Today in <10 Minutes, We’re Going To Cover
- Finding an Operator – Getting the operator to come to you.
- Bad Hires – How using negative signals attracts your ideal operator.
- After the Hire? – How to make sure the operator’s values align with your company.
Like almost any level of sex.
I just handed off about 42 projects to our new head of business operations, and if you think I’m all hot and steamy about it, you would be correct.
There is nothing better than waking up to worker bees completing tasks while your head was all nestled into a pillow. My goal today is to teach ya’ll how to hire and onboard operators.
This past week was a pretty fantastic example of why. We closed our venture fundraise in 1 week for a small limit of $5 million raised with email and no phone calls. It still makes me tingly. Now we might totally f this up, but our timing feels pretty phenomenal. I said I was raising to take advantage of the new pricing in the market, aka a market downturn, then a week later it happened.
In the same week, we sold 1 company, we are in the LOI stage to buy another one and take over a 50% partnership. While all of this is TINY compared to what the giants in our world do, this is where a lot of you start to ask how you can juggle so much. The only answer is I don’t.
I am an excitably distractable human who likes to get things started from zero to one. I hit around $5M or $10M in revenue, and then bring in operators to take those companies to 8 figures and beyond. The problem is you leave all the upside after product-market fit off the table.
Thankfully that 0-1 is usually the hardest part for most people, so finding an operator to run it from 1 to 100,000,000 is actually pretty doable. The key is finding someone to take the work off your plate happily and who will also not royally f*ck it up.
Living the life you want, as opposed to living for your business. It starts with finding my operator before I ever do a project.
Case in point:
- I wanted to launch a venture fund. So I hired Kareem – a consultant, curious, always finding weird ideas on the internet who runs the fund with me.
- I wanted to launch an education business in M&A. So I found Ryan – a former website coder, teacher, and best-selling author who wanted to run the Contrarian Community and business.
Find the humans amongst the people. One of my favorite lines from Dune. Find those builders and doers and give them the opportunity to create.
How do you find your operator?
Job Boards are For Amateurs
One hour spent writing well, trumps 100 sloppily lazily done job postings. If you have not the skill, copy other people’s strategies to get operators to come to you. Shaan Puri is a master. Who else gets an intern role to get 162 retweets for an unpaid job?
What is interesting about this?
It’s not normal. He includes a piece of paper like a promise. His copywriting makes it feel like a golden ticket to mentorship, not a job. Never be three things in your operator searching: lazy, boring, or corporate. You’ll go far.
Build in Public
Nothing attracts competence like competence. If you appear to run a well-thought-out team, operators will come to you. After all, what is the number one reason people leave jobs? Bosses that suck. Don’t suck.
Turn Away Bad Hires
If you want to be miserable, try to be politically correct. Try to make everyone happy. Try to attract ALL the best talent. If you want to be successful negative signals are just as much a win as positive signals. Case in point.
My tweet on being completely uninterested in kids’ soccer games from my employees or partners. What does this do besides trigger a bunch of middle-aged white dudes who love harkening back to their glory days via their children?
It brings people to me who are the opposite of normal. People who think disagreement is funny. People who question things. People who are not easily triggered (in my opinion a sign of intelligence). People who will think creatively and OBSESS on business.
I want operators who LIVE TO WORK not work to live. I want team members who can’t sleep for the want of creating the world they want to see. Not people who bail early and say “Thank Goodness it’s Friday.” Pass.
Collecting Humans
My real secret to finding good operators? Surrounding yourself with interesting humans and saying this a lot:
- “I’m always looking for great operators who want to run businesses but need someone to back them with cash?”
I tell it to everyone I meet. I mention I buy businesses all the time. I tell the incredible host at the boutique hotel we are staying at.
If you want to get something done fast, give it to a busy person. If you want to get into more deals, go to people who are already doing them. Here’s what I say to my friends who are doing deals in case they want to let me into one they’re running:
- “If you’re ever doing a deal and need money and an investor who never says the word value add but will be there if you need me, call me.”
Step 2: You found an Operator Now What?
I love stealing playbooks.
I used to think that setting up someone for success was telling them all their tasks. Now I’m convinced I was dead wrong.
It’s making sure you help shape their values to align with your company’s.
Here’s an example of a couple of pages of our Contrarian Thinking onboarding doc.
First I want them to know what we do here:
I want it to be so simple that when they explain it to a friend they can’t help but use our exact same words:
I want them to know what kind of humans we are here. I think the more specific you can be on values the less you have to explain tactics.
If your operator is choosing to spend her most precious commodity, time, with you, you better deliver on making sure your values align with hers. At least that’s my two cents.
I use a trial project
Everyone tests out their skills before they come to Contrarian Thinking or any of our teams. No one just gets an interview and hired.
If you’re not willing to put in some work up front, why do it later?
If you don’t really want it before you have it, will you want it more when you get it?
Doubtful. I want people to come here because it’s special. They are special and we are going to build something special together.
That’s it. Now you know how to hire an operator. The next move is yours.
Question everything,
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(Do you already own a laundromat or are you looking to acquire one? Take your business to millions in revenue! Click here to learn more)
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