

How to hire a lot of talented people, very quickly - wwdevries
http://ryanleecarson.tumblr.com/post/23990414000/how-to-hire-a-lot-of-talented-people-very-quickly

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cft
I am running a bootstrapped start-up (by choice). We pay salaries to 5 people
(three MIT EECS grads, one Berkeley CS). I think these people are very good.
From my prospective, if you operate without VC money, I.e. from the actual
revenues that you get, what's described in the post is irrational exuberance.
It's a sign of a VC investment bubble. We absolutely could NOT work 4 days a
week and remain competitive ( we could not even run the existing service that
way, with user all complaints, attack threats, vendor interactions, hardware
failures).

~~~
commondream
I'm a member of the product team at Treehouse, and was employee #3. We don't
go around talking about the 4 day work week because it's something that we
think is a great gimmick that we were fortunate enough to be able to pull off
because we hit the VC lottery. It's something at the core of who we are as a
company and something we've seen help us compete - not only in hiring but also
in productivity. We see a huge benefit in rest, fresh thinking, and a healthy
balance between our work and the rest of our lives. The 4 day work week builds
that into who we are. It's not the only way to achieve those goals, but one of
the primary ways we pull it off.

We've been working the 4-day work week far longer than we've had VC money. Our
first investment came in the fall of 2011, long after we existed as a company,
and we were profitable prior to raising VC.

~~~
tsuraan
So how do you address the points made in the GP post? Specifically, attacks,
hardware failures, other issues that immediately impact customers? I assume
that you don't wait until monday to address a failure that occurs thursday
night, right?

~~~
commondream
When it comes to keeping the service running, there's always one person on
call. We're really flexible on our team about hours, so if you need to do
something on Saturday night you can cut out a little early a different day -
honestly if you feel done for the day you can be done any day, but most of us
are super driven and don't want to stop working when it's time. Despite the
general 9-6 guideline we're not super formal about our hours.

Our support team also works a bit on the weekend (around 3 hours per day), and
that's something we're working on fixing by adding to the team.

~~~
droithomme
Are you saying that in general people work more than 32 hours a week? What is
the average number of hours you work each week?

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commondream
I work between 32 and 35 hours each week. I think about Treehouse a ton more
(if I'm not asleep I've probably thought about Treehouse in the past couple of
minutes), and answer email from time to time, but I don't know anyone who
doesn't do that, and I usually get mean looks from my wife when I spend much
time outside of my normal work hours answering email or playing around with
code.

In general I don't think people on our team work more than 32-35 hours or so.
One exception is our support team, and that's something we're working on
remedying.

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cridal
First of all, I'd like to congratulate Ryan Carson on the idea of 4-day work
week. Hopefully this would start the ball rolling on the whole discussion of
work/life balance here in the states. It is such a great concept and I'm sure
will attract a lot of top talent.

The only thing is, it needs validation. I hope the company does really well in
the long run, and therefore puts 4-day work week on the table for others to
follow. Wouldn't that be great...

~~~
salimmadjd
I'm not sure how sustainable this 4day work week will be. Will it last the
acquisition? Imagine buying a company that either makes your existing employee
unhappy, make you lose the talent you just got, or forces you to convert the
entire company into a 4 day week operation.

~~~
mey
Two comments, you assume they intend to be acquired, and why optimize for
something that late stage when you are trying to remain an competitive edge?
(The edge in this case is a skillful happy workforce)

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heliodor
I don't think the 4-day week makes sense. Once everyone switches to 4 days,
what then? 3 days?

I think limited hours per day makes more sense. People can be laser focused
for 5 or 6 hours per day if you give them a good work environment. Once you
move to the usual 9 or 10 hours per day, personal life gets in the way and
people goof off, achieving as much productivity as in the focused 5 hours.

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daenz
> I don't think the 4-day week makes sense. Once everyone switches to 4 days,
> what then? 3 days?

You could say the same about lowering prices: "why should I lower my prices to
$X, what's next, $X-1?" If it gives you a competitive advantage, and yet you
are still able to profit and succeed, then the economics of it make sense.

~~~
skeletonjelly
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope> ?

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elmuchoprez
Let me start by saying that I don't know anything about Treehouse or their
profitability... but based on that benefit list, they're either REALLY
profitable or they've got a bunch of upfront investor money to burn through.

Given how young they are and that their investor list includes the likes of
Kevin Rose and Reid Hoffman, I'm going to go with the latter.

I operate a small ecommerce company with about 15 employees that include
everything from developers to warehouse workers. There's no way I could
sustain such benefit list and I know none of my competitors could either.
There's just not a high enough margin (and we're in a high margin business).

The answer might be that a company whose product is "knowledge work" might be
in a different boat, but it really makes me wonder if you can sustain that
kind those kinds of benefits when you're standing on your own two feet.

~~~
ryancarson
We were profitable before we raised any money.

Now that we've raised $5m, we can increase our burn to outpace our revenue to
speed up customer acquisition and product development.

~~~
elmuchoprez
Well then congrats to you sir. When a company can manage that kind of profit,
it's nice to see them using those resources to invest in serious talent for
the long haul.

~~~
ryancarson
Gracias

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benjaminwootton
It's great that they are having success with the 4 day work week.

However, one thing that would still appeal to me more though as a developer
would be the ability to work remotely.

It's surprising even to me that I'd rather do 20% more work for the same money
if it's at home!

I also suspect this would make it easy to 'hire talented people, very quickly'
as it opens up the whole world to you in terms of candidates.

What are your thoughts on this Ryan?

~~~
ryancarson
A lot of our Product and Marketing Team Members work remotely. The only folks
required to be at our Orlando office are the Video Pros and Teachers.

~~~
skeletonjelly
How often are they required to travel to your head offices for face to face
meetings?

~~~
ryancarson
We have a huge company-wide meeting for a week, every quarter.

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cheap
Money, it grows on trees and its great for balling up and hurling toward
people.

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bflesch
I like this approach, it is very straightforward and allows for easy internal
collaboration. Obviously, buckets visualize the amout of people in different
stages of your hiring process very well. If I had to hire people, I'd try this
instantly.

Edit: I have to apologize. I overlooked that the names are made up, so the
following statement is incorrect. Sorry Ryan!

Sadly, I have to whine about some privacy issues: I don't approve of Ryan
Carson's publishing the names of his applicants how it can be seen in the
screenshot at [1]. I'm quite sure these are real names beloging to their
applicants, and I wouldn't like to see my name published when I'm applying for
a position at this company. On top of that, I would feel sad to see that my
name had been greyed out but Person XY has advanced to the next stage.

Perhaps it is better to anonymize the information as I suspect it was not
Ryan's intention to publish these names.

[1] <http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4s36gOUJz1rneiz8.png>

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commondream
As someone with access to the Treehouse's real hiring board I can say that
those aren't real names :)

~~~
bflesch
Oops, sorry for the mistake. Its time to get off the computer I suppose :)
Thanks!

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michaelhoney
We've been doing four-day weeks since 2008, with two offices in Australia and
remote team-members in Berlin and the Phillipines. Apart from the obvious 50%
more weekend for 20% less work, and the flexibility to work from anywhere,
doing it this way has a less-tangible benefit: it requires and inculcates
discipline and responsibility. Your attention is like a gas: it'll diffuse to
fill the space available. Timeboxing your energy provides more work potential
-- and your downtime is more productive too.

It's also a great talking point with clients. The 4DWW is gaining traction in
the wider world: I was interviewed this week on dot-au national television to
talk about it.

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rdl
Also, move to a "developing" startup market, like Portland, where a Treehouse
is one of the top 5-10 startup employers, vs. SF or Silicon Valley, where you
are competing with a lot more startups, and where the Giants (FB, Google,
Palantir, ...) are stronger competition than the giants in Portland.

(and living on 50-60k in Portland is fine even if you have kids; it is poverty
unless you're either long established (own a home from the 1990s, or cheap
rent), or alone. This opens up a lot more potential hires for non engineering
roles)

~~~
jasonlotito
Everyone is competing with Silicon Valley for talent, regardless of where you
are.

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rdl
True for the high end (where it's worth relocating), but not for any of the
jobs I've seen posted on treehouse's site.

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michaelpinto
Reading this post makes me fear for a bubble -- when I read stuff like this it
brings me back to 2000 all over again: "401(k) contribution matching, 100%
matching up to 6% of your salary + Full coverage for medical, dental, and
vision". I'll grant you that this isn't quite on the level of "your own
private sushi chef" but it makes me uncomfortable that a company that's a
startup would do this. I realize that good talent is hard to find, but this
scares me...

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ryancarson
What's more expensive?

1) Paying $20k-$50k to a recruiter, per person 2) Taking good care of your
team so you get tons of applications for every job opening, from very talented
people

Keep in mind that there's also a huge cost to attrition. Every person that
leaves your company, because the culture is so-so, costs you a huge amount in
time and cash resources to replace

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scottshea
Additional step: Write a post like this and have it make the front page of
Hacker News

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ryancarson
Guess that always helps :)

~~~
scottshea
I have to admit it caught my interest and I am not even really looking at the
moment

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clevep
> we’re about to hit 40 people at Treehouse and we’ll be at 60 in three more
> months. There was only seven of us 12 months ago, so we’ve grown very fast.

For a small company that's growing this quickly, it's probably going to take
more than 12 months to know for sure if a hire is good or not. Declaring them
as good does not make them so. I'd be interested to see a follow up post 12
months from now giving an update on retention rates and any hiring process
updates they've subsequently made.

~~~
ryancarson
Treehouse is my fourth company and I've been running a 4-day week with all my
teams since 2007.

I have a pretty good sense, based on experience, whether someone is a good
hire or not. You often know within 30 days.

~~~
clevep
Major props on pulling off the 4-day week. I hope it catches on.

My criticism was limited to your early declaration of victory on your hiring
binge. The bottom line is that you can't know if someone is going to end up
ROI positive until they actually get there. After 30 days you can tell if
someone is a good dude and they can get stuff done, but you can't tell if some
other company will come along in 2 months and poach him. Shit happens.

By building a strong culture you are taking good steps to minimize the chances
of losing people, but you won't really know if you've succeeded with these
hires until they are a net positive.

~~~
ryancarson
You shouldn't hire someone unless they are going to add value to the business.
If you're not sure about that then you shouldn't be giving them a job.

~~~
clevep
But hiring comes at a cost. Recruiting, on boarding, and getting new employees
up to speed all cost money and resources. My only point is employees need to
stay long enough to recoup those losses.

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djb_hackernews
Interesting they don't hire any technical talent it seems, or am I missing
something?

    
    
        Product
        Marketing
        Sales
        Teaching
        Video
    

If that's the case (which I'm now doubting considering what they teach) I can
only see the bottle neck being onboarding. It can take a lot of effort and
time to get one developer up to speed, never mind dozens of them in a matter
of months.

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jyu
Product encompasses the overall engineering / design talent.

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commondream
That's correct - product for us includes development, design, and support.

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ltcoleman
I'm very happy to have found your blog. I'm also happy to see a company
focusing on what's important... gaining that elusive talent.

I am currently just starting to use treehouse to train a group of new grads
for the company I work at. I'm very impressed with the site.

@Ryan : if I was in your region, I would so be applying for a job ;)

~~~
ryancarson
Thank you! :) We're working really hard to improve the service as fast as we
can.

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checkorbored
How does the 'Project Trial' work for people who have full-time jobs already?
I am sure it is great for evaluating those who are able to commit to such a
thing, but aren't you leaving potentially valuable team members unable to pass
muster due to time (rather than lack of fit) reasons?

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lucian1900
Nice benefits indeed.

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sebslomski
I would prefer to have to be 5 days a week in the office, but only have to
work for 4 days. One day should be dedicated for your own projects. Whatever
you want, but, in the office.

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ryancarson
That's no good for people who have interests outside of the office. For
example, I have two young boys and I want to spend my time with them on a
Friday, not in the office.

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sebslomski
Well, it should't be a day off, you should do something that has to do in
general with what you do at work if possible. I haven't though about it that
much, it was just an idea. If you get the day off, most people would probably
just do what they want and "waste" the day (which means not being productive).

~~~
ricardobeat
Been there. Most people are not motivated enough to do something like that,
and it ends up feeling like a chore. In that case it's more productive to not
be at the office.

It makes some kind of sense: boxing the time for creativity ends up killing
it.

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Aqua_Geek
> boxing the time for creativity ends up killing it.

John Cleese argues the opposite: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg>

From the rest of your comment, it seems to me that the feeling that it's a
chore might be more the reason it kills creativity - not the setting aside
time in and of itself. If you don't look forward to that time (not saying
that's a bad thing, one way or the other), you probably won't get much out of
it.

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ricardobeat
What I meant is that it can feel like a chore because it's something 'imposed'
by the company. You _have_ to do creative work on xxdays - doing it any other
day is a waste, 'cause xxday is the alotted time - and it _has_ to be related
to your job, otherwise it's a waste too. It's not a very happy proposition, as
good as the intention may be.

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zerop
Spend VC money like this, work 4 days a week and then finally go down. !! :(

