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Lauren Ipsen

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2022-11-03
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2022-11-03
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  1. “Yes, absolutely. And also, thank you. This has been so much fun. They can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I happen to be on that one quite a bit. So definitely can DM me there, can send me an email, and I can shoot you that over as well. And then the way they can be helpful is... How to navigate different things, please by all means like a huge part of my job is trying to help people that are going through this for the first time. Happy to just be a sounding board or help in any capacity.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “My first boss out of college, Joe Suleiman, is awesome. He's always taught me to lead with that relationship-based approach, and it's really so easy to say that you do that, but then to actually do it and live it out for the people that work for you, as well as the people that are in industry and speak of you is something else. And so he's always taught me to do that. And I just learned a ton from him. And he's just incredibly smart and in tune with what's happening in industry and makes great stances and opinions on how to navigate those types of things. So he's someone that I have an immense amount of respect for.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Honesty, authenticity can read right through a work too hard answer or a perfectionist type answer. What are your weaknesses? Let's talk about it. So that one, I think, is always a really good tested character.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “This has been awesome, by the way. I think more generally, the advice is just treat people like human beings, build rapport, play the long game, and gain trust. And that takes time. And so those are the most important things from a recruiting standpoint is being able to tap people and have them feel like you genuinely have their best interest at heart and that you care about their career and life outside their career. And so I think that's what makes for a really good recruiter.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think it's important to provide them with some direction and then see if they can recite it back to you. Tell them the types of things you're looking for and then say, Did that resonate? Because I'd love to hear from you what you took away from that and what you think we should be looking for. And then kind of off the bat, ask them for a couple candidate ideas. You know, don't give them time to just go call other people. In real time, ask them for some candidate ideas. Where does their brain go? Who are people they would call tomorrow on this? The more that you can get that dynamic relationship formed before you even go to search, the more you can determine whether this is someone you want to calibrate with. So yeah, I think just putting them on the spot a little bit and asking them to show their work rather than just sending over a deck of searches that could have been done by other partners or could have just been done by other people on their team. Do you want to actually understand who this person is? So that first question is testing their listening skills and their ability to actually hear what you're saying and what you're looking for. And then the second is, okay, now how quickly can we get calibrated on what this profile should look like?”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I am supporting all of our GC founders in the consumer and crypto portfolio. That being said, I spend all day, every single day networking and chatting with amazing entrepreneurs, people that could be founding a company down the road and need some advice, great people that want to help in advising capacity. So it is, I would say, 50% networking, 50% actual parachuting into portfolio.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Probably bring in a firm. Yeah, that would be my recommendation. I think you can bring in one or two recruiters in the early days, like seed, if it makes sense for the company and they're growing quickly. But it's all kind of case to case.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Engaging with recruiters sooner rather than later in a proactive way is always a positive thing. It's just sometimes companies aren't at the stage where they can necessarily hire a full-time recruiter because of resources and how expensive it is to bring in an exec recruiter. So having someone that you can bounce things off of in a more informal capacity, bringing in someone like a talent advisor that can help in a consultative way, those types of things a million percent leaning into the venture firms that have backed you, which is a lot of what I'm doing right now, that is definitely areas in which early CEO founders should be leaning into that and trying to get as knowledgeable as possible. And then I would say typically series B feels, you know, series A dependent on the check size and then series B feels like a good time to bring in a couple key big.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Million percent. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really easy when you've got a quota to hit and you've got people to provide for and a mortgage to just think about the numbers, but you have to play the long game because people aren't just a commodity. It's so much more.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “To catch up, I won't say congrats on the recent vest. I'll say, you want to grab a coffee or do you want to catch up about this? Or, hey, I saw that you were speaking at this conference. Love what you spoke about with regards to this. You got to find ways to connect with people outside of just shoving them into a job. And so I would say something that I've learned and become very good at is starting with the foundation of relationship building, gaining trust from people because once you have that, then people will hear you out on jobs and people will listen to you and actually trust your advice from a career direction and perspective. But that takes time to build that. And it's definitely not going to be built by just chucking things at the wall and seeing what sticks with people and seeing where you can shove them temporarily. In fact, that will make them lose trust. And once you lose trust in a candidate, it's impossible to get it back.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “You because you just don't want to deal with it. And so I think you have to be a human. You have to start with a relationship, find common ground, build rapport, listen to people, like actually listen and remember what they say. So if someone says, I never want to do a crypto company and I just am only shutting crypto companies down their throat, that's just insanely tone deaf. Or if they say, I have this vest that I really want to be around for in May of next year and I just keep hitting them up prior to that, that's just so not receptive to what they just said. Things like that make notes if easier because we speak to so many people all day long. So it's definitely not easy to do. But I'll have a note on my calendar that John Kim's vest just happened in March. And then I'll be like, oh, okay, might be a good time for me to.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah. So this is one I feel especially passionate about because I do think recruiters have a bit of a reputation. And I think that it's for some good reason. There's naturally people that forget that these are human beings that we're dealing with every single day that have lives, have families, have careers or ambitions outside of their career. So I think it's essential that you remember that this is another human being on the other end of things and that you should treat them with the same level of respect that you would expect to be treated. This has become even more apparent now that I have gone through some of my own recruiting cycles where I was looking for different jobs. And transactional recruiting call just will rub you so the wrong way and will make you want to put things on your resume like I just alluded to that say things like whatever at Reddit or what have you.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I always say of what? Like you could be the chief product officer of your household. Is it of a multibillion dollar consumer brand? So I guess what I'm trying to say is work backwards from a goal for sure, but don't allow titles or valuation bubbles or other things to derail something that feels good. If you're in a role and you feel like you're making an impact and you're learning and you're growing and are excited about the work you're doing, do not allow a title of some other company to make you feel like what you're doing isn't worthwhile.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I mean, for what it's worth, I'm definitely more with you. I don't know where I want to be in five years. So it's tough for me to say, but I do think that Typically, someone that has the end goal of being a CEO will put the pieces into place to try and get there. And so it's not a bad idea if you do have an end goal of wanting to run your own thing to inch towards that. So maybe you go from being a product specific leader to then operating in some type of GM of a business unit capacity and owning a P&L. And then although it's more of a product-oriented role, you're still getting closer and closer to that end goal of COO or CEO. So if it's something like that, then I think that naturally makes sense. Do you think people can be enticed by shiny objects, so excited because it's a step up from a tidal perspective and things like that? And I think that's just so not important in the grand scheme of things. It could be the VPA product or CPO of what? You know, so that's so vague. Like if someone just says, I want to be a chief product officer, that's the end goal.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I've had this come up a few times when I've interviewed product folks that they'll speak down on their counterparts or say that the reason they weren't able to meet deadlines or push product in the right way was because of the engineering team or because of other components of the business and it wasn't them. And so I think that's never a good way to go about it. So, you know, it seems obvious, but you would be surprised how not obvious it is. So, you know, thinking about things more holistically, speaking honestly about your strengths and things that you want to continue to grow and improve upon. And then being able to tell your story, like practice telling your story. So often people don't do that, especially when they're not looking for jobs. And then it's not until their 10th interview that they know how to tell their story and what they did and what they impacted and why they were someone to be missed when they moved on. Those are things that you want to know how to speak to and unless it's something you've been doing.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “For the most part, people don't have any other things that really just throw me for a loop. And the fact of the matter is, resumes we look at less and less, especially at the executive level. And it's a lot more of allowing people to tell their story meeting in person, talking with their different people that support them and getting kind of more of the big picture around who they are.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Exactly as their direct target, I'm pissed. So I feel directly attacked in that regard. That's something that throws me off, but that could definitely be a personal thing. And I think overall, like.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, I don't love that. I also don't love on the resume when people, and some people do this, and it's okay. But when people say silly, vague names, like they'll say something along the lines of whatever at Reddit, like as their title or master of blank at this. And it's like, okay, what were you actually doing?”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Happen and roles change. And I think it's just allowing people to tell their story is the most important thing. So I would say red flag is for me, just always be honest about like when you started, when you left a company, you know, if I see that someone still has present on their LinkedIn, but they've been gone for two years and they kind of are acting like they're still there, that doesn't feel good. You just want people to give you the truth, the straight facts, so that you can support them and tell their story and represent them in a way that makes you feel like you have all the details.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “And in my personal opinion, that's actually almost more of a red flag because that did happen. And you don't want to just pretend like that wasn't a decision you made in your life. And usually, you know, if handled with grace, you can speak to the reason that you decided to make a bet. The reason that you went there and the reason that you moved on in a way that people can typically resonate with. But I've seen executives just put that they've simply been advising for two years or something like that when in reality they had two companies that failed. And the fact of the matter is I have some CFO candidates I'm talking to right now in their past three years have been short stints because they were brought in to take a company through an IPO and then that changed or they were brought in to enter into a SPAC and then that became less of the buzz, right? So like these things.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Every single person that has a short stint that joined a new company over the course of the past year, that wouldn't do anyone any good. You know, another thing I've found that's pretty interesting is that people will often, because they're so afraid of that narrative, they'll often not include on their resume companies that they didn't stay for a year.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “It definitely depends with regards to being at a place less than a year. If that's a recurring theme, of course, that's a big red flag. Even if it's happened two or three times, three definitely. If it's happened twice, it's like, huh, that feels off. You got to let people tell their story, though, and their side of things. And again, it comes back to reaching out to different people and understanding if what they're saying is true was actually the truth. And so when you have a really good pulse on what's happening in tech and whether there was a riff and the reason that person was let go was actually for because they weren't prioritizing a certain part of the product or whatever, like those things, it happens. That's life, especially right now, right? If we were to”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “It's a lot of reading the room and probing harder than you think necessary, which is tough. But back channel references, I think, will always provide a greater source of truth than provided. It's similar to like an Instagram reel as opposed to the foes you're tagged in. That's the way I think of it. It's like this is what you want the world to see or think of you as. And then these are what your peers and your direct reports and the people around you actually say about the work that you did during this time.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, why would I not hire this person? What are their biggest weaknesses? And then if they give you like the typical, oh, they work too hard. It's like, no, tell me more. What are their actual weaknesses? What are things that we should be really cognizant of? You know, would you hire this person again? Would you report to this person? Would you endorse this person if you knew that your name was attached to it? Things like that. I think get people thinking. And even if you just sense the slightest pause, that in itself will be enough to kind of make you think twice, right?”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “especially on references, provided references. I've only had two candidates where provided references have come back negative, which that's tough. Outside of that”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Whether or not they were able to make an impact, which again comes back to why, right off the bat, it's so nice to just have people that you can tap within every organization that's like an academy company or a great company and say, point me in the direction of the three best people. I don't want to have to go through the burden of having to try and backchannel all of the maybe middle 50% or what have you.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “There's ones that are slam dunks, and no one has any negative to say. That's incredibly rare. More often you find some people like to just have something negative to say just to have something negative to say. I also take all of my back channels with a grain of salt. Maybe the person I'm calling to back channel this person with. I also haven't back channeled, right? So every single thing that hear you just take make note of and then move on and think more holistically about. But I think typically what I would say is the glaring nose are very obvious. People that are polarizing individuals or have done wrong within an organization or made bad calls across the board are you can get that information typically pretty quick. It's the mixed ones where it's, I think that person was decent. Those are pretty tough. And you need to really find people that worked super closely with them because otherwise it's pretty difficult to say.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “It's a really good question. I think there's a way to navigate conflict without rubbing people the wrong way so that they'll say negative things. There's a way to be an impactful product leader and disagree and make change and maybe your engineering leader and design leader and marketing leader completely disagree with the direction in which you're going. But because you have all of the data to support it and because you have gone about things in a way that deals very fact first and less emotional, it's really difficult for them to then point to why they dislike this person.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “All the Whether you are exploratory, opportunistic, not looking at all, people are constantly calling each other. And the world of tech is so, so, so small. And no matter how fired up you were leaving a company or what went sideways, it is so critical that you try to leave the place better than you found it and do so as seamlessly as possible because you want people to have nothing but positive to say. And oftentimes that the thing that I always find too is if I call 10 people that were a part of the same organization as someone during a given period of time and they can't speak to anything they did, in that case it's no news is not necessarily good news. You want to have an impact. You want to be able to say, you know, I did X, Y, and Z. I'm super proudest this. And the reason I moved on is because I did what I came in to accomplish.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Yeah, exactly. And have that meaningful impact be something that others can speak to. You know, I think that's huge. If you built something within the organization that you're proud of, but no one knows about it, then that's more difficult to have as your stamp of approval for what you are able to accomplish there. But if you did something that cross-functional leaders were speaking to that your team all sings the praises of, then that is something that you can put a feather in the cap and say, okay, I left this place better than I found it. And that's the reason that I have decided to move forward.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Volatile and difficult, and you want to be able to bring people in that are going to hang with you through the highs and lows. We're always looking to see where people move the needle, especially on the product side, where their fingerprints were, what they can actually point to that they did and are proud of during their time there. If all that they can say that they did was onboarded and moved on, then it doesn't matter where you are, but it's not going to be something that I can at least stand on to cheer you on.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Sometimes in your career, you do have to be a little bit more selfish and think about what's going to be best for you in the long haul. And so maybe that is still keeping your head down and working hard while also being thoughtful about other things that are out there and not saying hard nose to opportunities that knock on your door. So it's kind of one where I would say it's an art and a science because you have to be thoughtful about taking on new things and knowing when it's worth taking it a bet on yourself. But also you can't run as soon as things get hard because that is recognized. And if there's a riff or an internal dispute or a new leader brought in and that is so quick as to make you run for the fences, that's not something that people look for because startup world is hard. Tech is hard. Look at the crypto world right now. Like things are incredibly”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Yeah, yeah. Okay, sounds good. I think it's an interesting one because logo collecting is never something that you want to be known for. And the first thing you're taught, like entry-level recruiting 101 is recognize patterns of candidates that jump from place to place and don't give opportunities a full chance. So you're spot on. Like that is definitely not something you want to be known for if you're a prospect. There's also something to be said about staying somewhere too long, though. And I will say that. I think sometimes you find people that are almost loyal to a fault and companies have tanked and all executives have left and the writings on the wall and they're holding on to the fact that they were hired by a really good guy or gal and they want to make it work because they care about the human being and I think”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yes. Variety of experience, I think taking a bet on doing something more entrepreneurial, starting something, and then also joining things that are a little bit later and more established to get best practices. I think diversifying your skill set within an organization, but also diversifying the work in which you're doing and the companies that you're spending time with is awesome.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Exactly that. Yeah, I think there's people that probably want to just be a specialist in growth or want to get super deep on ads. And if that's the case, then by all means do so. And I think there's something to be said about that as well, because those types of skill sets will be needed. But if you're looking to diversify your skill set, continue to grow from a career trajectory perspective and think about potentially being in a head of product type role, I think it's really important that you touch all aspects of that.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “I think breadth is incredibly important. It's so critical, especially if someone has an end goal of wanting to step into a product leadership role to have been able”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I did say that to him. I kept saying, and if I were to go in house, I swear this is probably the company I would do it for. And then about four weeks after he signed, I texted him and I said, well, you'll never guess. Yeah.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “An individual. And yeah, you close searches and you cross your fingers and hope for the best and feel very good about it. But he was one where I just, I had all the confidence in the world that I could not have done better. I just felt so, so great about that. So that was a”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “The most incredible atypical, high emotional, intelligent engineering leader still super technical, but as managed teams in the hundreds, built out Amazon Prime Day, then went on to build the core messaging platform at Snapchat, called him, and he was like, why would I ever leave? There's a ton of financial incentive and a team that I've built that all loves me. And we got him to ultimately make a move in two weeks, which is just kind of unheard of. Although it ended up being like a seven-month push for a start date. But that was a big reason why I went and joined IRL was to work side by side him and help build out his team and learn to get more deep on the technical side of things because oftentimes on the executive level, as mentioned before, can be sometimes more of that people management type role. And so he just felt like this unique hybrid.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's really fun. Favorite placement of all time has got to be the VP of engineering that I placed at IRL, which is, to be completely honest, a big reason that I joined that company. Alex Strand is his name, and he is just...”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Yeah. So both great questions. I've placed probably 85 executives over the course of my career. Lots of entry level employees when I was in house, and also some great TV leaders, probably 85 searches that I've opened and closed. So that's been incredibly fulfilling work. It's also fun to, on the exact side of things, because you hire the VP of engineering at Postmates and you see firsthand the product change. You watch those types of things happen before your eyes, which is fulfilling stuff. It's really cool. Delivery gets there faster.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Yes and no Yes and no, because I think if the organization is incredibly good at sales, then the majority of the folks are probably amazing. But you always have weak links. And just because someone has a brand on their resume at the right time, I think oftentimes CEOs and founders will do this thing where they kind of overgeneralize, well, Amazon's prime team at this time was amazing or something like that. It's like they definitely could have been. But just as any other company, there's going to be people that are breakout, top 1% type individuals, and then other individuals that get to ride the wave and reap the benefits of being at the right place at the right time. And I think that's a good starting place, but then also spending time getting a little bit deeper on who the best people are within that organization. But yeah, we always start with market mapping, so determining who the best companies are within a specific area, and then I just encourage everyone to take that a layer deeper.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Which were a little bit weaker within companies, like all of those things are just the inner workings of the recruiting atmosphere and technology. And I think like tapping people, if you don't have the network, talk to a great recruiter or just spend some time kind of doing some research on who's great. You can ask investors or board members in your companies as to who you should be targeting. So there's always got to be one or two people that can at least point you to another three or four.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “I do think it is worth that time if you see someone that looks amazing, hell yeah, reach out to them, spend time with them. Why not? Oftentimes, again, people are excited to see, oh, the CEO and founder wants to pick my brain doesn't look like they're coming at me to try and recruit me, but rather just to have an open-ended conversation for sure. And they can sense, you can definitely sense that type of interaction and feel comfortable with it, whereas sometimes the walls immediately go up when someone senses that they're trying to get poached. And so, you know, it's, I think something that's worth them doing for sure. It's just if you are going to look for a key executive and are on a time crunch, I don't necessarily think the best use of your time is blindly reaching out to executives when you don't necessarily have the expertise in knowing which companies were thriving during that period of time, which organizations were great.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “That you have around you that you know you can trust and tap into, and ensuring that you're spending the time in the right areas.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “I mean, I would say I've got probably five of my all-time favorite product leaders in the world that I tap whenever I'm kicking off a surge. And they know that whenever life brings them to an opportunity where they are going to start looking or want to lean into board opportunities that I'm going to set them up and shout their name from the rooftop. So oftentimes they're willing to point me in the right direction of great people, make those introductions, what have you. And I'm going to know simply because of how great they are that they would never put me in touch with someone that wasn't equally as qualified. So that I think because the quality is there. So I'm not just blindly guessing on quantity, spending a ton of time on LinkedIn, and then having to call unknown entities and ask for back channel references when they also might not even feel comfortable sharing the dirt. You know, so it comes back to rapport and people.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “On a thread with them, like, how are you going to differentiate yourself from the rest of the market? So it's less, in my mind, like a quantitative number of hours and more of how are you doing things differently than the rest of the market?”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Yeah, it's definitely spend more time than you think. If you are in an actual search, then you should devote all of your time to it. I know that sucks to hear, but like you should be really carving out concrete time. The thing that's tough, though, is you could spend, I guess what I was trying to say is you could spend one hour on something or you could spend 10 hours on it, but it's more so around are you doing things to be impactful during that period of time? Like, are you actually doing things that are going to move the needle? Are you just blindly reaching out to people on LinkedIn? Because that's not going to be the way in which you're going to find the best of the best. Some of the greatest talent, they're not even on LinkedIn. And so I think it's building a really strong network in advance. And then once you actually get to a place where you need to hire that person, like calling all of those amazing people that you've built relationships with and saying, now tell me who your favorite person is and who the best person you've ever worked with is. And could you put me?”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Oh my god, but it's so real. It's similar to college trips where you're trying to get recruited for a sport and you have to ensure that you're, yeah, just continuing to give people the best experience possible and staying top of mind for people”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Down the road in a non creepy way, show up to that event like these are things that I'm constantly doing and I think that founders can do a better job of, but just make yourself known and relevant. And then when you reach out and timing is right, it won't feel so obscure or so transactional.”

    2022-11-03 · Lenny's Podcast · Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source