‘foundersfriend’ (ff) is a consultancy platform created by an ex-founder of product startup and structured for startup founders.
Most consultancy ( process, fees & results) and recruiters are not made for early stages startups; they built for MNC and big companies. The MNC mindset consultancies don’t understand how early-stage founders think and operate. And every founder needs independent consultancy some point in the early stages of the startup; so I created (ff).
Few things about me
Hi. My name is Amit Rai and I started Foundersfriend (ff) in Early 2019. I am currently living in Bangalore city (India). I am an ex-founder of a product startup and an ex-employee worked in a few product startups.
I did various things in my short work-life that gives me the right mindset, skillset and confidence that I can assist founders in team-building and few other things in building startup. I am assisting founders based in India and outside India.
I worked as early team member in startups, worked closely with other startup founders, started a product startup & managed a full time four-member team as founder, engaged with Angels & VCs community for fund raising for my startup, worked full-time in other startups as product growth lead, worked as lead product marketing manager (in SaaS startup), worked as remote-worker in other startups and few other things. (my angellist | linkedin profile links )
What is my main focus now ( currently)
Assisting startup founders in team building
I search, communicate with tech-industry folks, verify profile information and recommend curated profiles to founders with important details ( for example contact details, verified skill-set, expectations etc) that will help founders to take quick action. It means I do matchmaking for founders.
What is the mechanism?
I manually search the relevant folks using human tools like personal networking, personal relationships, communication, intuition, common sense etc. and I create a curated list ( recommendation list) for specific founder and recommend it in an action-driven format on the email.
Receiving such a recommendation is free. I ask for a flat fee only if a founder ends up recruiting someone from my recommendation.
Isn’t typical recruiter do the same? Am I a recruiter?
Yes, and No I am not a recruiter.
I am not a recruiter but I do lots of stuff like a recruiter. I am trying to do experiments and want to create a few new ways of consulting founders.
I am an ex-founder of a product startup. I search candidate with a founder mindset which makes all the difference. A typical recruiter does not understand all variables ( relevancy factors, psychology factors, culture-fit factors ) in searching talent even if the founders directly told them the criteria. It is not about what candidate write or say or did in past; it also about using intuition and predict how potential candidate will act in future. And then filtering & connecting relevant profiles to founders.
Do I post jobs on behalf of founders or startup?
No. I don’t post job or startup profile anywhere on the web.
Creating a limited* tech-talent pool is a sperate continuous process. I recommend a candidate from that pool based on founders need.
I am inviting skilled tech-industry folks to my network and creating a pool of talent based on mutual trust. Candidates know about me and I know about them. On regular basis, I am searching for skilled tech industry folks who are underpaid or stuck-in-negative-work-culture or working in big companies but feel they are stuck or want to change city/country and looking for something better.
Flat Fee
No fee for receiving candidates recommendations ( introductions). Only pay a flat fee if you end up recruiting someone from my recommendation. I love to share my fee details ( and workflow); just email me here or message me hi on LinkedIn.
Message to founders
If you are a founder and reading this. Please say Hi to me here. I love to give more reasons why to pick me as your external team-building consultant. You don’t need to pay any fee to receive a recommended list of candidates.
So let me know if you are interested to be my founder friend.
Hook into the network of Foundersfriend (FF) and start getting a list of not only skilled but also relevant folks for recruitment; A manually hand-crafted list based on skill-requirement, founder’s work philosophy and startup culture.
*If you are an HR or Recruiter ( or core member) from a startup; Please share about this blog with your founders.
My email is hello@foundersfriend.work
Cheers!
