Okay, I've got to spend timeanswering emails, then I've got
to talk to this recruiter.
Maybe eventually, like after acouple rounds, I'll finally talk
to the hiring manager.
But what if I could just watcha five-minute video from this
hiring manager?
Gosh, like who wouldn't want toinvest five minutes into
(05:28):
learning who their future bossis?
Now, on the other side, what doyou do on this video?
Here's something else that I hadlearned is that you really are
doing a disservice to yourcompany if you're trying to be
everything to everybody and yeah, that sounds like OK, whatever,
brian, that's kind of genericadvice, but you'd be surprised
like a company really needs totake a stand.
(05:51):
Like, if you're for thesecouple things, that means you
should be just as easily againstthese other things, and I'll
even give like a kind of a funnyexample.
So the word or the phrasedata-driven is thrown around all
the time Like yeah, that soundsgreat.
Who doesn't want to be datadriven?
Well, guess what?
There is a counterweight tobeing data driven.
(06:12):
It means you.
If you're so focused on gettingdata to make a better decision,
you're going to be a littleslower.
You're not going to be thefirst out there to make a
decision so like, but that'sokay, you're just making a count
like a clear decision.
We are going to be a littleslower, but a little more
(06:33):
thoughtful, right, that's whatit means to be data-driven.
Or maybe somebody else isprioritizing, like speed and
aggressiveness, right, but it'sokay.
So you want to decide who youare, but that also means who
you're not.
Now back to when I was with mywife we're still married but
when I was dating her.
So I was so intrigued by thisconcept of video job
(06:57):
descriptions.
So this company had like adozen startups as their first
clients you know, I was one oftheir first ones and I started
to show her all these littlevideos and she said something
that like-.
So the videos.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So let me just ask the videos from founders or from
the hiring or from the businessowners.
What are the things that you?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, in some cases it was the same one of the same.
Like early companies, thefounder might be the hiring
manager, right, right?
Or maybe the founder makes aquick 30 second cameo.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I've seen that before , like years ago, and I'm
curious to see how that went.
How that went or not.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, so my wife said something that like blew my
mind and it really just hit thatnail on the head in like the
series of videos that I'mshowing her because I'm so
excited, like watch this, watchthis, like this is so much
better than reading thejavascript on.
Indeed, and we watched thisvideo of uh like a total
pro-typical founder, right, likelike you know he it's this,
(07:49):
this guy with his hoodie, hisstartup hoodie you know like an
like a really industrial loftoffice in the background with
like the ducts and the air ductsand, um, you know like exposed
everything brick.
Um, there's like seven otherdudes in the background.
All look the same and they'relike riding around the office on
(08:11):
skateboards in the back whilethis guy's, you know, telling
about the company.
And what she said wasincredible.
She said, oh my god, I wouldnever work there.
But that was brilliant, becauseimagine how much time is spent
wasted for both parties, like ifshe had just seen a job
description, let's say it's likea marketing manager job or
(08:33):
something and she applies, goes,goes through the process, waste
her time, waste the hiringmanager's time.
But by her investing, like sheprobably knew, in 30 seconds,
right, like, this is not theculture for me, but so she saves
her time and on the other side,the hiring company saves their
time because, like, people thatreally want to be in that
(08:55):
environment are the ones thatare implying.
Now, obviously there are thingsto worry about later if you get
too homogenous and yeteverybody's like the same thing.
But the concept of who you areand like, be authentic, be real,
put it out there.
But it also means who you'renot and it saves everybody.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So that is so interesting.
Yeah, yeah, thank you so muchfor sharing that.
Like I remember I don'tremember anymore.
You know, during my years ofbeing an employee it sounds like
a world ago, lifetime ago Ithink, in my time, and I haven't
had heaps and heaps of jobs,but, fair bit, I had, you know,
10 years or so of roughly, ofmaybe not quite of employment
(09:37):
like solid employment, higherranks, team leader, managerial
director positions and so on inL&D.
I think I remember once ortwice having had such a process
where I think I was able to getto see and feel and read.
This is what we do.
We are picking up on thisenergetic stuff where we like, I
(09:59):
like this person, or I reallydon't like this person at all,
and the background looks like Iwould never work there, right?
yeah, I had an opportunity,brian, where I saw the person.
I got got to feel into thisperson, if that's a thing, and
it also helps me to to be morein sync and comfortable with
maybe recording a video myself,with even going on a call.
(10:21):
Like you know, we have metbefore.
We jumped on this podcast hereand that gives us a sense of
familiarity where I'm like, Ikind of I feel like I know Brian
.
And I feel like I know, seb, andthat just gives us a totally
new dynamic, much more acomforting dynamic.
Right, we all are creatures offear, if you will, humanity in
general living in duality inthis world here.
(10:45):
Is that what you have learnedfrom those early days that I
don't know.
Candidates get to be morecomfortable, get to be more
themselves by having seen thehiring manager prior, or what
were the other challenges, maybefrom the hiring manager that
they didn't want to go on, orthey maybe weren't sure who they
(11:05):
are, or talk us through that alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, well, I think I mean there's no science behind
this.
This is just my experience.
But AB testing this, you know,like a candidate that is only
going off of a writtenJavaScript and a candidate
that's going off of a video, Ithink the one that watches the
video and decides to continue inthe process is going to be way
more enthusiastic, engaged.
(11:29):
I love what you just said aboutfamiliarity.
It's all.
It all works really welltogether.
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Let's talk about plug technologies.
Let's talk about also the wideryou know.
Let's also bring, let's takethis into a wider context.
What are those?
You know?
Video, for example.
What are those?
I mean video.
Nowadays we pretty much onlywork with video in terms of
within the hiring processBecause, again, there's so much
(11:58):
it's so and there's so many datapoints we can elicit for our
clients and for us internally,where we're like you know what,
this person just fits reallywell into our culture or vice
versa.
Right, what have you learned?
What are those golden nuggets?
Just let's grab two, threegolden nuggets where you feel
and think like this is detailthat really would our, our
listeners would really value tolisten to.
What are you doing that'sdifferent?
What are you doing that youhave realized over the years
(12:20):
that works really well?
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, so I'll just give a little background on Plug
for a second and then maybeI'll share a broader experience
that I've had.
What Plug is?
It is an opportunity to createtalent arbitrage for companies.
We have discovered LatinAmerica.
I found Argentina about 10years ago.
It changed my life.
(12:42):
Could not believe that therewas this level of talent, this
level of flexibility, ability toovercome adversity, grit,
intelligence, english, all on mytime zone, and nobody was
talking about it.
I couldn't believe it.
And that's really whatarbitrage is.
It could be financial, it couldbe anything, but it's finding
(13:02):
value where others aren't.
And I think in the US market,hiring managers have worked with
Asia forever, usually due tocost reasons, and they started
to work with Eastern Europe andAfrica was up and coming and I
don't know why, but LatinAmerica was just kind of skipped
over.
And then, all of a sudden,covid happened and time zone was
(13:24):
everything.
So we've just seen a massivegust of wind in our sails with
what we call nearshoring, whichis basically labor, that's on
the same time zone as you.
It's almost often a developingcountry supplying a more
(13:45):
developed country, and then youhave this leverage dynamic, this
arbitrage dynamic.
So to plug we happen to beexperts in Latin America.
Labor, it's one thing, to beself-serve and go on Upwork and
try to find somebody.
It's a whole other thing tofind a person that is a really
(14:05):
good cultural fit, a really goodtechnical fit, domain knowledge
fit, senior level, speaksEnglish, and these candidates
would rather work with us too,because places like Upwork take
a big part of their fee, justlike Uber takes a big part of
Uber driver fees and Airbnbtakes a big fee.
(14:25):
We don't do that to thecandidates, so they come to us
for better opportunities and thecompanies come to us because we
have access to that cream ofthe crop Latin America talent,
something that I wanted to share, seb, that might be kind of
interesting for your audience.
So maybe another tale ofSilicon Valley that kind of
helps put all the cultural stufftogether.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, I would love to hear.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, this is probably, you know, a good 10
years ago.
So I was head of recruiting fortwo different companies and I
think, like the comparisons aregoing to be really interesting
here.
One of those companies is acompany that's not public called
Lending Club.
So I was there during the preIPO days.
(15:09):
You know, hot fintech, and itwas really interesting.
When I first started workingthere, everyone in finance knew
who it was.
It was like this really coolfinance story, but it wasn't
really known in the techcommunity.
So the company was kind ofstalled out.
You know, around 19, 20engineers, despite being almost
(15:31):
a unicorn valuation, unheard of,right.
And and I was trying to likethink, okay, you know, we're
kind of struggling to find theright engineers.
Um, and our culture was a littlebit different.
It wasn't.
It didn't look like any coolsilicon valley office that I'd
ever been to.
You know, it looked like a lawoffice, honestly, you know, you
(15:52):
go in and it's like drab, graycubicles.
Everybody in there was probablyin their like 40s and 50s and
but I try to think like, okay,how do we make this an advantage
, right?
So so you know, as we startedto do some more pattern
recognition, that meant thateveryone in there was quite
senior.
(16:13):
They liked working with othersenior people.
If they're that age theyprobably have other priorities
and obligations, so they don'tmind going to the office, but
they don't want to be there at10 o'clock at night.
They want to leave around fiveor so.
They all were working rightdowntown San Francisco, so they
needed access to the train,because who wants to drive there
(16:34):
?
And then we also had quite afew people that were interested
in visa sponsorship.
Okay, so I kind of put all thistogether and I started to see
there was a pattern of not onlythe ones that worked there but
the ones that had gotten faralong in the process, like
on-site interviews.
It was kind of a big signalbecause if someone makes it that
(16:54):
far, there's probably somethingthere.
Either they move forward or not.
The ones that aren't there,that don't make it that far, you
know there's probably somethingmissing.
So long story short kind ofcircled the city called Fremont,
which is about an hour trainride to San Francisco, and I
took me and my small recruitingteam.
We went down to Fremont,recruiting team.
(17:15):
We went down to Fremont and wespent instead of spending like a
couple like our normal weekbehind our laptops in our
downtown office sending emailsaway to candidates and just
crossing our fingers and hopingthey respond.
We got out in the wild.
So we set up one of those likebig giant, 10 foot tall, coding
exercises.
It was like a, you know, like abig sign with a coding problem
(17:39):
on it, and we put these littleflyers together like as a test
on the street.
You mean yeah, yeah, and like weput these flyers together like
only looking for senior leveltalent.
You know, normal business hours, piece of sponsorship,
competitive salaries, somethinglike that.
You know, just kind of nice andeasy apply here you know, to
get to the funding club.
(18:00):
So we go there and um, uh, youknow, every eight minutes a
train comes through.
The morning was a littlechallenging because people are
on their way to work and youknow they don't, they don't have
time for this Four o'clock off.
From four o'clock to seveno'clock, wow, it was a gold.
Nine-seven Every eight minutes.
(18:20):
Big rush of you know couplehundred people Every eight
minutes.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
you knew your recruitment team would arrive.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You knew candidates who would be shipped.
Get these like big crowds ofpeople around our sign.
They're straining their necks,trying to solve the puzzle.
They're not in a massive rush.
What if they had a bad day atwork?
They are eager to talk to us,you know, and we got so many
applications and it was likeright in that center thesis that
we talked about.
(18:46):
So was that?
Speaker 1 (18:46):
for Plug or for clients.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So this is for this company, lending Club.
Yeah, just like you knowsomething for your audience as
you start to do like patternmatching within your own company
and candidates that get reallythat go really far.
You try to find an alternativeway to recruit.
Now I took this same lesson toanother startup that I worked at
(19:10):
called Soch, which waseventually bought by Postmates
and then Postmates was bought byUber.
So Soch was, you know, a 40person, hip little startup.
Everybody there was 23 yearsold and, you know, stayed till
midnight playing video games atthe office.
So could I take some of theselessons to Soch?
Well, what I did is we foundlike a food festival, like a
(19:35):
food and beer festival, made ourown little coding puzzle and
they were not going to be, andyou know, same thing happened,
but it was like that right groupof crowd.
You know, we were like this isthe kind of company where, you
know, nine o'clock on a Tuesdaythese because these, the, your
co-workers become your bestfriends, right, and that's what
what people were kind of optinginto.
O'clock on a tuesday thesebecause these, the, your
co-workers become your bestfriends, right, and that's what
(19:55):
what people were kind of optinginto.
And long hours not necessarilylong work hours, just long hours
because you're taking breaks tohave dinner and video games and
be on the same sports teams andthey're your saturday night
friends and that works like acharm.
So, uh, if your audience isthinking about recruiting, it
doesn't always have to beinternet, right, it doesn't
(20:16):
always have to be web recruitingand try to think like where are
my?
and, by the way, for a companylike Soch, future employees were
probably users too of theproduct.
So we went to where like a userof our product might be.
We went to where futureemployees would be, get offline
Circles.
Back to the original lesson ofknow who you are, but because
(20:39):
you know who you are, you alsoknow who you're not.
You know, and then people kindof self-select in.
Someone that worked at LendingClub has nothing in common with
somebody that worked at Soch andvice versa, you know.
So you're kind of appealing tothe audience and potential
employee group.
If everyone is a futurecandidate for you, then nobody's
(20:59):
a future candidate becauseyou're not clear enough on who's
the right fit for your company.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
That is so interesting.
Thank you for that.
Sharing, brian, this notion, Ialmost feel that it's kind of
this default, this total defaultthat we say of course we hire
online.
That's just the way we do that.
Have you seen, like, how wouldyou operationalize this If we
have somebody sitting thereright now listening or watching
(21:26):
that, watching our podcast here,like it is?
You know, we have the workflows, we have the processes of
knowing how to go about thehiring process online.
We have seen success.
You know it seems clear cut tosay that I would argue that
probably no company right nowhas a best practice really
(21:47):
physically being out there anddoing that hire the way you just
described, which is usually, ifI look at the landscape in
general, polarization or doingthe things that nobody else does
, is usually the right way to goabout it from an operational
strategic perspective.
Are you right now, have youoperationalized this within Plug
(22:08):
?
What is your recommendation forcompanies really kind of trying
to wanting to test this out?
What are the next steps?
Like, how do you even come upwith the idea of where to
position yourself, knowing whoyou are and where your market
hangs out?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah.
So I think it's still as RonaldReagan used to say it's
mourning in America.
I think it's still mourning innear shore, in Latin America.
So you think about the books,like I've seen the of early
(22:56):
adopters and you know lateadopters, the places that aren't
on the radar for most Americans.
Less than 25% of Americans thisis an unfortunate statistic
less than 25% have passports.
Most that have ever been toMexico or Latin America have
gone to Cancun or Cabo.
(23:16):
That's their view, right.
So, but it's to our advantagebecause they just don't know
enough about it.
They're not recruiting thereaggressively.
So our competition is domesticcompanies and we have a massive
advantage over them.
We pay in USD, we have accessto really interesting projects,
(23:37):
really interesting customers,and then it's really about
helping these companies find thenuance or the arbitrage that
best fits them.
So, for example, if you have avery hardcore hardware
requirement, I might steer youaway from Argentina, because
it's very difficult to gethardware in and out of that
(23:57):
country, right, but if it's abring your own device type of
thing, then amazing place.
If you're more concerned aboutcost than anything, like cost
and English language are themost important things, I would
steer you towards Nicaragua andCentral America.
(24:19):
If you want to have everybodyin one country and then one
specific city.
A place like Monterrey, mexico,was a great arbitrage three or
four years ago.
Today, with convergence andcompetition, office space, labor
, the prices are going up.
So I think that's the valuethat we're trying to add for our
(24:42):
clients and maybe how we'retrying to operationalize it, by
providing all of our firsthandknowledge in country and
steering companies and hiringmanagers to the right country
for the right scenario.
It's just not a bigone-size-fits-all.
Try Latin America.
Latin America has a lot ofunique and distinctively
(25:04):
different countries.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, it seems like Plug has a great service there,
as you mentioned, and I wasn'taware about this until recently.
I found out myself that notmany Americans have actually
passports.
I thought that to beinteresting.
You know, coming from Germany,for us it's like you're kind of
running with this thing, justyou know over our shoulders.
It's just like where do I go now?
(25:25):
Not in Europe, of course, butif a company has rigorous
processes right now, may doesn'twant to use Plug as a service,
which is totally fine as well.
What are those?
You know, square stacks, whatare those different methods of
hiring that you just mentioned?
Around having a booth outsidethe school, outside the train
(25:47):
station?
You know, again, they don'thave the refined processes to
even understand how to go aboutit, because its default is
around we just hire online.
This is the way we do it.
What is the next step for themif they want to trial this Like
where do they actually put up apop-up booth?
How do they find where theircandidates run around?
(26:09):
Have you been able tooperationalize this insights
plug as in?
Are you still doing it?
Did you see validity in it?
Do you see that?
Look, it's not needed?
And not just plug related rightnow, but in general, like,
what's your recommendation interms of other hiring strategies
?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
places, but online, I think what?
So maybe there's two lessonshere.
The first is you know what didWarren buffett always say?
You know, when there's blood onthe streets, right like bye,
you know, and um and when likeeverything looks like right.
It's you know, it's just heightsright right, or like when your
taxi driver is giving you stocktips, it's time to sell.
(26:47):
So there's some analogy thereof if your labor market is so
overheated, you probably needsomething different, like a
different way to attract talent,different way to source talent.
With plug, we um, we're notthere yet.
(27:08):
With latin america it's it'snot that competitive or crazy.
We've been able to focus on,like again, who we are and who
we're not.
We're not a full dev shop andmaybe I'll I'll talk about that
for a second we're really arecruiting expert for latin
america and there's a big reasonwhy I fundamentally decided to
(27:30):
build plug and think about ourvalues around that.
If, if you're organized like adev shop, what does it mean to
be a dev shop?
It means that you're doingfixed price projects.
You know.
You ask for a scope and youcome back and say, okay, we'll
build this for a half a milliondollars and I'll have it done in
six months.
That all sounds great, you know, for a company, but you have no
(27:52):
idea what's really happeningbehind the scenes.
You know the two developersthat sounded so great.
They might never touch yourproject again, right, and it's
all done by, you know, like anarmy of junior people that are
cycling through and who knows ifthe code is good or not, and
you're often dealing with thislike massive overhead.
(28:14):
Again, you don't really knowwho's working on the project.
You're talking to architectsand project managers Sure eight,
that's really how they'remaking money.
It's just very it's not.
It's not good for the client,and you also have this concept
(28:38):
of the bench.
So that means that the worstthing that a dev shop can have
is somebody who's on theircompany but not billing.
They're just burning a hole inthe company's cash, right?
So let's say you're an okayJava developer, your project
just ended, your company, yourdev shop, is dying to get you
(29:01):
billing again.
A client comes through yeah,you know, we need a Java
application bill.
Great, take this guy.
And it doesn't matter if thisguy is going to be good or not.
For them Now it's no longer acost, it's revenue for the
company.
So I took all those lessons andbuilt Plug around bespoke,
(29:22):
on-demand Latin Americarecruiting.
You get what you pay for, andthat's a huge principle for us.
So you're only working with thedeveloper that you've
interviewed and you've hired.
They're part of your team.
There's no middlemen, there'sno architects, there's no
project managers, there's nojunior person secretly doing the
(29:44):
work.
You get what you pay for andwhen that project is over, the
project is over.
It's not burning a hole in ourcash.
So therefore, is over, it's notburning a hole in our cash.
So therefore, we don't need toovercharge or desperately try to
get our hot potato over to yourbooks.
So back to your originalquestion.
There Seb is operationalizingthis.
(30:05):
I think we found a really niceniche because we know who we are
.
We're just looking for seniordevelopers, senior technical
talent that want to work withgreat US companies.
We're not dealing with juniorguys.
We're not dealing withexecutive search and all this
other random stuff.
We know exactly who we are andthe types of companies that
we're going after.
(30:25):
We've been entrenched, you know, for a decade.
We know all the right people.
Our network is really vast.
We've worked enough with onesthat weren't the right fits
either.
So our network, I think, ispretty legitimate and we've gone
through the 10,000 hours ofgetting this right so our
customers are able to benefitAmazing.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Brian, I want to thank you for your time.
It's an amazing experience toget you on today.
Thank you so much, and I hopeour listeners have received a
lot of value.
You know, if I reflect on thisconversation, there are two
things that really stood out forme, One of which is know who
you are.
When you do, you know whoyou're not and you know that's
(31:07):
maybe a point that our listenerswant to take away from this
conversation to ask themselveswho am I in the context of my
hiring practice for smallerscale-ups, who are we as a
company and who are we lookingfor?
And therefore figuring out whowe are not, so that we don't
(31:28):
waste time, don't waste ourresources and make sure that we
get the rights higher.
And the second point that stoodout for me was this piece around
let's try different things aswell.
You spoke about video 12, 13years ago.
Nowadays, it's kind of likeprobably the way to go, I
(31:48):
wouldn't say the way mostcompanies go about it.
I think we're still kind of setin our old ways of just it's
weird, because it is such an oldprinciple of here's a text that
you can.
You can at times, you know,write down whatever you want if
you're creative, right.
So, let's be honest, but youcan't fake things.
In a video, right, you?
You can see experienced hiresor hiring managers.
(32:10):
Rather, they see through BS.
Right, and try things that aredifferent, don't?
You know?
Don't hide away from giving ashot, maybe to go out on the
streets and put up a booth andsituate yourself near a train
station or put a coding, youknow, I mean, it depends on who
you hire, but just, let's be abit more experiential, let's try
new things.
(32:31):
You know, the world hasn't grownand evolved because we have
been doing the same things overand over again.
Definition of insanity I thinkthis also is a point that we may
want to think about reinventing.
Thank you so much for your time, Brian.
It was a pleasure hanging outand have a nice day.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Wonderful Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.