Hiring and Building a Web3 Native Team for Scaling | KBW2023

about the crypto native team so um Dan I'm going to hand over my microphone to you thank you sir thank you sir shout out to uh Francis and the rest of the fact block team for having us grateful to be here uh my name is Dan I'm the founder of uptop search we are the market leaders in recruiting for crypto um we work with a lot of early stage preed to series a web 3 startups and help them hire anything from BD marketing engineering community all the standard crypto native skill sets and we're excited to be here talking to you today about building crypto native teams yeah thank you all for having me representing movement Labs we're making Innovation accessible by bring democratizing the move language deploying it to other blockchains and making its parallel processing and security easily accessible to everyone in web 3 really appreciate getting to be here with you Dan up top has certainly been an incredible Resource as well as an incredible friend to movement labs and it's an honor to get to discuss this with you salute salute um cool well there's a lot to unpack here I know it's a topic it's very relevant these days there's a lot of early stage projects like yourself that have just raised and are looking to grow um so I figured we can kind of start Broad and then dig a little bit deeper um but just to you know get us started here um Coupe you know when you think about being an early stage project and you know attracting Talent what are some of the main things that you know uh that are on your mind as far as like strategic ways to attract talent to an early stage project that you know not everyone might be super familiar with yet so there of course one thing is having a stellar idea something that people really rock with get excited behind and want to be early in but that's just one piece of the puzzle beyond that Vibes and vision are the two biggest things when it comes to attracting and solidifying Stellar talent in the web 3 space so particularly your team it's a family your going to be working very many long hard hours with one another and so it's important to have those synergies between one another that you get along that you respect and hell even admire one another and then in terms of the vision the long term what are you in it for what are you in it for even outside of web 3 are key things that I believe the best talent in the space are thinking of and when they decide which team they work with for sure so is it fair to say that they have to you know know firstly be motivated by the project and the the mission that you're on and what you're building and then to to bring them even closer and to really draw them in that's when you you know talk about The Vibes and the culture and all that kind of stuff is that fair exactly it's like getting the foot in the dra staying no doubt um so my question to you is how do you once you bring them in because they're attracted to the project and what you're building how do you communicate um what are your Vibes what is the culture how do you you know know display that for them uh in attempt to to draw them in closer to you absolutely so as a Founder my one of my biggest recommendations and you know something that I think about quite a lot is the concept of drinking your own Kool-Aid that you need to truly believe in what you are doing almost to the point where you sound crazy when you talk about it like H not even swim in drink it swim in that Kool-Aid um so that you're finding the talent and the people who really want to go far with that IDE idea and it's this concept where even if it is so weird it is so ambitious and out of this world that you may be alienating a large portion of the workforce and potential applicants it is that 0.1% that you are looking for who want to go all the way and are in it for the same motivations have that same hustle and same dedication to that idea and vision as you and so it actually is in your favor um to be very Visionary and talk about these ideas and the longterm in such a way where you have no shame if it's something that might not even be feasible for the next 5 years you're looking for the people who get there with you and want to build with you together love that um love that H how do you to take it to take that one step deeper um how do you communicate like what it feels like to be an employee of movement Labs like what's going to be your experience you know describe that family mentality and kind of what the engagement is going to be like for the new joiners of movement gotcha so the first thing is that we don't have any employees we have family we have team members and this is something that I particularly recommend at early stage startups that you're not looking for employees you're not looking for people who are coming to work 40 hours put in their time and then go on to the next thing you're looking for partners you're looking for those people who believe in the idea the same way that you see it and have those same motivations and energy to pursue that dream and build that dream with you and so very flat Organization no hierarchies everyone's door is always open we see each other as partners and as equals and that's something that's very key this mutual respect for one another and admiration for everyone who is on the team and they're given skill set they're given Ambitions and motivations that we work together in such a way that we all pursue our dreams and it's underneath this umbrella where we may be coming from different directions we may be going in different angles but it's that um the prism if you will that directs this energy makes it much more powerful and gets us to that end goal winning together love it love it question for you uh I guess a little bit more specific to movement Labs like when you're interviewing candidates um what are some of the questions that you find them asking you because you know obviously we've heard this before that an interview should be two ways right an interview should be the founder interviewing the candidate and also as well as a reverse um but I think that's even more so accentuated in an early stage project that people you know you're technically still in stealth mode and people might not know that much about you so I'm sure they have a lot of questions for you what are some of the questions that you hear candidates ask in interviews for sure so oftentimes questions about the product that is something that we love to hear um one of our recent hires what stood out about him is in the interview he was asking asking us tougher questions than most of the Venture Capital firms which we were raising from that is an incredibly good look uh from in a hiring side of things asking questions about the product asking questions about how you acquire users asking about the vision and that's something else that we really love to to talk about and jam on because it really is in a way a relationship it is a family the special bond that goes much deeper um than any traditional relationship because you're working so so often with one another um so those are primarily questions which we discuss things regarding the product uh regarding the vision somewhat about the backgrounds of the team certainly as an early stage startup and particularly um my co-founder I we dropped out of college right and so talking about how did we get to this point and that's a conversation that we love to have in interviews as well understanding like what brought you here what brought you to web 3 why did you come here what are the things that interest you about this space how did that inform where you have gone what have you learned what is your journey your story and where is your story heading that's another key thing it's like we always ask what do you want from us right it's key to have that alignment and that understanding because at the end of the day openness and honesty is the best policy 100% couldn't agree more um now for any uh potential candidates uh that may be interested in movement labs and watching this um why don't you talk a little bit about the vision s sell me this sell me this project sell me the vision absolutely so my co-founder and I we were both some of the early builders in the move ecosystem incredibly bullish on the language we love move it's this foundation for the next generation of web 3 Builders Enterprises and investors with much better security much faster processing the way that it's been to Market it is very competitive and so you have new layer ones which are necessarily competing with others for their users for their liquidity it's a tough ask even in the best of markets but in a very saturated L1 game where now people are becoming Al on ethereum as well as so deep within a bare Market it's very difficult to convince people to leave their ecosystems cross the land and sea brand new tooling and brand new infrastructure brand new ecosystem right and so as people who have faced those ecosystem and Market constraints we thought what if we could democratize the language what if we could bring this to Market in a web three native way and what that looks like is instead of asking people to come to us we go to them like Amazon we deliver move blockchain environments to the front door of users and Builders where they are today making it as accessible as possible as a team that is facing a very difficult cold start problem incubating a brand new programming language you can't cut Corners here you can't expect people to come to you you have to meet them uh where they are and at the core that is what movement Labs is doing we envision a world in which the move language and its unparalleled security and processing speeds are available to everyone and that it becomes the backbone of the future web 3 ecosystem and so it's within our prerogative to bring move everywhere make it as accessible as possible possible and eventually change the game of smart contract development setting a new standard for security and Innovation love it bro love it I can feel the passion I can feel the passion and uh I think that's really important uh as you touched on as far as like bringing people in um let's go somewhere else for a second um you touched on uh earlier before that you and your co-founder are both College dropouts right um so here's something I got a question about is you know from my perspective I know that especially these days in this market um a lot of candidates you know high on their list of of priorities of things they look for in a new role is stability right um and so you know a lot of times when maybe they're interviewing you or they're doing their research on you they might see okay here are two young college dropouts that maybe haven't built a successful project before in the past and I'm not familiar with movement Labs so um like how does that how does that play out how do you make them feel comfortable in that situation well one thing that I love about web 3 is this is one of the few Industries in which youth is a virtue and being a College Dropout is is something that I think has helped me more than it has harmed me it certainly has led me to need to work a hell of a lot harder in order to prove myself but that's something that I welcome I I love that pressure I love everything that gets me to put in that extra mile it's what I'm here for we're here to take this to the Moon right every mile every mile of gas that gets me one every liter what have you guess it getes me one mile farther I'll take it um so as it relates to recruiting and positioning um within this Market as a College Dropout I think particularly is showing the hunger and the drive so for example my co-founder and I we both had built applications previously we both had repertoire which we were able to display and showcase and a very strong journey and narrative so for example myself when I was still in college I was building a spack dow vehicle I was just trying to build Cutting Edge Solutions uh with blockchain working with this fund of funds and after we wrapped up that joint venture came to the move ecosystem built the first yield aggregator there and it was in my experiences building in defi building at The Cutting Edge facing as struggles to onboard liquidity onboard users and novel ecosystems that inspired movement labs and so my resume my background it doesn't matter so much as the things that I had done what brought me to those and then the reasons that I came to the next things and so we build this very strong narrative that people are able to Rally behind and that can excite others and I think bullish on College dropouts nice okay so you know I think it's fair to uh to to consider you like a non-traditional founder right for the a College Dropout founder um is it also fair to say that you probably like to hire non-traditional candidates with with maybe not the standard you know background I mean we certainly welcome it first this what's very strong about teams is having synergies and so just as it is important to have very non-traditional candidates it's very good to balance that as well with traditional ones um we're at this very interesting intersection in web 3 not only of Business and Technology but of traditional businesses and this new wild west of what we are able to do in the blockchain ecosystem and so I think that it is important to have a balance it's more so to be the best you that you can be if you're a non-traditional candidate lean into that that is your strength and if you're a traditional candidate you are just as strong for very different reasons um but the the same um cause love that um cool so I I let's take that one step deeper so you know um in the for a traditional candidate you have someone with maybe like an Ivy League school or uh management Consulting background or worked at you know a big well-known project um but if you're interview and I guess you know when you have that kind of resume you kind of know what questions to ask that person right um but if you're interviewing someone like yourself who like you know hasn't taken that path um I think the interview process might be a little bit different can you walk me through how do you screen candidates that come from non-traditional backgrounds it's about telling a story right so we ask the same questions that we ask them maybe it's less focused on the resume and entirely focused on the journey but even then when we're screening traditional candidates maybe 20% is about the resume We Care much more about what their motivations are what brings them to the space and in what ways they want to contribute where they want to go where those Visions align with us um and so my recommendation for non-traditional candidates is to be the best you that you can be and lean into those aspects of you that are non-traditional um it's it's like what they say when you are applying to universities that you need to have a spike it's not necessarily about being well-rounded and that as a non-traditional candidate if you can work hard demonstrate that you are a hard worker maybe have a portfolio of say articles of research or past projects you have built that you're able to demonstrate and show and then have a a good conversation with the team and discuss what your vision is what brings you there I think there can certainly be a very strong fit and that's the best angle to go in that regard yeah I think it's a great point to have a story a cohesive story to tell um and often like that's a lot of the work that I do with candidates for interview prep is like um even when I'm looking at a resume and I and you know one thing I I often tell candidates is like the resume is your chance to kind of frame The Narrative and tell your story the way you want it to be told um so yeah I think that's really important um but like to your point like you said you kind of are open to a wide variety of like types of backgrounds and profiles so um how does someone stand out to you on paper on a resume what are you actually looking for what what is impactful what jumps off the page to you when you're reading a resume so resumes is very in One Direction in terms of the standard in the more traditional candidate so in that sense generally based on the role that we are looking for looking for experiences within that category tangible things I'm looking for ways in which it might inter with various bottom lines for example if we want to bring on if we want to Target certain ecosystems for our development someone who has experience within that ecosystem is a very good sign um but like we discussed it it it gets the foot in the door but it's more so assessing what is the culture fit here uh what do they want and where does this fit into the Grand Vision how do we win together how do we create a hole that is is greater than the sum of its parts which you may be able to get an idea from the resume get some theor theory of how that could look but it's it's really in the interview that it pops out what I I love are the interviews that feel more just like conversations and than like an interview where it goes over maybe 30 minutes 45 minutes and we don't even realize H those are it makes so much more difference and then just a resume because what's beautiful about the crypto space is that it's like a shallow pool surrounded by a tall fence that there's a tall barrier to entry that is that it's novel field totally new technology you read something for the first time you maybe understand like one of four every words right but once you scale that barrier and get into the space it truly does not go that deep the barrier to Innovation is so low that even if you are non-traditional even if you come from a non-technical background you can move mountains by working hard and by learning one of the best developers that I know he was doing Neuroscience he was working at a hospital right started learning solidity on the side realized it was pretty damn exciting and started building insane things and that's something that I would want to encourage anyone uh in gen Z anyone in a non-traditional background that the world truly is yours for the taking that in this space because it is so nashan and so new the world's your oyster here you can build to your dreams content and that can get you where you want to go love that love that um just a quick pivot and we'll come back here but quick pivot um which I think is relevant to this whole narrative that we're talking about now um why don't you tell the people why did you drop out of college yeah so myself I grew up very poor in this cornfield there's nothing out there so we didn't even have College gradu graduates where I was from and I had always dreamed of going to a great school and then becoming a company man that my Deliverance would come from a big strong established company taking me under their wing nursing me and then finding strength in that as I went in through the career process applying for all of these internships and learning the game of applying learning how to recruit um I had High Hopes there were times where I became very distraught eventually landed a very cool uh gig working at a pretty large traditional Finance uh firm and when I worked there although I loved the team I loved the product that was being built I found it very exciting kind of realized that the meta has shifted in terms of careers for new entrance into this economy it's it's not the same that you can go to a company work hard for a few years at least in traditional Industries and find some form of Deliverance that if I were to work at this company coming with nothing I would i' don't even know how we would find an apartment in New York with how expensive they are how much salary and how much in the bank they require so I realized that path was sealed off to me and around that same time I started my first company was working with this fund of funds and ideating and building these very cool novel Financial products I started failing a lot of my classes started taking up a lot of my time and then when I started working at this uh place it was taking up all of my time like I would be working there I'd come home from work I'd work on my startup and I had zero time it it got to the point in which I had negative time it became physically impossible to do both and so I started thinking you know where is my Deliverance coming from what is that excites me what gives me energy and what is truly going to be the best path to achieving my dreams and I realized that in traditional Industries and traditional structures they've become very rigid very solidified over the course of generations this machine has been made in which it's very specified where people come into the role that they serve the way that they move where they can go to and from and in most General Industries you come in you work your butt off and you're not necessarily seeing any uh Fair compensation for that you put in lots of effort you get very little it all goes towards the top in web 3 as being a very new industry and being an industry where you are so highly incentivized to work hard things are happening 247 I realize that this is where I want to be I was looking for somewhere that I could dedicate myself to put in all of my time all of my energy all of my thoughts and you just don't get the same out in traditional spaces as in this industry and so it became very apparent to me that there was no reason for me to be going into this job which I was working or any other similar job and if College the purpose of it is to get this piece of paper that grants you admission into these jobs well if I'm not going to go for a ride right why do I buy a ticket to the carnival right so I pieced out of there and just started building full time and in a way that putting my back against the wall putting all of my chips in one basket that's what enables us to win love it bro if I was doing my podcast and if I had my mixer board I would drop a bomb on that bro that was fire uh appreciate that so let me get us back on track here real quick so back towards like interviewing and and and hiring process and things like that um we talked about some ways that candidates can stand out on paper we talked about some you know ways that they could tell a a story and build a narrative that is attractive to you um but why don't you walk me through some red flags and and maybe you know some things that you know would would disqualify them and maybe I don't know if you have any specific examples obviously not like throwing shade at anyone but like I think it's it's really helpful for people to know like what are the dos and don'ts man of of interviewing what are the turnoff uh for sure well I like I like to think of everything as a spectrum and colors certainly as one of them where one red and green flag is going to be information so for example coming to an interview and not necessarily knowing what is going on um if you do not know anything about the product about what's being built well what are you doing in that interview spending your time spending someone else's time and that's not to say that it is a bad look to have questions it's actually a very good look it's kind of the more questions that you ask uh not not necessar to some degree um asking questions is a very green flag um but the candid who come prepared and come prepared with good questions regarding business models um questions that are clearly informed by Resources by documents which we have written is very cool what's a what's an example of a bad question I think that a bad question would be something that's that's on the deck if the answer is like on page four of of the deck and and we send over all of those resources a little bit uh bearish on that got it okay um fair enough so why don't we talk about comp for a second I know that's something like very relevant um on both sides of the coin uh when you're going through the process you know um obviously like let's let's kind of throw a situation out there that you're looking for you know an ecos looking to hire an ecosystem role for I don't know like a specific chain or whatever and the perfect candidate was the head of BD at that you know specific L1 and you know um their comp package might have been really really high um compared to what you as a early stage startup still in stealth can can actually offer um how have you navigated through that type of situation or is it just a straight up deal breaker from from the rip you know we've been in situations like that where there have been incredible Allstar candidates and we unfortunately had to make the decision that we weren't at a point where we would be ready to work with them um based on those expectations uh in terms of when we are recruiting we look for people who want to align themselves as much as possible because as I said we look for partners and that's something additionally beautiful about this space that in traditional firms um you're looking for traditional candidates traditional resumes which you put it through some computer scans for key words just to see how is this person going to fit into the machine that we've built whereas with an early stage startup and within web 3 well we are building this machine together and so we truly are looking for partners and people who want to align as much as possible and you know as as much as we can nail ourselves to this cross which we bear if you will that is what we look for um one potential potential silver lining of those candidates with very high salary expectations is if they've been earning significant amounts potentially they have some capital in the bank and if they truly align with the team and are excited by the product that you're building excited to be a part of this family and they can align on token and web 3 the token is such a beautiful vehicle and a beautiful mechanism for alignment and value Creation in which you are able to hold hands together in equity and ownership of what is being built and anyone who is in it for the long term is going to want that token more than they want cash because if they believe in what they are building that token is going to be so much more valuable to them respect respect um let's see where we should go here um do you have is there any difference in the approach towards the hiring process whether it's technical or non-technical candidates is that does that make a difference at all um I think that it's it's strong for teams to have silos in that although we do lots of communication and we work together we win together it is important for people to be in their wheelhouse and so technical candidates are mostly going to meeting with technical people um other candidates will be mostly meeting with other people of their specific facet however it's very important I believe that new hires and and people interviewing get to meet the team so although you might not be meeting every different team within that certain Set uh you should be meeting all of those people and that's part of assessing the culture assessing the vibe and with one another going back to comp for one second um pretty simple straightforward question um how do you come up with the numbers for the salaries that you're offering where do you where do you get these numbers from I think generally what what's really helpful and people coming from other roles there's some expectation and there's some level which they've been at which is able to set that standard uh how we generally like to go for it is to kick things off um you date someone before you marry them in that and so is start off somewhere and then over time you look to scale that significantly um with token allocation and with cash cool uh so you just mentioned like overtime like uh how are you you know we we we've covered a lot of ground so far um and it's very relevant in this moment in this day for you but as your company grows and scales um you know how do you foresee that how do you foresee that Evolution affecting the structure of the organiz ation the hiring process and um you know the Vibes internally it's incredibly interesting it's like looking at an economy as it grows so let's let's think of it in terms of like the civilization Games you start off with your Sticks and Stones there are abundant resources but maybe not necessarily structures or form in which you are able to create crazy structur it's crazy things with them and so in early stage it's very much this you build your own seat at at the table everyone has all of the tools everyone has Sticks and Stones we're in this together and as organization scale which is very interesting it becomes optimal for you to have more structuring say you have a cobbler you've got a woodworker you've got a baker becomes necessary to create these structures and as you bring more Bakers more cobblers you have a bakery you know maybe eventually have a factory and distribution and a whole agricultural system so it's very interesting as organizations scale and as things solidify in that sense um that's something that we're excitedly exploring Sly going aart of this process um but certainly uh it changes the way that you think of how resources are allocated how you think of roles that are coming on um of course as an early stage startup and anyone who is starting uh something recommend to think of it and that sense where early on resources are abundant it is about finding people to build those first structures and create uh those winners within your team that take it far you got analogies for days bro I love it love it um let's see I think you know one thing that uh is always on my mind when I place a candidate in New in a new role and I want to see you know both sides of the higher be happy um and and feel good about this is I always like to make sure that like expectations are aligned from day one um so you both know what you're getting into and there's no kind of room for gray area or disappointment um how do you how does that manifest for you how have you um made it a point to set expectations with your new hires so that they know you know what they're here to do and what you're expecting of them yeah like you say being open uh particularly within the interview if your expectations are high that needs to be clear before an offer is signed to be maximally respectful of everyone's time um in this sense cool um I don't have too much more um I know you I know you've been speaking to VCS a lot lately um I I think you closed your round did you close it we'll talk about that another time stay tuned for the announcement um but question for you um when you are pitching to VCS um do they ask you about like the talent and how you and how you your your talent attraction strategy my question is how important are the people the partners employees whatever you want to call them um in the raising process incredibly important especially in early stage VC's they bet on the team they bet on you as a person more so than on a product than on a revenue mechanism because it might not necessarily exist at that time and so having an aligned team having a strong team is very important at that stage no doubt no doubt all right last question before we take it home um if for anyone watching who's not familiar how would you kind of like like describe your management style and um yeah what what are your thoughts on managing people I mean we that there is a lot to unpack there and unfortunately we don't have time to do that because these are a lot of lessons that I'm learning as a Founder as well um it's challenging sometimes but um yeah what's your thoughts on like management style and and how would you kind of characterize uh your approach so what's characterized the hiring at movement Labs thus far is bringing on winners who are passionate about what they're doing have strong vision and strong um energy hustle for what it is that they are doing and so management for me is how can I Empower you it is what can I do for you so that you can excel at the things that you are passionate about that are driving the bottom lines for the company and the organization and certainly as organization scale it becomes by necessity has to become much more structured much more Hands-On um but with an early stage you're looking for those those winners who are looking to lead and looking to run uh what they are building to be a partner in that sense and so it's like when you're bringing someone on for different functions when you hire someone you hire people that you can see being like a sea suite for that role right especially especially early stage that the first people that you bring on uh you you need to have that level of trust confidence and Alignment in so that your management is less okay we need this done just shipping off orders just shipping off things to do but more so putting them in their Corner doing what they need and being a champion for them knock it out of the park love it love it I I see the I see the the shout out to uh to the movement last boys in the crowd um salute to you man this was dope thank you for uh your insights here I know I'm fired up about it uh I think everyone's who watches this is going to be checking out uh the the movement Labs Journey from here uh shout out to f and big up to whole Korea thanks for having us man it's been dope appreciate it thank you thank [Music] you it was one of the most interesting session I have to say uh he sounded like a job interview