YouSaid · the spoken record

Lauren Ipsen

lines on the record: 74
first: 2022-11-03
most recent: 2022-11-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, I think if you're going to search, so if you're looking for this individual, it's really so case to case. There's searches that I've been in that I call three people. I know they're amazing for this. I tell the founder and CEO, these are the three people you should chat with. Hire one of them and it's that easy. There's others where it's a lot of trying to figure out what the person's actually looking for if there's some, they head it off from an emotional standpoint. There's so many different things that come with it. I would say from a timing perspective, like it's not a hard number. It's more of just put yourself in the room with great people. If you have a tremendous amount of respect for someone, continue to harvest that relationship and ask what good looks like. Find excuses to continue to touch base with people that are important in your network if you remembered that they mentioned that they were going to some event and you think that you might want to hire them.”
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
“The same thing. One million percent. Yeah. When I was on the executive recruiting side of things at Diversa, the VP of engineering candidate that we ultimately landed, it was a seven-month game of courtship. And let's bring him in to help out from an advising capacity. Let's ask him how he would think about structuring this org. Let's talk to him about the best talent that he would recommend that we're spending time with. No question that's invasive, but more so just collaborative and exciting. You'll find that the founder and that leader will build a different level of rapport and trust by not going through a formal interview process and having it feel transactional. And then with that, magic can happen and you can land incredible 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
“That's a great way to go about it. And by simply saying no agenda, I'm not trying to hire you tomorrow. I just want to know great people. And to be totally honest, people feel flattered by that typically. Most of the time, if you've been referred to someone and heard nothing but great things about them and you really don't have an agenda other than wanting to pick their brain, people are like, huh, well, this is different from the day-to-day. This is like fulfilling and people want to pour their knowledge, especially into companies that they believe in. So I think more often than not, you'll find that not just product leaders, but executives across the board are actually really inclined to do so and want to help out because it's a little bit different from the day-to-day monotony of their work life.”
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
“Regardless of whether or not you're hiring, you should always be keeping a pulse on the market. That is the most important thing. And I think that should be the case for both candidates and folks that are hiring. Like you never want to put yourself in a position where you have no idea what good looks like, whether that's from a company standpoint or from a candidate standpoint. So both parties should always be having a good understanding of which companies are thriving, which individuals are building great things and are well known commodities in their organizations and get great references. Oftentimes encourage founders to simply chat with what good looks like and get a really good sense of kind of what benchmark candidate profiles could be and who knows where that person will be in a year or what have you, but staying really, really close to really 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
“Yeah, because the last thing you want to do is have to demote someone. But, you know, once you get to a place of having C-level executives, like that's not going to do any good. But maybe you start as a head of product and then as the company continues to grow, you lean into the growth side of things more. And so you become that head of growth or an SVP of growth. Like things iterate and change, but you just never know and you can't predict the outcome of a company on the front end.”
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
“I think that rubs people the wrong way because they want a bit of a promise that things are going to, if they join at this stage, that they'll be in it for the long haul and be that chief product officer that takes a company through an IPO. But companies are so dynamic and things change so quickly. So I guess a long-winded way of me saying like there's different breadth and depth to each role. But I think for the most part, unless it's a very siloed company with multiple different VPs, if you're coming into a company and they say this is the head of product, the VP of product, or the CPO, that all means the same thing dependent on the stage for the most part.”
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
“Allergic to see titles or VP titles or are just more title agnostic than I've seen in the past. So you see a lot more of these head-ofs, and that is sector leaders up until probably C++ or D stage. And then you get to D and E and you'll see more of the VP director CPO type. And I think that is like the way that people should be thinking about it is if I'm joining a company very, very early days and it's called head of engineering that is intended to be the most senior engineering leader within the organization. The fact of the matter though is there's good reason sometimes why they're not throwing out that seed title and could this person be layered down the road potentially because maybe the talent they need right now is different than just as we have spoken to earlier, is different than the talent that they might need from a massive CPO in two and a half years. And so”
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
“It's a great question, and it definitely leads to confusion across the board because I'll have candidates come to me and they'll say, I'm only looking for a CPO role when I'm working with a startup where maybe on the venture side of things, we've actually advised that startup to not hire C-level executives at this point. And so that naturally could eliminate a candidate that could be amazing for the role. Similarly, people could feel that way if it's a VP of product role, but that in their mind is the most senior product leader within the organization running everything from end to end, who they intend to be the CPO down the road, but are not in a position where they're ready to hire C-level execs. So it's tough, and it really depends on the organization and the way in which they're thinking about org charts and leveling. A lot of startups at this point are almost”
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
“The front end and determining are we hiring someone specifically to build out our walled garden ads approach, or are we hiring someone to run product marketing or are we hiring someone to help from a product perspective to build a better core user experience? Like those are all very, very, very different roles. And if you bring in one person to try and do in all the fact of the matter is they're going to have to bring in some key lieutenants to help them. So is that something you want to do or are you more focused on bringing in someone imminently to help on the ad side of things? And then we can find that head of product to help them out down the road. Like that's kind of the way in which I would architect it and think about it is what's most imminent and what do you actually need to hire for today as opposed to just hiring for the sake of hiring and bringing in that leader.”
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
“Well, it's kind of twofold. I think sometimes people just bring in a head of product to do everything. So that's probably not the best way to go about things. I think that ends up being a unicorn, which you hear often in the search world, and it becomes really difficult to hone in on what good looks like. And so, you know, I think, again, it just comes back to like having a clear org chart.”
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
“Yeah, there's platform product leaders or folks that are kind of more indexed on the infrastructure components. There's folks that are typically focused on core product or consumer product if it's on the consumer side of things. You'll have folks that are really indexed, and that can include like UX individuals, design folks. And then there's also typically specialists. So individuals that are really hyper focused on growth or monetization or what have you those are the three buckets that I would say I see most often.”
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
“Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think those are the most important things. The 90 day plan is something. Two years from now, do we want them to grow up into a CPO role? Do we think about that in a different way? How are we thinking about the product direction today, 12 months from now, 18 months from now, through IPO? I think it's really difficult to think about things that way. And so often you're thinking about the task in front of you and just trying to iterate quickly. But that is the type of thought process that needs to be happening from the CEOs and founders.”
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
“You're starting a search in that regard. It's kind of doomed from inception, so you need to get incredibly granular on the front end around what is this person going to be coming in to do? What's their mandate? And if we think about someone that's just absolutely heading it out of the park and crushing it, what does that look like? So I think just trying to be really specific on the front end.”
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
“A number of things like product leaders can come in a lot of different flavors, and so I think it's trying to determine where this person should major and minor, where they should spike. Is this someone that's going to really lean into the design efforts? Is it someone that actually kind of needs to just operate like a very senior PM and continue to build out a team? Is this someone that really should be focused on product vision for the long haul and then thinking more holistically about how to build the rest of the team? There's so many different ways in which you can hire for a product leader. So I think it's trying to work a little bit backwards and think about what is the actual outcome that we're trying to solve for with this hire? Or are we just hiring ahead of product because we feel like we need to hire a head of product? That's so often what I see is, you know, the board's telling me we need to hire a head of product. And I don't necessarily think that we do or I'm not exactly sure what we need in this role. And so whenever.”
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
“Yeah, I would say the general advice is who is going to be best for this specific role at this specific time? Not necessarily who is the best talent in the world or in the market. Those are two very, very different questions to ask. And I think, you know, early on in my recruiting career, I was often just trying to recruit these whales of executives to try and prove myself and say, like, I got this person to entertain this opportunity. How sick is that? But naturally, that's not necessarily the person that actually can move the needle. And so you need to think very specifically just because this is the best talent that doesn't necessarily mean they're the best talent for this role today.”
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
“I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say that all senior leaders aren't hungry. I think that there's some folks that really lean into the work in a different way and miss that and often go to startups because they crave building. So it's not necessarily that. But I do tend to lean towards folks that have a chip on their shoulder or have something to prove and want to build a name for themselves. All of that to say there's a reason that a lot of those people got to where they are. And some of the best talent are some of the senior folks, but just maybe not necessarily the best talent for where this company is today, right? It could be great for 10 years down the road, but the past five years of that individual's career could have been far more focused on camaraderie, team building, operational components, performance reviews, and then aspects of product vision, which just might not be the innovative A-B testing type of profile that you typically”
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
“Maybe someone that can step up into that type of role and do so in a way where some days they might actually be operating like a PM and then other days they might be able to build from a leadership perspective, like that's more of the DNA that people should be targeting.”
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
“I think especially for founders that haven't hired for this caliber of talent in the past, it's really easy to be distracted by shiny objects and look at huge names. You want to find the CPOs of Google and YouTube or what have you because that seems like it would be such an incredible opportunity for brand recognition. And to an extent it is. But the fact of the matter is oftentimes those individuals are pretty far from the work and have a great team of executors that they've put into place that are actually the ones that are in the weeds. And so I think that's the biggest mistake I see people make, especially on the hiring front where they have limited resources. And maybe they're in early stage company and trying so hard to bring in big names is not always the best way to go about it because the fact of the matter is they need to go then hire a team. So I think looking for someone that's a little closer to the world.”
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
“It's a great question. It's definitely not a comp thing. I'll say that I think it could be a stability of life thing. Search is incredibly volatile and you have to hustle so hard. And as soon as you have three wins, you've got four more things to execute on. And so there's aspects of it that can be tough, especially in a market like right now where you really do have to chase business and you can't be selective about what you take on. So you can be pitching things that maybe you don't necessarily believe in in its entirety or what have you. So I think that's one component. In-house is obviously difficult right now as well for talent leaders. It's really scary to take a bet on one single company right now and know what it's going to look like six months from now. And so I think those things combined might be the reason for an influx in folks leaning more towards venture. And I think it's just timeliness.”
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
“Individual Abe Shafi, who was founding a company. I had been doing a lot of work for them. They were a client of mine at the time, placed a couple great hires and they said we're either going to kick off ahead of talent search with you or you can come over and join us. So I was the first recruiting hire over there, built out the talent function in its entirety. I definitely think there was a part of me that I loved the operating experience, learned a ton, worked side by side some amazing people, but was really missing working with founders and lots of them and keeping a pulse on the market. So General Catalyst tapped me most recently and been working here for the past couple months and it's been great thus far. And I'm specializing in our consumer and crypto investments.”
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
“and have an opportunity to play a part from a different lens. So got into ExecSearse, was really focused early on on consumer mobile buildouts, was doing a lot of work with Twitter and Reddit and TaskRabbit and Nextdor, Postmates, you name it. And that was probably 85% of the work I was doing. And then as on the agency side, 15% was obscure, autonomous helicopters selling into the Department of Defense and then retail and robotics. And it was all very fascinating. But for me, who has wicked bad ADD, it was amazing to be able to be so stimulated by so many different industries and feel like I couldn't really master this, you know. So long story short, had an awesome career at diverse partners, which is a boutique executive search firm, and thought I was going to be there potentially forever, was tapped by a 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
“Yeah, absolutely. So I started my career in broadcast. I originally thought that I wanted to be on the news and quickly realized I didn't necessarily want to be the face of sadness. There's a ton of that happening in the world. So made a pivot pretty early on and thought where could I use the communication skills that I've been working so hard on and do something that's impactful in a big way, but maybe just with a little bit of a different angle and stumbled across executive search, exec search is not really something that people major in college by any means or think they're going to end up doing. So it was something I found fascinating. I had applied to all of these different companies like Twitter and Snap and Pinterest, hadn't heard back from any of them was a name in the resumes and thought, how cool would it be if I could work with all of them?”
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
“Or getting them ingrained in some type of involvement in the product prior to actually having that specific need, I think is really important.”
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
“Regardless of whether or not you're hiring, you should always be keeping a pulse on the market. That is the most important thing. And I think that should be the case for both candidates and folks that are hiring. Like you never want to put yourself in a position where you have no idea what good looks like, whether that's from a company standpoint or from a candidate standpoint. So both parties should always be having a good understanding of which companies are thriving, which individuals are building great things and are well known commodities in their organizations and get great references. Oftentimes, I encourage founders to simply chat with what good looks like and get a really good sense of kind of what benchmark candidate profiles could be and who knows where that person will be in a year or what have you, but staying really, really close to really great people and using them from an advising 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