How do you decide whether someone is the right hire for your startup? Data Society co-founder Merav Yuravlivker asks herself this question: “Do you still think you’ll like this person at 3 a.m. on the day before a deadline?”
Data Society, a startup that teaches data science to business professionals, originally hired several employees to create content for their online classes. Yuravlivker was hoping for cohesive, easy-to-learn course material, but what the new hires created wasn’t usable.
“The biggest mistake we’ve made as a company was putting our trust in individuals who looked good on paper, but were hard-pressed to produce the results and materials we needed,” says Yuravlivker. “We paid people a lot of money before we realized that the traits we valued most weren’t the most valuable traits.”
Yuravlivker and co-founder Dmitri Adler let go all of their original employees and took on the content creation themselves, releasing new courses every month. They have hired new part-time employees, but now they spend more time walking them through the material so they have more of an idea of what is needed for the finished product.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that we bounced back, but rather that we ‘bounced forward,’” Yuravlivker says. “We are lucky that we had enough capital and grit to keep our business afloat and we reevaluated the type of person we wanted.”
She said that what they were originally looking for—such as a great resume—aren’t as important as other characteristics.
“Now, instead of looking at degrees on paper, we talk to individuals to find out their thought process, how they problem-solve, and where their passions lie,” she says. “Even if the individual doesn’t know everything yet, these are the people who can pick the skills up quickly and contribute in a meaningful way on whatever project they’re working on.”
Photo credit: Foster White