← The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
630: (Solo) How to Find People Who Actually Care About Your Business
00:10:24
Most founders are desperate to hire — but they're asking the wrong question. It's not "How do I find great people?" It's "How do I find people who care as much as I need them to?"
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- [00:02]
A
Hey, founder fam. I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e commerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know on average, OMNISEND customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code FOUNDER50. Just head to omnisend.com founder without the e to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show.
- [00:49]
B
Hey, founder fam, Nathan here. So if you're at the stage where you're starting to scale your business, you're starting to grow it, and the biggest question on your mind is, how do I find great people, how do I hire a players, and how do I find people that care as much as I do about my business? Then this episode is for you.
- [01:10]
C
Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
- [01:24]
B
This is something that's been on my mind recently and we've been looking, you know, for great people at Founder. We're always hiring and we've got some really exciting things happening. And I'm so proud of the culture that we're building here of not just a players, but people that deeply care about what we're doing at Founder on not just a professional level, but a personal level as well. But here's the truth that we need to hear sometimes as founders and entrepreneurs is you can't scale your business alone. And for me personally, it's not enough to hire people that are just good at their job. You need people who are deeply invested and really treat your business like it's their own. And that's actually hard to find. And no one's going to care about your business as much as you do. But I was having a really interesting conversation with a founder. His name's Will. He found a company called IQ Bar and he started a company that's doing over a hundred million dollars a year now and he's only got 12 full time employees. And he said, I said, man, how do you do that? And he's like, honestly dude, you need to focus on finding people fundamentally that just care so much about your business and it really got me thinking, right? Like all the people that I've hired, founder, all of you, all these great people, some of the best people ever hired, they just care so much and it's rare to find, but it's not impossible. And I've made so many hiring mistakes over the years. I've paid, you know, half a million dollar a year salaries, I've done the crazies stuff and you know, I've been lucky enough to learn so many valuable lessons. So let's get into it. I want to break down what I've learned and how you can find people that really care about the business as much as you need them to, to really, really grow this thing. So first and foremost, caring can't be taught, but it can be detected. So you're not going to be able to train someone to care about your business. It just doesn't work that way. So you can spot signs early though. So first and foremost, when we're looking for talent, you don't just look for skills, you're looking for energy, you're looking for initiative, you're curiosity. But most importantly, ownership. And somebody who is ideally passionate about the actual thing that you're hiring them for. Ideally, they can teach you something. Ideally, you can learn something from them in the interview because they are a domain expert. They live and breathe whatever it is you're hiring them to do. Do they ask questions that show how they've researched your business? Have they gone above and beyond in past roles? We want to really find that out and we want to really speak to previous employers. That is so incredibly important because it's so easy for people to tell you all the things that they did at a business and how fast it grew and all these different things. But oftentimes what people don't mention is the traction that that business had when they joined the level of product market fit. Maybe it was already a rocket ship. What have they actually done to influence true change in the business or owning a function? And do they light up when they're talking about the work that they're proud of? Do they memorize numbers off just very, very quickly like, wow, okay, they master owned that? Because caring isn't loud, it's in the details. And this is something that I'm always looking for. Now I'm looking for somebody that really, really, really has a track record of actually caring about a business, caring about their career, caring about the work that they're doing. And I can't stress this enough, this is the first piece. Then the next thing is around your culture. And culture isn't the snacks or the free team lunches. It's not the table tennis table. It's what people do. It's what you reward, it's what you recognize. And for me, it's the standards that you set. It's. Isn't it fascinating? Like, you know, I've had one person that came to founder, absolutely struggled in the role, and then they moved on and they absolutely killed it. And they've been promoted multiple times and all these different things. And it really made me reflect on myself. What was the culture back then that I set? What were the standards? What was I walking past and endorsing? So my advice here is you need to set high standards. You need to look at your culture and really do whatever it takes to make sure that you have a high performance culture. And you want to hire slowly. And remember your worst performer in your business. That is the standard. Everyone will look towards. Your worst performer go, oh, okay, if that is the standard, I can meet that. So if you lift the standards, if you continually make sure that you hire slowly, you move on people that are not working out, you will slowly but surely remove any mediocrity. The next thing that I've learned over the years is your mission. Your mission is a very, very powerful tool that you can use in your arsenal to get people to care, to have a really strong sense of purpose behind your brand. And for us at Founder, our purpose is to really change people's lives through entrepreneurship, to help people grow, to facilitate their growth. And that's an amazing thing. Someone can come into founder and which legitimately facilitated the growth in their business, change their life for the better, for their families. And it's just an incredible thing like, and a salary will get people to their job, but it won't make them go the extra mile. So that purpose is so incredibly important. Like, you know, love him or hate him, Elon Musk, his purpose is to put people on Mars. That is such an incredibly powerful mission. The founder. We're not just publishing content, building courses, or selling a membership. We're truly helping people change the trajectory of their lives in their business and their careers. And these are, you know, real people, everyday people like your eye listening. And that's where you get real buy in. The next thing you need to think about is ownership. How can you find a way to find people that can own something, that can really call it their own, not just micromanage, not just give them tasks that they're ticking off. One of the biggest unlocks for me, was learning to stop micromanaging people and start trusting people with real outcomes. And I know as a business owner and a founder, it can be tough letting go and giving up control, but I've lost years of years of time doing this. And, you know, at founder, we really focus on giving team members ownership over entire campaigns, launches, projects, systems, because people care more when they feel like it's their own, when they're building it, too. And then you also want to find out what motivates that person and align your goals, your company's goals, with their personal goals, which is really, really, really powerful. Then another thing you need to think about is if you want loyalty and you want people to care about your business, you need to incentivize them correctly and finding out what they want, whether it is some form of ownership, employee stock options, profit share, whatever it is you can do to make sure that this person. There's just extreme amounts of upside for them to succeed, so they're going to care. I remember when I hit burnout and I was just absolutely in a world of pain. And I remember thinking to myself, if I don't have my mental health, everything I do have found that all this stuff is absolutely worthless. And I think it's not about driving people to the break of exhaustion or getting them to work harder. It's actually giving a shit and checking in with your people and making sure you're connecting with them and building relationships. I think that's really, really important. So, like, this time last year, I went to the Philippines to see our team over there, and that level of connection and relationship just changed the game, right? It lets people know that we really care and have their back. So anyways, guys, that's it from me for this episode. It's just a little reminder that you want to find real people that actually care. And that's what you really need to focus on. How can you find the best people that can really give a crap about your business? And I promise you, when you will win, hire people with ownership mindsets. Give them clarity, purpose, and a reason to believe. Get out of their way, let them lead, and find out what their goals are and what in them is your company's goal. Thank you so much for listening. If this resonated, as always, shoot me a message on Instagram. Just DM me. Nathan Chan. All right, I'll speak to you soon.