Where do these changemakers fit in the corporate world
Ex-founders report sending out hundreds of unanswered resumes: Where do these changemakers fit in the corporate world. They may not check off your standard boxes, but ex-founders are powerful agents of change within organisations. We speak to a venture capitalist, an intrapreneur and two entrepreneurs about the power of this small but growing talent pool.
Over the past decade, there has been a huge boom in startups. Some like Airbnb, Uber and Instagram have disrupted industries and completely the world. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Every year, less renowned and smaller startups are absorbed into larger companies to drive innovation as well.
Indeed, today, there are more founders than ever before.
Being an entrepreneur is a calling to discover new frontiers and to challenge the status quo. But statistically, 90 per cent of them are destined to “fail”.
So what happens to this unique talent pool?
Are founders a personal failure just because their startup fails? Should their years of hard work and experience be negated? Should we penalise them for taking the leap against great odds? A venture capitalist, an intrapreneur and two entrepreneurs share their insights.
Life After Startups
“I have applied to over 600 jobs but heard back from only 10 for an interview. I have heard from hiring managers that I’m not experienced enough for the specific role and was asked to try for junior positions,”
- Rachel (Anonymous Founder)
For almost four years, Arsyi R Fatah worked on building Tauaf, an online booking platform for Islamic pilgrammages. Unfortunately, in 2020, the company went under. Arsyi sent out some 300 resumes for project manager and product manager roles without receiving viable job offers for several months.
Though he eventually got accepted as head of studio enterprise in Indonesian gaming company Agate, he described the job-hunting experience as “frustrating and disheartening”. “I felt like my qualifications were not being fully recognised,” he said.
Another anonymous founder of a startup for content creators had a similar experience.
When her startup did not manage to raise the next round of funding this year, Rachel (not her real name) began looking for a corporate business strategy or product manager role.
“I have applied to over 600 jobs but heard back from only 10 for an interview. I have heard from hiring managers that I’m not experienced enough for the specific role and was asked to try for junior positions,” shared Rachel.
This is a common experience among many ex-founders regardless of whether they successfully exited, got tired and left, or were forced to wind down the business, said Jeremy Au, venture capitalist at Monk’s Hill Ventures, twice entrepreneur and host of the BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast with 20,000+ monthly listeners. Au also volunteers by leading the BRAVE Phoenix community which organizes resources, support and virtual off sites for ex-founders trying to figure out what’s next in their professional careers.
“It feels like there is a lot of binary language surrounding startups – you’re either a unicorn and a success, or you’re a failure,” he observed.
“I think that’s what a lot of founders struggle with. On one hand, you pioneered something, built technology and did so much good work. People respect you for doing a very hard thing. But the moment you fail to hit a unicorn in 10 years, it just swings to zero or lower than zero,” he said.
A Unique Talent Pool
“Founders however have an outcome-focused approach and find ways to cut across boundaries. It doesn't matter whose responsibility it's supposed to be or if the usual steps have been completed. The work isn't done until the outcome is achieved. That’s the unique founder mindset and it is fantastic,”
- Rahul Daswani, Head of partnerships and Deputy Director, Open Government Products, GovTech Singapore
Rahul Daswani, Head of partnerships and Deputy Director, Open Government Products, GovTech Singapore, believes that ex-founders bring a lot to the table, whether their ventures were successes or not.
“What we typically look for is the ability to identify meaningful problems, measure how they might be impactful, match them vis-à-vis other possible problem statements, and think about possible solutions. Generally speaking, founders tend to have thought about many of those things, so in fact, they have a bit of a leg up in terms of being able to come up with clear problem statements that they have thought about more deeply,” Daswani said.
“Founders also tend not to be bound by what is construed as currently defined boundaries. For example, a marketing person usually does not go into deeper partnerships and someone in an intra-facing role does not usually get involved in sales.
“Founders however have an outcome-focused approach and find ways to cut across boundaries. It doesn't matter whose responsibility it's supposed to be or if the usual steps have been completed. The work isn't done until the outcome is achieved. That’s the unique founder mindset and it is fantastic,” he added.
Many of the skills ex-founders acquired during their entrepreneurship journey translate well to product management and technology design. Some suitable roles include chief technology officer, head of engineering, and transformational change agents such as chief of staff or part of a task-force driving internal change within corporations, said Au.
Some successful founders have also moved on to become venture capitalists. “They understand what founders look for and are able to give useful advice,” he added.
Easing The Transition
“The acquisition or winding down period are also very busy time periods full of emotions. There may be financial insecurity as well as identity change so it’s a very complicated time for founders. They have to let go of the past, think about the future,”
- Jeremy Au, venture capitalist at Monk’s Hill Ventures
The important thing is for founders to redefine their personal language around success and failure, as well as their self-worth, stressed Au
Au, who has founded and successfully exited from two startups explained: “As a founder, you are the company and the company is you. So if the company fails, it is very hard for founders and the society to say that founders are not failures,” he noted.
That said, he believes it is vital to make the distinction.
“Let’s take the example of explorers who go out there to the fringes. How many actually made it to the summit, or found a new place or a new country?” he asked. “However, they took a big risk and we should respect them for it.”
The same applies to founders. Even if it turns out that the companies fail to become unicorns, we should respect them for their courage to try, and not equate their venture failures with personal failure, he stressed.
He also advises founders to take a step back and do some personal exploration before deciding on the next chapter of their lives.
“This is something that may not have had time to do while running the startup, or during the acquisition and winding down period.”
“The acquisition or winding down period are also very busy time periods full of emotions. There may be financial insecurity as well as identity change so it’s a very complicated time for founders. They have to let go of the past, think about the future,” he said
As Rachel shared of her personal self-discovery journey, “It took some time and self-awareness to break down what’s the most valuable hard skill that I can offer to a company.”
Once ex-founders have done this, they can better frame their entrepreneurial experience to be relevant to an employer, said Au.
“The market may not be easy, but once they have figured out their next chapter, founders generally become laser focused, and with the same energy that led them to build something, they will be able to find a way to get that job,” he added.
Cross-pollination Of Talents
“Corporates can benefit from that more agile mindset that startups tend to have about being creative and how to make things happen. And as startups scale, they will certainly benefit from the kind of structures and processes that corporate leaders can put in place to manage an organisation at scale,”
- Arsyi R Fatah, CEO and co-founder of Refundway
Perhaps the onus does not fall squarely on ex-founders. As a society, we too should reframe our yardstick for success. This is especially so because moving forward, we can expect to see more talents choose entrepreneurship, and also see more mobility between startup and corporate talent.
Arsyi for instance has since left Agate to embark on the Antler Program, which supports founders from pre-launch to pre-seed. He is now CEO and co-founder of Refundway, a platform which helps merchants manage and accelerate the refund and return process.
“I certainly hope there'll be more cross pollination between startups and corporates,” said Daswani.
“Corporates can benefit from that more agile mindset that startups tend to have about being creative and how to make things happen. And as startups scale, they will certainly benefit from the kind of structures and processes that corporate leaders can put in place to manage an organisation at scale,” he explained.
This will only be possible if we rethink our preconceptions about what a solid CV should look like.
“Founders may not have the best CV as we spent our careers creating our own jobs. If hiring managers look for specific experiences, job titles or FAANG companies in the CV, we are at a disadvantage,” Rachel reflected.
“Hiring managers may also not know what founders do if they had not been founders themselves,” she added. “But being an entrepreneur is like taking an MBA on steroids. Taking ownership and managing a company from top to bottom – internally with employees and externally with stakeholders – is a unique experience that I wouldn’t have gained elsewhere.”
When looking at failed ventures, it is good for hiring managers to find out why the venture failed. “Is it because of something the founder did or due to an external situation? If it's something extrinsic, that doesn't quite apply. Or, if we assess that the founder has learned from the failure, then hiring the founder would be a go,” said Daswani.
He suggests a transition away from pure resume-based hiring and even behavioural interview questions. Hiring practices need to move towards skill-based hiring. This could include testing the applicant with on-the-spot or take-home case studies. Employers could also offer applicants a paid trial day or week to get a sense of their abilities and check for culture-fit, he added.
Future-proofing Your Company
“They have demonstrated that they have the mindset to push, win and grow, and put themselves in hard situations. That’s the mindset level up that you are definitely going to get with a founder,”
- Jeremy Au, venture capitalist at Monk’s Hill Ventures
In the US, Au has observed a growing demand for founder talent. Entrepreneurs coming off a VC-backed failure often see their careers accelerate in their follow-on job, and obtain jobs about three years more senior than their peers, according to research by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
“If you look at the stock exchange, the best companies in the world are already absorbing founder talent as fast as they can, as aggressively as they can. Companies that want to build the future and change the status quo highly value these individuals.
“In the US, Google, Facebook, Apple and Google are well renowned for acquiring multiple companies not just for the product and team, but also for the leadership. And these leaders often get promoted to managerial or executive roles,” he said.
Southeast Asian technology oriented companies are also beginning to catch on to some extent, he said.
“This is because entrepreneurs are good stewards of the future. They are willing to rally resources to create change, and do something risky at the nexus of technology, customers and business.
“They have demonstrated that they have the mindset to push, win and grow, and put themselves in hard situations. That’s the mindset level up that you are definitely going to get with a founder,” he said.
Companies that are willing to be more flexible about hiring, and embrace these non-traditional talent pools may harness this incredible spirit of change to propel their companies into the future.