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20VC: Faire's Max Rhodes on Three Steps To Hire the Best Candidates, Why Every Company Should Have a Strategy Doc and How To Do It & The Art of Referencing; How to Get the Most Out of Every Reference

20VC

Feb 17, 2022

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Max Rhodes is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Faire, the online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe. To date, Max has raised over $1.1BN with Faire from some of the best including Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, Forerunner, Lightspeed and many more. Prior to starting Faire, Max spent close to 5 years at Square in numerous different roles including Director of Consumer Product at Caviar.

In Today’s Episode with Max Rhodes You Will Learn:

1.) The Founding Story:

How Max made his way into the world of startups with his joining an early Square team?
How did his 5 years at Square impact how he approaches company building with Faire?
How did Square’s approach to product and mission impact Max’s thinking?

2.) How To Hire Effectively:

How does Max construct the hiring process? Where do many founders make mistakes?
What does Max mean by “deep behavioural interview”? What questions does he ask?
What are the signals of 10/10 candidates? What are red flags he looks for?
How does Max determine capability? What literal tests can be done to test for this?

3.) How To Reference People:

How does Max approach the referencing process when hiring people?
How does Max make the other side feel comfortable, so they will open up and share everything?
What have been some of Max’s biggest lessons on what it takes to do referencing well?
Where do many make mistakes with referencing?
How does Max use an “out of 10” system to determine the quality of the candidate?

4.) How to Strategise:

How does Max use strategy docs to orient the direction of the company?
How often does Max write them? How long do they take to write?
What are the core components of the strategy docs?
Who else is involved in their writing? Once written, what is the right format to discuss with the team?
How does Max approach how rigid he is to the strategies outlined? How does he determine whether he should change strategy or stick to plan?