Impact of hiring Game Changers by Notion Capital

Helping to raise Series A investment for tech companies.
We know two things about our founders:
1. We only invest in them if we think they have what it takes to go on the ten-year journey from $1m–$100m ARR.
2. We know that they will rarely, if ever, be able to do this alone.
About Techcelerate Ventures

Tech Investment and Growth Advisory for Series A in the UK, operating in £150k to £5m investment market, working with #SaaS #FinTech #HealthTech #MarketPlaces and #PropTech companies.
GAME Changer business HIRE candidate NOTION Insight Founder
https://techcelerate.ventures
Helping to raise Series A investment for tech companies.
We know two things about our founders:
1. We only invest in them if we think they have what it takes to go on the ten-year journey from $1m–$100m ARR.
2. We know that they will rarely, if ever, be able to do this alone.
About Techcelerate Ventures

Tech Investment and Growth Advisory for Series A in the UK, operating in £150k to £5m investment market, working with #SaaS #FinTech #HealthTech #MarketPlaces and #PropTech companies.
GAME Changer business HIRE candidate NOTION Insight Founder
NOTION INSIGHTS 
Build. Scale. Succeed.
GAME 
CHANGERS  
THE IMPACT 
OF HIRING 
AMAZING 
PEOPLE
AND HOW TO 
HIRE THEM
No4
_
 
Notion Insights is published by Notion, 91 Wimpole Street, London W1G 0EF.
Registered address: Third Floor, 1 New Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1AN.
For opportunities to contribute to future editions of Notion 
Insights please contact info@notion.vc
Design, Layout & Production
SunnySideUp, contact paul.jason@pauljason.co.uk
 
Notion (OC364955) is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
_
Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is 
strictly prohibited.  2018 Notion. All rights reserved.
Game Changers is 
proudly brought to you by:
58 
Interview guidelines for Game 
Changers 
Maddy Cross, Notion
88 
Industry viewpoint: The 
Theatre of Hiring 
Chris Tottman, Notion
94 
Industry Perspective: Hiring 
and developing the best 
Jonno Southam, Amazon 
Web Services
100 
The cost of hiring Game 
Changers and what you should 
offer them 
Maddy Cross, Notion
102 
Top 5 cost considerations when 
putting together an offer 
Maddy Cross, Notion
114 
Industry Perspective 
Finding Game Changers at 
every stage of the business 
Tien Tzuo, Zuora
120 
The Game Changer Point of 
View  
Mns Hultman, QlikTech
8 
Game Changers: The impact of 
hiring amazing people  - and 
how to hire them 
Maddy Cross, Notion
12 
How do we define a 
'Game Changer'? 
Maddy Cross, Notion
22 
Industry viewpoint: 5 things 
that changed at Marketo 
after hiring Game Changers
Phil Fernandez, Marketo
26 
Why is it hard to hire a 
Game Changer? 
Maddy Cross, Notion
38 
Industry viewpoint: Building 
relationships between Founders 
and Game Changers 
Maureen Taylor & Renn Vara, 
SNP
42 
How to hire a Game Changer 
Maddy Cross, Notion
50 
Industry viewpoint: The Search 
Perspective 
Andrew Banks, True Search
GAME 
CHANGERS 
THE IMPACT 
OF HIRING 
AMAZING 
PEOPLE   
- AND HOW 
TO HIRE THEM
Maddy Cross
Head of Talent, Notion
At Notion we invest in early stage B2B technology businesses in Europe. 
Fundamentally, our focus is on putting our money with Founders who have a technical 
edge, or who are pushing the boundaries of nascent technologies. But we also look at 
other factors, including the leadership abilities of the Founders and many other 'soft skills' 
factors that can be tricky to quantify.
9
8
Notion Insights
Game Changers
CONSISTENTLY THOUGH, WE KNOW TWO THINGS ABOUT 
OUR FOUNDERS:
 
1. We only invest in them if we think they have what it takes 
to go on the ten-year journey from $1m$100m ARR.
2. We know that they will rarely, if ever, be able to do 
this alone. 
Notion has made more than 55 investments in software 
businesses, and today has more than 45 companies in the portfolio. In 
each case, we invested very early and we have made some exceptional 
investment decisions. 
But we also pride ourselves in investing far more than just money. 
From day one, a key area of focus is how we can support our Founders 
in hiring highly experienced and knowledgeable people to go on their 
extraordinary journey with them.
When Founders make a C-Level hire, they're not just looking for 
employees but for business partners who'll drop everything to help, 
travel frequently and when it's inconvenient, who'll relocate from San 
Francisco to Spain and who'll - more often than not - have made the 
same journey with other Founders on a number of occasions before.
Founders are not looking for an employee, they are looking for a 
"Game Changer"; someone who will give them the headspace to be CEO 
without distraction, someone who will not be phased by significant 
setbacks, someone who will drive 10x the revenue in their first year on 
the job and someone who, ultimately, will be a huge contributing factor 
to the success of the business.
"You're not looking for someone to work for you You're looking for 
someone you'll be sitting on a beach with in 20 years' time, laughing about 
some of the ludicrous things you did to get a deal done" - Chris Tottman
In our experience, it's a consistent factor that every Founder needs 
great people at the helm with them, and every Founder experiences 
struggles in hiring those people.
THIS ISN'T A PLAYBOOK ON 'HOW TO FIND A GAME 
CHANGER' - IT'S MORE A COLLECTION OF LEARNT 
WISDOM FROM THE EXPERIENCES OF THE FOUNDERS 
WE'RE INVESTED IN AND THE PEOPLE IN OUR NETWORK.
It's an overview of the things we've learnt that will, with luck, help 
Founders learn what to look for and what to expect from their first big 
hire; it should provide reassurance that pretty much everyone finds it 
hard to hire a Game Changer. Hiring a Game Changer is an endeavour 
that, while challenging, can ultimately prove invaluable.
'YOU'RE NOT LOOKING FOR SOMEONE 
TO WORK FOR YOU YOU'RE 
LOOKING FOR SOMEONE YOU'LL 
BE SITTING ON A BEACH WITH IN 
20 YEARS' TIME, LAUGHING ABOUT 
SOME OF THE LUDICROUS THINGS 
YOU DID TO GET A DEAL DONE'
- CHRIS TOTTMAN, NOTION
11
Game Changers
10
Notion Insights
HOW DO 
WE DEFINE 
A 'GAME 
CHANGER'?
Google tells us that the definition of a 'Game Changer' is "an event, 
idea, or procedure that affects a significant shift in the current way of 
doing or thinking about something".
We're inclined to agree, except we think it should read "an event, 
idea, procedure or person that effects a significant shift in the current 
way of doing or thinking about something".
Game Changers are people who have an overwhelmingly positive 
impact on your business.
They're people with years of functional and sector expertise who 
help you through tough situations without panic and who play an 
imperative role in the journey. You cannot get from $0-$100m without 
them.
They are people who - when you look back on the business in ten 
years' time - will make you think "I could not have achieved what I 
achieved if they had not been there".
an event, idea, or procedure that effects a significant shift 
in the current way of doing or thinking about something.
"a potential Game Changer that could revitalize the entire 
US aerospace industry"
noun
Dictionary
About 2,530,000 results (0.44 seconds)
game changer
GAME CHANGERS ARE PEOPLE 
WHO HAVE AN OVERWHELMINGLY 
POSITIVE IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS
define: game changer
All
Images
News
Books
Videos
More
13
Game Changers
12
Notion Insights
WHY YOU 
SHOULD 
HIRE A GAME 
CHANGER
There's a natural inclination from most Founders to think "we 
don't need external help". You might not need it, but it can certainly be 
very positive to bring Game Changers on-board for both tangible and 
intangible reasons.
THE TANGIBLE BENEFITS OF HIRING A GAME CHANGER
 
When Game Changers join businesses there is invariably an 
almost immediate step change in one or more of the key metrics of 
performance.  
Whether it's revenues increasing dramatically, staff churn 
decreasing suddenly, measures of staff contentment and productivity 
hitting the ceiling, customer satisfaction going green, or product delivery 
speeding up dramatically, there will be a noticeable improvement in a 
significant proportion of the business.
Across the Notion portfolio, there are a number of instances of this 
that confirmed the 'game changing' status of new exec hires
THERE IS INVARIABLY AN 
ALMOST IMMEDIATE STEP CHANGE 
IN ONE OR MORE OF THE KEY 
METRICS OF PERFORMANCE 
15
Game Changers
14
Notion Insights
THE 
TANGIBLE 
BENEFITS 
OF HIRING 
A GAME 
CHANGER
WHAT ARE THE MEASURABLE 
INDICATIONS THAT A GAME CHANGER 
HAS JOINED YOUR BUSINESS?
OCT
Q3 2016
Q1 2017
Q2 2017
Q3 2017
Q4 2017
JUNE
NOV
JULY
FEB
AUG
MAR
SEPT
APR
OCT
MAY
NOV DEC
US$0
US$0
US$750,000
US$7,500
US$1,500,000
US$15,000
US$2,250,000
US$22,500
US$3,000,000
US$30,000
1,000% GROWTH
Annual Recurring Revenue vs Time
Average Contract Value
700% GROWTH
GAME
CHANGER
JOINED
GAME
CHANGER
JOINED
DEC
JAN
Q4 2016
All of the following graphs show real data that has been anonymised.
17
Game Changers
16
Notion Insights
-87
-40
-52
2016
2017
96
97
96
I'm happy on my team
I work well with my manager
*All data is real, anonymised data from Notion-backed businesses
2017
2016
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Staff churn reducing profoundly following two 
senior hires:
Culture Amp statistics that measure different 
dimensions of staff contentment
STAFF CHURN ON TEAM 'A'
STAFF CONTENTMENT SURVEY
I would recommend this company as a great place to work
GAME
CHANGER
JOINED
GAME CHANGERS DON'T ONLY IMPROVE THE 
FINANCIAL METRICS... 
THEY ALSO HAVE A MEASURABLE, POSITIVE 
AFFECT ON THE TEAM DYNAMICS...
19
Game Changers
18
Notion Insights
The intangible benefits are, naturally, harder to define. They include 
a sense of confidence in the ability to exit for a huge valuation, a greater 
sense of enjoyment in the day-to-day and a learning experience like no 
other.
Thoughts from the Founders who've made Game Changing hires 
summarise most accurately the intangible benefits
"I feel really lucky to have found such great people to work with."
-  Nino d'Adhemar, Apperio
"Game Changers are helpful in early-stage businesses when 
they're collaborators rather than leaders. And to collaborate, the 
ability to discuss the most pressing issues is absolutely key."
- Renn Vara and Maureen Taylor, SNP Communications
"Until Series A we were a band of pirates. Then a Game 
Changer came aboard and we started to become a Navy."
- Vasco Pedro, Unbabel
"A real Game Changer is someone who can 
change the attitude of the Founder."
- Mike Laven, Currencycloud
"Was there a step change in my ambition, when I brought 
in a Game Changer? No. But there was a definite step 
change in my confidence that we'd succeed."
- Phil Fernandez, Marketo
THE 
INTANGIBLE 
BENEFITS 
OF HIRING 
A GAME 
CHANGER
GAME CHANGERS ARE PEOPLE 
WHO HAVE AN OVERWHELMINGLY 
POSITIVE IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS
21
Game Changers
20
Notion Insights
_ 
1
I WASN'T ALWAYS ON CALL ANYMORE 
Hiring the first Game Changing CXO was a big 
change for me, and for Marketo. 
For the first time at Marketo, I wasn't always on 
call. Within about a week I'd let go of every part of 
the function that the Game Changer was running; 
he just had this amazing ability to say 'I've got this' 
and then immediately talk about his strategy and 
start the execution part of it. 
Suddenly I wasn't the 'go to' guy for everything, 
because the Game Changer knew far more about his 
area of expertise than I did, and he had the general 
management skills to help me out across the whole 
company. If something major came up, there was 
someone else who could handle it. 
Phil founded Marketo in 2006 with Jon Miller and David Morandi. They set out with 
the aim of building a new kind of application to let marketing professionals contribute to 
revenue and measure their success.
Marketo went public in May 2013 at a valuation in excess of $700m before being 
acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $1.8 billion in 2016. 
INDUSTRY 
VIEWPOINT 
5 THINGS 
THAT 
CHANGED 
AT MARKETO 
AFTER 
HIRING GAME 
CHANGERS 
Phil Fernandez
- Founder Marketo
23
Game Changers
22
Notion Insights
_ 
3
I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO BE A CEO
A founding tech CEO has the opportunity to 
engage in every area in the business, and in the 
early stages of Marketo, I did just that. But in reality, 
that just means that you're spread like peanut butter 
which isn't ideal for the company or the culture as 
the business grows. 
We were growing at a significant rate, so there 
was always plenty to do and I enjoyed being in the 
detail of it all. I'm naturally curious so I wanted to 
understand all elements of the business. But once 
the company reaches any meaningful size, the CEO 
needs to be setting strategy and not wading into 
every detail.
Bringing a Game Changer into the business 
meant that I could let go of a large proportion of the 
detail and really be the CEO. But it wasn't easy - it 
took me months to learn how to step back and start 
to be a strategic CEO.
I had to learn how to delegate more and more, 
and how to get the information I needed without 
going into every detail. When I hired a Game 
Changer, they took care of much of this detail so I 
had to learn how to make strategic decisions from 
a higher level. 
There was a very natural tension between 
needing to know everything and really not needing 
to know everything. The Game Changer certainly 
helped me reach the right balance of detailed 
knowledge, which allowed me to step up into being 
a 'true' CEO. 
_ 
4
THE CULTURE HAD TO BE REWIRED
_ 
5
OUR AMBITION DIDN'T CHANGE, BUT OUR 
BELIEF IN GETTING THERE DID 
Until we hired a Game Changer, there was an 
idea that all roads led to me. A kind of culture that 
'if there's something big happening, then you go to 
Phil'. When we hired a Game Changer, not all roads 
led to me anymore and as a result, the culture had 
to relearn itself. 
We had to be really explicit about the change 
- we had to make sure everyone knew that there 
were more leaders in the business than just me. 
One of the really positive things to come from it 
was that there was a drastic rethink for everyone in 
terms of how independent they could be. 
I've always thought it was incredibly important 
to devolve power as a way of empowering people 
and making them feel confident that they can 
make their own decisions. Before we hired a Game 
Changer there was an over reliance on getting my 
opinion; the notion of 'how do you really devolve 
power as the business goes from 10 to 100 people' is 
really very hard and also very important. 
When we hired a Game Changer and all 
roads stopped leading to me, it opened up a way of 
thinking independently; it was reassurance that my 
opinion wasn't the only one and that people could 
make decisions and get advice from many other 
people in the business.  
We'd always set out to build a huge business, 
even in spite of the massive challenge and the 
frequency with which early stage businesses don't 
succeed. You have to think like this, or you won't 
survive. 
So, when we started hiring Game Changers this 
ambition didn't really change. We'd set out to build 
a multi-billion dollar company and that idea never 
wavered, because we'd set our sights very high. 
There was, however, a huge step change in the 
belief that we would have a chance of getting there.
We hired a CXO from a major international 
public company. He'd had startup experience and 
a drive to build something from the beginning, but 
he was leaving behind a global team and millions 
of dollars of budget to join us. So when he arrived 
at Marketo there was a rippling effect around the 
business of 'This guy wants to leave all of that 
behind and join us? He must really think we're on 
to something'.  
Seeing an executive of that profile choose to 
come to Marketo when it was still at a very early 
stage gave inspiration to the whole company that 
the vision was real, and that what we wanted to 
achieve was entirely possible. 
_ 
2
I HAD COMPLETE TRUST IN SOMEONE ELSE 
The first time I knew I could completely trust 
a Game Changer was when I was interviewing a 
candidate for a senior role at Marketo. Everyone at 
the company knew that when I was interviewing 
someone I didn't want to be interrupted; the 
interview process should be seamless and it's not 
fair to the candidate to be de-prioritised, even for a 
short period. 
The Game Changer interrupted an interview 
I was conducting, but his judgment was good and 
I knew the reason for the interruption would be 
warranted. In short, he wanted to let me know that 
there was a possibility of a major security breach but 
that he was handling it, and I should go back to the 
interview. In that moment I realised that I trusted 
him completely (NB it later transpired that there 
had been no breach).
His ability to interrupt me without undue 
disturbance, get my attention onto something else 
for a brief moment, and then let me get back to the 
interview knowing that the issue was being handled 
was amazing. It was incredible to see how he was 
able to exercise perfect judgement of the situation. 
For me, it was a whole new level of relationship. 
I trusted him completely to be calm under fire and 
make the right kind of judgement calls, even in 
moments of company-defining crisis. 
25
24
Notion Insights
Game Changers
 
IF IT'S POSSIBLE TO HIRE SOMEONE WHO'LL MAKE THE 
JOURNEY FROM $0-$100M SIGNIFICANTLY EASIER, WHY 
ISN'T EVERYONE DOING IT ALL OF THE TIME? 
A big part of what we do at Notion is working with Founders to 
guide them through the process of making their first external Game 
Changing hire. Usually this is a Chief Revenue Officer, but sometimes 
it's a CTO, COO or CFO. 
 We're not experts in psychology or academics who've extensively 
studied the difficulties in hiring but, from a number of conversations 
with Founders who're on the brink of adding the first non-Founder 
to the senior team, we've accumulated some knowledge around the 
theme "why making the first big hire is so hard".
 There are the usual concerns including "what will this person 
actually be doing?" and "can we afford such a senior person?". But 
alongside those difficulties, there are a number of common themes 
that crop up that aren't widely spoken about, so Founders often think 
they're alone in their quandaries.
 
The common concerns are:
 
 What if I hire a Game Changer and they figure out that I don't 
know what I'm doing?
 What if I relocate a Game Changer from San Francisco to London, 
they bring their spouse and kids and pets and thenI can't provide 
a great work environment for them?
 
How much will I need to pay this person, and why do Search Firms 
cost so much?
 What if I straight-up just make a bad decision and hire someone 
who can't do the job?
 What if I hire this person and they change everything for the 
worse?
 
To be concise, these concerns are:
 
 
Imposter Syndrome
 
Pre-emptive guilt
 
Cost versus investment
 
Hiring the wrong person
 
Culture and values
WHY IS IT 
HARD TO 
HIRE A GAME 
CHANGER?
Maddy Cross
Head of Talent, Notion
27
26
Notion Insights
Game Changers
 
IM
PO
ST
E
R
 
S
Y
N
D
RO
M
E IMPOSTER 
SYNDROME
There's a worry, before even starting the hiring process, that a 
new C-Level hire will join the business and very quickly notice that 
the Founder is mashing their way through the scaling process without 
being totally sure of what they're doing.
Every Founder feels like this at some point - even the ones who 
had never felt it in their lives before. It's called Imposter Syndrome.
 
"I thought Imposter Syndrome was a made-up thing - I'd never felt it 
before and I didn't think it was real. And then we hired someone amazing 
and I spent a few weeks thinking 'this guy is doing in one day what would've 
taken me months... why am I so rubbish?' After a few weeks though, I 
realised that that was exactly why we'd hired him." - CEO/Founder of a 
Notion-backed business
IMPOSTER SYNDROME IN THIS CONTEXT 
IS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
 
On the one hand, Founders don't want to experience Imposter 
Syndrome because it feels uncomfortable on a number of levels. "What 
if I get found out?", "What if they notice a terrible mistake I've made that 
they might expose before I can fix it?", "What if my direct reports see the 
new person do an amazing job and think I'm just a con artist?" and so on. 
Founders often haven't experienced this so they don't really know 
what to 'do' with it, or how to get past it, and it doesn't feel nice to be in 
the midst of it.
On the other hand, experiencing Imposter Syndrome is the one of 
the key indicators of hiring a Game Changer.
Game Changers are people with deep sector expertise and - more 
often than not - a significant number of years of experience under their 
belts. They actively should know more than the Founder who's hiring 
them in at least one area of the business. That's why they're expensive, 
it's how they'll shift the dial on your business, and it absolutely does not 
mean that they'll pick holes in the prior mistakes of the Founder (if they 
find holes, they'll help to fix them).
If a Founder isn't worried about being "found out" by a Game 
Changer that they're going to hire, then it's likely that they aren't 
setting their sights high enough, and experiencing it shows an active 
interest in the ability to learn and grow as a Founder.
EXPERIENCING IMPOSTER SYNDROME IS THE ONE OF 
THE KEY INDICATORS OF HIRING A GAME CHANGER.
"THE WHOLE PROBLEM WITH 
THE WORLD IS THAT FOOLS AND 
FANATICS ARE ALWAYS SO CERTAIN 
OF THEMSELVES, AND WISER 
PEOPLE SO FULL OF DOUBTS."
- BERTRAND RUSSELL
29
Game Changers
28
Notion Insights
 
The real Game Changers don't take career decisions lightly: 
making considered decisions is usually what got them where they 
are in the first place. They'll want to carry out due diligence, consider 
their options (of which there will likely be many) and, often, they will 
have moved internationally in the past for their careers so they'll 
be 100% aware of the pros and cons before they even start thinking 
about it. 
 
"Pay a lot of attention to the questions that candidates ask at 
interview. If they're asking strategic, probing questions like 'What is 
the number one challenge facing the business right now' or 'What 
does the Founder struggle with the most' then they'll be carefully 
considering the negative and positives aspects of the role' - Andrew 
Banks, True Search
  
In the interview process it's absolutely OK to be upfront about 
the negative aspects of the job and the company. Letting the candidate 
know that the runway is only six months, or that they're likely to be 
superseded by someone in a year or two (and that they'll be involved 
in the hiring process) is really the only way to navigate around this. 
And if they decide the job isn't for them, then they weren't the right 
person in the first place.
FOR ANY GAME CHANGER WHO'S GOING TO 
TAKE A ROLE IN YOUR BUSINESS IT ISN'T A 
RISK FOR THEM, IT'S A LEAP OF FAITH BECAUSE 
THEY'LL BACK THEMSELVES TO BE PIVOTAL IN 
MAKING THE WHOLE BUSINESS SUCCEED.
SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WE'VE 
HEARD FROM FOUNDERS...
 
"Relocating this guy from San Francisco is going to be a pretty big 
dealHe's got kids and a wife who has a career that she doesn't want 
to give up"
 
"We're a super early-stage business and the candidates we're looking 
at have run massive corporates Will there be enough for them to do?"
 
"I'm not sure why this guy would want to come and work for a 
business like ours, with limited Product-Market Fit and really not 
much revenue"
 
"I'm worried about hiring this person because - in a year or two - I'll 
need to supersede them with someone who has a US network and 
they might feel like they don't have a place in the business any more"
 
Broadly, this kind of sentiment can be summarised as guilt. It's 
pre-emptive guilt, rather than current guilt. Founders are worried that 
they'll oversell the opportunity or that, once the hire has been made 
and the person has relocated, they'll run out of money and won't be able 
to fulfil the role, or the remit won't be big enough or any number of 
other things.
The main thing to note here is that it's the responsibility of the 
Game Changer to address these concerns, it's not the responsibility of 
the Founder. The responsibility of the Founder is to be entirely honest 
about all of the immediate concerns and challenges in the business.
PREEMPTIVE
GUILT
FOR ANY GAME CHANGER WHO'S 
GOING TO TAKE A ROLE IN YOUR 
BUSINESS... IT ISN'T A RISK FOR 
THEM, IT'S A LEAP OF FAITH 
31
Game Changers
30
Notion Insights
 
We invest money with the expectation and hope of achieving a 
massive multiple. We are minority investors, so the responsibility of 
building and growing the business sits with the Founder; we have 
regular engagement, typically a board seat and a strong relationship, 
and we trust that they will spend the money we invest wisely; after all, 
Founders are often the largest shareholders so our goals are aligned.
Because the businesses we invest in spend the majority of their 
money on people (in terms of salaries), the 'ROI' decisions are - in the 
majority - focused on hiring.
The decision to spend money on a Game Changer and an 
accompanying search firm is an ROI decision, not a liability as per 
standard accounting process and balance sheets.
 
IT SHOULD THEREFORE BE ASSESSED 
AS ANY INVESTMENT:
 
If you spend 50k+ with a search firm, precisely what services 
will they provide, how much of your time will it save (i.e. what's the 
opportunity cost), who will they find that you are unlikely to find, and 
will they do a better job of persuading amazing candidates to speak to 
you than you can do yourself?
If you spend 150k+ on the basic salary of a CXO, what is your 
expectation for their performance based on their previous roles and 
how can they provide evidence that they will achieve better results in 
your business?
Cost is the most obvious of all of the concerns, largely because it's 
very unemotional, entirely measurable and something that's usually at 
the front of the mind of the Founder at all times because of a general 
business need to be mindful of expenditure.
Founders need to consider the compensation package for the Game 
Changer as well as the cost of the search firm involved in finding them.
The mechanics of the costs are covered later, so for the moment 
we're going to focus on the higher level concerns about the cost.
Notion is in the rare position as a VC that we do not invest in any 
businesses with value tied up in physical goods, stock or real estate. The 
businesses we invest in are software businesses, so the most significant 
cost is people.
CO$T
NOTION IS IN THE RARE POSITION 
AS A VC THAT WE DO NOT INVEST 
IN ANY BUSINESSES WITH VALUE 
TIED UP IN PHYSICAL GOODS, 
STOCK OR REAL ESTATE
22.6%
Other costs
INVESTORS IN NOTION
Decides which VC funds to invest in
NOTION
Decides which startups to invest in
FOUNDERS
Decides which people to hire
Returns to Investors in Notion
77.4%
Staff costs
AVERAGE % OF STAFF COSTS VS OTHER COSTS 
IN NOTION PORTFOLIO COMPANIES
THE MOVEMENT OF ROI RESPONSIBILITY 
WITHIN VC
33
Game Changers
32
Notion Insights
 
Broadly, this concern can be split into two parts: poor interview 
techniques and bad luck.
 
INTERVIEW TECHNIQUES
 
There's a good reason that Amazon, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs 
and Google (the list goes on) have had great performance - they really, 
really test their interview candidates to make sure they're the right fit. 
They don't substitute a series of informal meetings and coffees for a 
structured interview process, and neither should startups.
This isn't to say that you should find the time and the resource to 
run a ten-round interview process with a full-day assessment centre, 
but you should think about how you can structure the process so that 
it's measurable and aligned with interests of the business you're hiring 
for.
There's a chapter in this Notion Insight piece - Guide to Interviewing 
Game Changers - that's a step-by-step guide to interviewing C-Level 
candidates, which will take a lot of the thought process out of how to 
approach it.
 
BAD LUCK
 
Pretty much all Executive Search firms will rerun searches if the 
person who took the job leaves within a year.
This is largely because bad luck can play a part in hiring a 
candidate. The candidate's spouse may decide to take a job elsewhere 
that requires them to relocate and leave the role at your business, they 
may be offered an opportunity elsewhere that you can't match, or they 
might just decide they want something different out of their career.
Some of the best search firms that are known to Notion have - 
anecdotally - put a number of about 20% of searches being redone 
after the candidate has started the job. In other words, even if you do 
everything right, the candidate has a 20% chance of leaving the role in 
the first year because of circumstances that are likely to be outside of 
your control.
Plenty of - if not all - very successful businesses have fallen into 
that 20% at some point. There's often nothing you can do about it if you 
fall into that category except to be aware that it happens to everyone, 
you should restart the search as soon as possible and there are far 
worse things that can happen in business (and in life, too).
HIRING THE 
WRONG 
PERSON
"A CHAT OVER TEA AND BISCUITS 
IS NOT AN INTERVIEW PROCESS"
- JONNO SOUTHAM
 
SENIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, 
VENTURE CAPITAL AT 
AMAZON WEB SERVICES 
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First of all What is the culture of your business? What are your 
values? It should be reasonably easy to come to general consensus 
among the Founders on the overall culture and values, but the act of 
writing it down and getting everyone to agree on it can be a lot more 
arduous, both in a time-consuming and emotional way.
It can also be tricky to align the culture and values with the 
outputs, and what you want the company to be rather than what it 
actually is at present.
BUT IT'S VITAL TO DO THIS WORK BEFORE YOU 
START LOOKING FOR THE FIRST BIG HIRE. HOW CAN 
YOU MEASURE THEM AGAINST AN UNKNOWN? 
The founding team should be clear on three to five values that are 
agreed and implemented, and the interviewing of C-Level candidates 
should use these values to align everyone in the process.
Exactly how to land on what your values are is another topic for 
another time because it's lengthy, nuanced and tricky to get right but 
once you've decided what the values are, finding a Game Changer 
who has a very similar outlook should form part of the interview 
process as outlined in the Guide to Interviewing Game Changers in 
this Insight piece.
CULTURAL FIT 
HOW DO WE 
KNOW IF 
THEY'LL FIT 
WITH OUR 
CULTURE?
WHAT IS THE CULTURE OF YOUR 
BUSINESS? WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES? 
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INDUSTRY 
VIEWPOINT: 
BUILDING RE-
LATIONSHIPS 
BETWEEN 
FOUNDERS 
AND GAME 
CHANGERS
Maureen Taylor & Renn Vara
Founders, SNP Communications
Renn and Maureen are the co-founders of SNP Communications. The company 
provides content, coaching and creative services to the leaders of some of the world's most 
successful businesses including Airbnb, Spotify and Transferwise.
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_ 
They started SNP in 1992, so they've seen multiple incarnations 
of the global tech industry, positive and negative, and apply this 
knowledge to new Founders and early stage ventures as well as more 
established tech companies.
One of the areas they've had a load of experience with, and 
exposure to, is keeping the positive dynamic of founding teams together 
when new execs are hired.
AN EARLY-STAGE BUSINESS ISN'T JUST A 
BUSINESS, IT'S A PERSONAL CHALLENGE
 
As a result, an early-stage business is usually an all-encompassing 
affair for the Founders and often comes with great sacrifice. 
So it's understandable that when a Founder brings a Game 
Changer into the fold, it can be tricky to adjust and make the most of 
the upside: someone with raw enthusiasm and exceptional levels of 
intrinsic motivation, alongside someone with extensive experience, 
sector knowledge and drive to succeed.
The first thing that Renn and Maureen noted is that, as a Founder, 
you have a responsibility towards self-care. No one else is going to take 
care of you, and you can't take care of your team if you're not taking 
care of yourself first. This is the most fundamental of all Founder/Game 
Changer relationships: each person needs to be kind to themselves first 
and make decisions that serve them.
In practical terms this translates to a number of things, including 
being honest with yourself and the people around you about what you 
want, understanding your intrinsic motivations and drivers and trying 
to service them wherever possible and, perhaps most importantly, 
being kind to yourself when you can't figure out what to do - no one 
can know everything, and no one can see clearly over the horizon.
Once this part is taken care of, it's about finding the balance 
between the Founder and Game Changer that allows the qualities of 
each to flourish.
 
BEING A FOUNDER OF A COMPANY IS A FACT. BEING 
AN EMPLOYEE OF A COMPANY IS A POSITION
  
The Game Changer needs to respect the commitment that has 
been made by the Founder, and navigate around that.
One of the clearest examples of this is the ability to give choices 
rather than saying no. If a Founder wants to take a direction or build 
a product that the Game Changer thinks is high-risk, it's the Game 
Changer's responsibility to use their experience and knowledge to 
guide the Founder through the potential outcomes rather than saying 
'no' and risking damaging the enthusiasm, drive and vision of the 
Founder.
For example, a Founder wants to include "Deliver product feature 
A" that the Game Changer doesn't agree with. The Game Changers 
responds with "OK, sure, but I think it's worth considering the risks 
of taking that decision".
 
DISCUSSION RATHER THAN DIRECTION IS KEY
 
Game Changers and Founders work best together when they're 
great at communicating with one another. It can be a tendency of 
very experienced business leaders to be directive - they've spent the 
majority of their careers in corporates, learning how to direct other 
people, so it makes sense.
But the relationship between Founders and Game Changers isn't 
directive. Game Changers are helpful in early-stage businesses when 
they're collaborators rather than leaders. And to collaborate, the ability 
to discuss the most pressing issues is absolutely key.
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Now that we're at the point of understanding the huge impact that a 
Game Changer can have on your business and how to get around the 
barriers to hiring one, we need to look at how to hire one.
_ 
1 
WHERE ARE THE GAPS IN YOUR EXISTING 
LEADERSHIP TEAM?
_
2
BRING IN A SEARCH FIRM TO FIND CANDIDATES WHO 
CAN FILL IN THOSE GAPS
_
3
INTERVIEW CANDIDATES TO DECIDE ON WHO YOUR 
GAME CHANGER IS...
HOW TO 
HIRE A GAME 
CHANGER
THE FIRST STEP IN THE PROCESS IS TO 
UNDERSTAND WHERE THE DEBTS AND THE GAPS 
ARE IN YOUR EXISTING LEADERSHIP TEAM
Maddy Cross
Head of Talent, Notion
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HOW DO YOU, AS A FOUNDER, KNOW WHERE 
TO START WITH YOUR FIRST SIGNIFICANT 
GAME CHANGING HIRE?
 
START WITH LOOKING AT THE LEADERSHIP 
DEBT AND GAP, TO SEE WHERE 
THE WEAK SPOTS ARE
1
LEADERSHIP 
THE DEBT 
AND THE GAP
LEADERSHIP DEBT
Leadership Debt is a measure of the ability to execute. It's the debt 
between getting things done competently and getting things done at 
a speed and quality that'll take you from $10 to $100m ARR in six to 
ten years.
The Leadership Debt is largely about the stretch of the individual: 
is your CMO able to amp up their activity to capture a billion-dollar 
category while keeping the plates of sales leads and digital marketing 
campaigns (and everything else) spinning? When the Founder tells 
you she's hiring a CRO and pushing the Go-To-Market, does she do 
it? Debt can be measured in the style of NPS: "What do you score this 
person from 0 to 10?", within the context of the challenges facing the 
firm for the next two years. How well do you rate each of your team 
in terms of their ability to deliver on the current plan? What about the 
following 2-3 years?
Debt: Ability to execute
Founder
CPO
CEO    COO
CFO
Chair
Gap: Spaces in the skill set
Debt
    CRO
CTO
    CMO
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"THE INCREASINGLY FAST-MOVING AND 
COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT WE [FACE] IN THE 
21ST CENTURY DEMANDS MORE LEADERSHIP 
FROM MORE PEOPLE TO MAKE ENTERPRISES 
PROSPER"
 
- JOHN P KOTTER, EMERITUS PROFESSOR, 
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL
LEADERSHIP GAP
Leadership Gap is a measure of competency blind spots. Which 
elements of the org chart have world-class talent, and which don't? 
Does your CPO have amazing abilities to understand customer needs 
but struggles with prioritisation? Even more obviously, are you simply 
missing a CPO and your CTO/CEO/COO can't cover the product needs? 
Should we bring in a chairperson?
The gap is a question of the individual and the team combined, 
which makes it harder to measure than debt, but if you can spend some 
time reviewing both dimensions of the debt vs gap structure you'll end 
up with a highly functioning C-Level team that - ultimately - allows you 
to get on and do the job of the CEO without the distraction of specific 
functional issues.
    CRO
Gap
Founder
CTO
CEO    COO
    CMO
CFO
Chair
Debt: Ability to execute
Gap: Spaces in the skill set
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THREE REASONS THAT IT'S WORTH WORKING WITH AN 
EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRM 
 _ 
1 
OPPORTUNITY COST 
It's easy to lose hours in LinkedIn looking for candidates, if you haven't 
done it before and you don't know the process for mapping the market. 
Search firms spend hundreds of hours looking for, vetting and short-
listing candidates, not to mention negotiating the offer and dealing 
with a potential candidate relocation. Spend that time doing your job as 
Founder/CEO, rather than trying your hand at Executive Search.
_ 
2
FULL MARKET 
SEARCH 
Really great search firms have a global view of the talent market; they 
don't tend to miss great candidates who are hidden out of view, so you 
can ensure that the short-list includes everyone who's in the market 
for a new role and who - more importantly - will add great value to 
your business. You'll be sure that the candidate you hire was the best in 
market, rather than "someone we found on LinkedIn who looked OK".
_
3
CANDIDATE ATTRACTION
If you approach a candidate directly, they'll have the conversation on 
the basis that they'll only be looking at one role at one company. If a 
search firm approaches them, it can be a more interesting proposition; 
the search firm can sell your business from an unbiased point of view 
as well as giving the candidate a full overview of the suitability of the 
role in comparison to other open roles.
2
BRING IN AN 
EXECUTIVE 
SEARCH 
FIRM TO 
HELP YOU 
FIND GAME 
CHANGING 
CANDIDATES
WE'VE WORKED WITH SOME WORLD-CLASS 
EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRMS AND KNOW THAT 
FINDING THE RIGHT ONE WILL NOT ONLY TAKE 
THE PAIN OUT OF THE SEARCH PROCESS, BUT 
WILL GIVE YOU A NEW OUTLOOK ON THE 
CALIBRE OF CANDIDATES THAT ARE IN-MARKET
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THE 
SEARCH 
PERSPECTIVE
Andrew is the Managing Director of True Search for their International business, 
outside of the US. 
Having worked with clients from early stage to pre-IPO appointments, his knowledge 
with private companies of what it takes to hire a Game Changer is detailed and nuanced. 
His 15 years of search experience have given him not only a clear idea of what Game 
Changers should bring to the table but, more so, an understanding of what it takes for 
Founders to get the most out of the search process, resulting in a hire than can truly meet 
the growth expectations set by the business at hand.
Interview with Andrew Banks
Managing Director, True Search
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GAME CHANGERS ALWAYS DELIVER
They have a responsibility to the Board, to the internal stakeholders, 
to their direct reports and to their investors, and the common theme 
amongst Game Changing people is that their ability to deliver is second 
to none. 
If you think about the behaviour of Founders as being akin to the 
leader of a family unit, or the leader of a tribe, they need support and 
reliability. Game Changers can reinforce this and, in doing so, reinforce 
the confidence of the founder.
...BUT THERE CAN BE INITIAL DIFFICULTIES
On the negative side, Founders often experience concerns with 
making their first very senior, CXO hire: 'How will I handle this 
person?', 'Can I manage someone of that gravitas?' 
To the founder, it can feel like they're going to pay for a resource 
that they aren't yet ready for. CXO hires come with a cost that is usually 
significant to the early stage business, so Founders want to optimise 
that investment which can be tricky when work flows are uncertain 
and when they feel that they don't have enough functional expertise to 
get the most out of the new hire. 
They may have a vision for where they want to go, but it's difficult 
to know what to expect with a new hire, what is realistic to achieve 
and within what period, without having that functional background 
themselves.
ALIGNING CONTEXTS IS ESSENTIAL TO AVOID FRICTION
Before you make a decision on a Game Changing hire, you need 
to be clear on where your business is in the growth cycle. If you meet 
an impressive candidate with years of experience at a corporate, their 
skills won't necessarily align with an early stage, high growth business, 
no matter how talented they are at running global teams or solving 
complex, high value problems. 
You have to be clear about aligning contexts - if someone is a 'big 
budget' person, don't put them in a startup, and vice versa. People 
who're in the '$0-10m ARR' category are as impressive - if not more so - 
than people who've come from a big name corporate, but in a different 
way. Try to avoid vanity hires - people who've got impressive brand 
names on their CV, but who don't necessarily have the skill sets & 
attributes for getting from $0 to $10m.
HIRING A GAME CHANGER IS A COMPLEX BUSINESS 
DECISION THAT SHOULD BE QUANTIFIABLE AND 
MEASURABLE
There's a school of thought around hiring that it's an art rather 
than a science, and that it should be led by a gut feeling rather than data.
We advise strongly against this because it leaves a lot to chance; 
hiring a Game Changer inevitably means deploying a large amount of 
cash so it should be viewed as an ROI decision in the same way that 
tech, marketing or product decisions are.
With Founders who haven't made significant CXO hires in the 
past, we try to work through the outcomes with them before we do 
anything else. We'll quantify the opportunity cost of not hiring a Game 
Changer and look at the necessity and urgency of making a CXO hire 
before we go any further in the search process.
SIMILAR 
PRINCIPLES APPLY WHEN ASSESSING 
CANDIDATES. IT SHOULD BE EVIDENCE BASED, RATHER 
THAN BASED SOLELY IN CONVERSATION
Ideally the interview process will include the task of getting them 
to solve a problem within their functional expertise that you can't 
solve. You shouldn't expect a final outcome from this exercise, but 
understanding how the candidate thinks and approaches problems and 
data sets, and how they interact with you and the team is vital to the 
hiring decision; Founders need to know if the candidate can meet their 
expectations on how to approach problems before they go any further 
in the hiring process. Stakeholder confidence will increase with more 
validation.
You also need to assess the quantifiable track record of the 
candidates - have they been through the same phase or transformation 
that your business is going through, what's the evidence that they 
actively contributed to a successful outcome, and how does that 
translate to the specifics of your company? This requires not only 
getting clear about the metrics of their past performance, but also 
getting clear about the metrics of your future performance and the 
roadblocks that you'll need to overcome.
You really have to look at candidates and think 'is this the person 
who'll take us from $10-20m, or wherever your business is currently 
at. Then you need to look for evidence that they've done this, and 
understand the context of how it translates to your immediate 
requirements. And then test it.
Does the candidate have a logical career story? It doesn't have to be 
perfect - pretty much everyone at CXO level has made a few missteps 
along the way - but it needs to be coherent and, ultimately, show a clear 
path to where you need them to be to execute on the job at hand. 
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CONTRIBUTIONS THAT SEARCH 
FIRMS CAN MAKE TO THE PROCESS OF HIRING A GAME 
CHANGER? 
1. Defining the sequence of success for your business and turning it 
into a compelling story to attract top talent
2. Creating a consistent measurement framework for assessing 
candidates and aligning stakeholders
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3. Providing a collaborative tool to integrate the whole process & 
make it transparent. Product teams use Atlassian, Marketers use 
Mixpanel, and we use Thrive TRM. We're not running global 
search processes with a pen and paper - it's a product-based 
approach. 
4. Having a truly global network of experts and relationships so that 
geography is not a barrier to success. 
ON A PERSONAL NOTE, FROM ANDREW 
I've been working in executive search for almost 15 years, and have 
been fortunate to work with some exceptional people in strategically 
challenging situations. For me, there are three that stand out as being 
not only interesting to work on, but a real pleasure to get to know the 
people involved and see a tangible outcome that wouldn't have been 
possible without the addition of a Game Changer. 
THE FIRST WAS THE CTO OF BETFAIR, TONY MCALISTER
We'd been appointed by David Yu, the CEO at the time, who had 
a very clear understanding of the business and where he wanted it 
to go. He was looking for people who'd worked in exceptionally high 
volume environments because of the nature of the betting industry, 
and who could transition Betfair.
I spent some time with him at Betfair to understand the nuances 
of the requirement, as well as the culture, and it started to become 
apparent that not only did they need someone who had a brilliant 
technical mind, but also that they needed someone who could structure 
the organisation for high growth and, ultimately an IPO. 
We found Tony McAlister, who'd been CIO at Vodafone Live, the 
first mobile internet portal launched in the 3G revolution. He was a US 
national who'd previously worked with ecommerce pioneer Buy.com. 
He had the balance of deep technical understanding, as well as a clear 
view of the importance of great management and team mobilisation. 
He gave David the headspace to stop thinking about technical 
issues, and started shifting the dial on the mobile aspects of the 
business, ultimately launching the mobile platform so successfully that 
it accounted for 35% of total bets taken, within 3 months of launching. 
One board member remarked that the impact of the mobile  product 
had added several hundred million pounds to the valuation at the IPO.
THE SECOND WAS THE CPO OF PREZI, JIM BANISTER
The brief from the CEO, Peter, was exceptionally culture-led. 
Peter had a clear vision of wanting to help people tell their story in 
a more compelling way; for him it's a personal mission as well as a 
commercial one.  
Being based in Budapest, and requiring the candidate to be 100% 
aligned with the mission as well as having the technical skill set to fulfil 
the deliverables was never going to be easy. So we started by asking 
the question 'who uses Prezi more than anyone else?'... Who are the 
types of people that love the product and what it stands for? After 
a bit of searching through the user base we found Jim who, at the 
time, had created more Prezi presentations in business than any other 
end consumer. He'd also been one of the Founders of Warner Brothers 
online and was transitioning the loyalty products for Tesco. He also 
had a background in product gamification which was a critical issue 
for users adopting Prezi. 
We approached Jim about the Prezi role and he couldn't believe it. 
He thought we were joking. For him, it was the dream role - working 
on a product that he was a prolific user of, with an altruistic mission 
and a commercial backbone. Overall it was exceptionally successful, 
both for Jim personally and for Prezi. 
LASTLY GM, EMEA OF DATABRICKS
This was a business that was booming in North America with 
a new proposition from an established group of Founders. They had 
no employees in the EMEA region then, but had business emerging 
through inbound demand. The aim wasn't to start small, the aim was 
to make an impact from day one in the region. At the time we did the 
hire, Databricks was somewhat unknown particularly in Europe and 
there was a lot of noise around the business but no real results.
Most companies fail in their first attempt at expanding into 
Europe, but for Databricks this was not an option - they needed a 
Game Changer with a proven track record.
We hired Dave Wyatt who had done the same thing for 
Mulesoft from an early stage, where he had grown into being the 
Head of EMEA.  Dave was already in a good position so helping him 
understand that this was a great opportunity was key. His impact has 
been transformative to Databricks Europe; they have significantly 
expanded and gained revenue in the region way ahead of expectations.
We've thought about every aspect of hiring CXOs, obsessively, 
and we really want to help Founders through the search process 
because it's really hard. We take the view that if something is hard 
then you have to do it properly. 
ANDREW'S FOUR COMMON DIFFICULTIES WHEN HIRING 
A GAME CHANGER
1. Accepting that you can't do everything 
More often than not, Founders will have pushed through the 
seed stages of their businesses by being exceptional generalists 
supported by specialists in tech, product and marketing amongst other 
functional specialities.  
There will always be a pivotal point in a rapidly growing business 
when - in the interest of scalability and high growth - the founder 
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can't have a strong view on every topic and be involved in every task. 
This can get in the way of hiring a Game Changer; the incoming CXO 
will inevitably take a significant proportion of the leadership remit, 
which requires the founder to let go of at least some of their day-to-day 
involvement in the business. 
It's a tricky process to let go and it largely involves building trust 
with people who're already in the business, and really focussing on 
delegating to get a feel for what it's like to not do everything. 
Ultimately, though, picking a candidate to be the first highly 
influential, Game Changing hire is the litmus test. Meeting an 
outstanding candidate with exceptional knowledge will - more often 
than not - give the founder the reassurance that they need to not only 
accept that they can't do everything but also that they really would 
rather not do everything because they know the Game Changer will do 
a better job given their functional expertise. 
2. Sharing the vision
To be a successful founder, you have to start out with a very clear 
vision and be able to tweak and amend that vision as the business 
develops and the sector environment changes. It's virtually impossible 
to be a successful founder without a comprehensive and progressive 
vision.
When it comes to sharing that vision, however, it can be tricky 
for the founder to articulate how they see the business in the present 
and in the future, from the perspective of the journey to date. The 
vision is usually multifaceted, sector specific, and shared amongst all 
stakeholders, so it's a complicated thing to deliver to outsiders. 
Without being able to articulate the vision, however, the founder 
can't create the narrative required to attract the right talent at a senior 
level, and retain talent at all levels, so it's critical to get it right. 
Founders should try to use their Board members as much as 
possible for this, and it's also where a great search firm will step in to 
help. The external viewpoint without the day-to-day detail can be vital 
to help the founder articulate the journey that they want to go on with 
a Game Changer on board, and it can also help to craft a narrative and 
frame it in a compelling manner to potential candidates.
3. Understanding the specifics of the role
Knowing exactly what you need the Game Changer to do - and 
being able to make the requirement quantifiable - is a critical aspect 
of hiring a CXO. Yet around 60% of Founders really struggle to do 
this. They'll try to delay writing the job description or will struggle to 
write down the exact tasks or responsibilities that they'd like the Game 
Changer to take on. 
It's entirely understandable that articulating the requirements 
of the role is a difficult task. Ultimately, the reason that you want to 
bring in an expert at a very senior level is because you don't have the 
functional knowledge it requires to really pin down the exact strategy 
and associated tasks that need to be executed, and the priority in which 
they should be tackled.
But it's an essential part of the hiring process. You - as the founder 
- need to be able to articulate the job description so that the team is 
aligned and so that you can benchmark each candidate, otherwise you 
run the very costly risk of bringing in someone who doesn't share your 
expectation of the role. When it comes to the job description, getting it 
down in whatever format is progress.
It's incredible how many Founders I have heard say 'I don't know 
what to write in the job description' and then gone on to explain, 
conversationally, in detail the exact requirements of the role. To 
get around this, try saying the requirements outloud, into the voice 
recorder on your phone.
4. Assessing candidates without consistency 
Founders need to be as clear as possible on how to assess people or 
compare candidates. You have to build a measurement framework - it 
doesn't need to be a complicated methodology, but it does need to:
 
-
Put down all of the qualities and experiences required of the 
candidate
 
-
Be in alignment in advance with all of the stakeholders, including 
the Board members
 
- Have a quantifiable outcome and scoring mechanism
IF YOU DON'T HAVE A WAY OF MEASURING CANDIDATES, 
YOU CAN'T GET TO A CONCLUSIVE ANSWER WHEN IT 
COMES TO PICKING THE MOST SUITABLE PERSON FOR THE 
JOB; BY IMPLEMENTING AN ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK 
YOU'RE ABLE TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS AND AVOID 
SUBJECTIVE PERSPECTIVES. 
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THIS IS A GUIDE RATHER THAN A 
COMPREHENSIVE SET OF INSTRUCTIONS; 
THERE ARE A NUMBER OF WAYS TO INTERVIEW 
CANDIDATES BUT THIS GUIDE IS A WAY OF 
APPROACHING IT THAT WE'VE SEEN WORK 
VERY WELL IN COVERING THE MAJORITY 
OF STEPS REQUIRED FOR YOU TO COME 
TO A DECISION ABOUT HIRING A C-LEVEL 
CANDIDATE.
INTERVIEW 
GUIDELINES 
FOR GAME 
CHANGERS
Maddy Cross
Head of Talent, Notion
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THERE'S A 
NUMBER OF 
WAYS TO 
INTERVIEW 
CANDIDATES
- THIS WAY 
WORKS
(1) CAN THEY DO THE JOB?   (2) WILL THEY DO THE JOB?   (3) DO 
YOU WANT THEM TO DO THE JOB?   (4) MAKING A DECISION.
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IDEALLY, YOU'LL BE ABLE TO ANSWER THE 
QUESTION "CAN THEY DO THE JOB?" BY THE END
OF THE FIRST INTERVIEW. 
It should be pretty binary as an output: either you think that they 
can do the job or you think that they cannot.
If they can, there will be varying degrees of upside depending 
on the candidate but it should be approached as a high-water mark, 
where the high-water mark is the minimum requirement of the role. 
The candidate has either hit the water mark and gone over it to some 
degree in the past, or they have not.
The extent to which they can go over the high-water mark will be 
tested later in the process so, for now, it's just a "can they/can't they" 
question.
THEORY BEHIND THIS INTERVIEW STAGE
Have they done things in the past that are very similar - or ideally 
the same - as what you'll need them to do? Are you convinced by 
the detail of their answers and their ability to address difficulties in 
achieving the required outcomes? Do they have what we call "repeat 
pedigree" of having been there, done that?
To answer these questions, go through every required deliverable 
of the role and ask them to explain when they've executed the same 
thing before.
HOW DO YOU, AS A FOUNDER, KNOW WHERE 
TO START WITH YOUR FIRST SIGNIFICANT 
GAME CHANGING HIRE?
 
START WITH LOOKING AT THE LEADERSHIP 
DEBT AND GAP, TO SEE WHERE 
THE WEAK SPOTS ARE
(1) CAN 
THEY DO 
THE JOB?
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_ 
1
SET UP 
Set up the interview, ideally with you - the 
Founder - and one or two people from your senior 
team. Make sure the same people are on the inter-
view panel for each candidate.
_ 
3
CAN THEY?
Move to the "Can they do the job?" questions
Have the job description to hand and go 
through each "Key Responsibility" one by one. Ask 
the candidate to:
 Describe a time that they have tackled 
something similar
 Describe how they would tackle the same 
thing at your company 
Score them on each answer based on:
 Their ability to describe a previous experience, 
in detail
 Relevance of the description of their past 
experience to the current requirement
 Quality of their answer to how they would 
tackle each responsibility in your business
 Acknowledgement of risks and unknowns
_ 
2
ASK 
Ask them some "standard" questions to get 
started - there's no need to score the candidate's 
answers at this point: 
 Talk us through your career to date?
 What's the been the most challenging part of 
your current role?
 Broadly speaking, what are you looking to get 
out of your next role? 
_ 
4
SCORE
Score all of the candidates and rank them 
accordingly - only take those through to the 
next round that have high enough scores you're 
comfortable with - as a suggestion - an average of 
80% as a minimum.
PRACTI-
CALITIES
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_ 
VANITY
HIRES 
Candidates who have worked for big brands or 
managed functions in businesses with revenues of 
$100m+ may be very compelling but if they have 
not done in the past what you require now, they 
have no proven track record of being able to do the 
job. Managing $100m+ is a very different skill set to 
managing $1m.
_ 
COMPREHENSIVENESS OF THE JOB
RESPONSIBILITIES 
Make sure to include everything in the "Job 
responsibilities" section of the Job Description 
that you'll need the candidate to have previous 
experience of. For example, if you need them to 
help with the next round of venture financing, 
make sure it's included as a responsibility, and if you 
need them to set up an office in San Francisco, make 
sure it's included as a responsibility.
_ 
STRETCH
HIRES 
Taking a punt on a candidate who's high 
potential and likely to be able to step up is a great 
way to build your team and also a great way to 
encourage a culture of growth mindsets, but it is not 
a winning strategy for C-Level hires.
You will be placing C-Level candidates in 
pivotal positions that can totally change the way 
your business goes - it is not the time for giving 
someone the opportunity to prove themselves 
when you have not previously worked with them; 
it is the time to hire someone who has already 
proven themselves in a C-Level position in a 
different business.
_ 
GET EXTERNAL
HELP 
You're employing a Game Changer specifically 
because they are more of an expert in a particular 
field than you are so you may struggle to gauge the 
accuracy of answers they give you.
Ask the CTO/CRO/COOs in your network to sit 
in on an interview for an hour, and then repay the 
favour in future. If you don't know anyone who can 
help, ask Notion and we'll make some introductions 
for you.
THINGS 
TO LOOK 
OUT FOR
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MOTIVATIONS FOR TAKING A NEW ROLE FALL 
INTO ONE OF THREE CATEGORIES: DIRECTION 
MISALIGNMENT, AMBITION MISALIGNMENT, ALIGNED. 
By this point you have established that they can do the job, so 
you will ideally move to the second round with each candidate to 
understand their motivations for working for you and in your business. 
THEORY BEHIND THIS INTERVIEW STAGE
 
Motivations for taking a new role fall into one of three categories: 
direction misalignment, ambition misalignment, aligned.
Direction misalignment: the candidate wants a role that will 
move in a different direction to how you want your business to 
go. For example, they may mention that they want to build product 
functionality that does not align with your roadmap, or they may 
indicate taking the business into a new territory that would not work 
for your expansion plans.
Ambition misalignment: the candidate has a misaligned level of 
expectation of where they see their career going versus the requirement 
of the role. For example, they want to run a business when you have 
no intention of stepping aside or they do not want any decision-making 
power but you need them to be your Second In Command.
Aligned: the candidate has motivations that, on the whole, are 
aligned with the level of seniority and the functional direction that the 
role offers.
NATURALLY, YOU WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT 
CANDIDATES ARE AS CLOSE TO THE 'ALIGNED' 
CATEGORY AS POSSIBLE.
(2) WILL 
THEY DO 
THE JOB?
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Your product roadmap, 
sales pipeline and plans for 
international expansion 
are inline with those of the 
candidate
_ 
Suggested questions to test for motivation, along 
with an indication of their alignment and some 
broad information on what answers to look for.
WHY ARE YOU LOOKING TO LEAVE YOUR CURRENT ROLE?
Direction
& Ambition
Direction
& Ambition
Direction 
Opportunities for challenge and/
or learning have been exhausted 
in current role
Reference to the company 
going in a direction that aligns 
with the candidate's personal 
motivation
The size of business is no longer 
a fit i.e. post IPO or raise
The size of your business aligns 
with the candidate expectations
ANSWERS TO LOOK FOR
ALIGNMENT WITH 
YOUR ORGANISATION
Challenges and learning 
opportunities exist that follow 
on from the candidate's 
experience
PRACTI-
CALITIES
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WHAT IS IT ABOUT OUR COMPANY THAT YOU'RE 
INTERESTED IN?
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE SECTOR THAT WE'RE IN THAT 
INTERESTS YOU?
Direction 
& Ambition
Direction
Direction 
Specific challenges that your 
company is facing
An understanding of challenges 
in the sector
Specific product or market 
features that are unique to your 
business
Accurate knowledge and 
realistic expectation of the 
challenges you're facing
Accurate knowledge and 
realistic expectation of the 
challenges you're facing
A reasonable knowledge of the 
expected product roadmap and 
market opportunity
Direction
Reference to opportunities in 
the sector
A reasonable knowledge of the 
expected product roadmap and 
market opportunity
Ambition
Reference to aspirations around 
promotion and size of remit
Can your organisation 
accommodate these aspirations?
Direction
Product, geographic or other 
strategic aspirations
Can your organisation 
accommodate these aspirations?
WHAT DEMOTIVATES YOU AT WORK?
WHAT OTHER JOB OPTIONS ARE THERE ON THE TABLE FOR 
YOU, AND WHY MIGHT YOU CONSIDER THOSE OPTIONS IN 
FAVOUR OF US?
Direction 
& Ambition
Direction
& Ambition
Mention of money, status, 
challenges, management, 
success
If they are looking for other 
roles, do they align with the 
opportunity in your business in 
terms of:
 
 Company size?
 Functional experience?
 Sector?
 
If there are significant 
differences, question the 
motivation for them
Are your incentives and 
expected outcomes such that 
demotivation will be avoided?
Can the role that you're offering 
match or exceed the other 
options on the table?
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO ACHIEVE WITH YOUR 
NEXT ROLE?
ANSWERS TO LOOK FOR
ANSWERS TO LOOK FOR
ALIGNMENT WITH 
YOUR ORGANISATION
ALIGNMENT WITH 
YOUR ORGANISATION
AS WITH THE PREVIOUS STAGE, SCORE ALL OF THE 
CANDIDATES AND RANK THEM ACCORDINGLY. ONLY 
TAKE THOSE THROUGH THAT HAVE HIGH ENOUGH 
SCORES YOU'RE COMFORTABLE WITH  AS BEFORE, 
WE SUGGEST AN AVERAGE OF 80% AS A MINIMUM.
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_ 
MONEY AS A MOTIVATOR 
There's a misconception that citing money as a motivating factor is 
a negative trait in candidates, but this isn't necessarily the case and can 
be positive in some contexts. For example, if the candidate is clear about 
money as a motivator in the long-term via equity rather than cash and 
they give solid reasoning around the levels of commitment it will take 
to achieve a pay-out, it could be viewed as positive. Money is always a 
motivator to some degree, otherwise we'd likely all be working in the 
charity sector; sussing out whether it's for immediate personal gain 
versus long-term contribution to company value is what you need to 
distinguish.
_ 
GIVE THE CANDIDATES THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE 
THEMSELVES OUT OF THE EQUATION 
There is no C-Level role in SaaS that is easy. There will be many 
unknowns and uncertainties, there'll be a lot of changing direction and 
challenges. Be brutally honest about the struggles within your business 
during the interview process and let candidates opt out if it's not right 
for them.
THINGS 
TO LOOK 
OUT FOR
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START WITH LOOKING AT THE LEADERSHIP DEBT 
AND GAP, TO SEE WHERE THE WEAK SPOTS ARE
This should be the last stage in the interview process and should be 
largely subjective and answer the question "Can I see myself sitting on 
a beach in 20 years with this person, and laughing about the mistakes 
we made when we first started working together?"
THEORY BEHIND THIS INTERVIEW STAGE
This interview stage needs to be last because if it's done first there's 
a risk that you'll "like" a candidate, which will influence your judgment 
on their skills and motivation tests; you might be more forgiving of a 
candidate who gives a poor answer to a skills question if you like them.
The first part of this stage is to understand whether the candidate's 
values align with yours. It requires you to be brutally honest with 
yourself about what's important to you in your business, and it requires 
you to question the candidate thoroughly until everyone interviewing 
them is in agreement about where the candidate's values lie in relation 
to yours.
This stage also includes an element of skills-testing but is done in 
conjunction with whether or not you can fully utilise the candidate's 
skills; it assesses whether or not you work well together. 
This is the white-boarding exercise in which you will tackle a real-
world problem that is currently facing your business. It also comes back 
to the "high-water mark" element of the skills test; the "do we want 
them to do the job?" stage will test how far above the high-water mark 
the candidate is in terms of the skills required to do the job.
"CAN I SEE MYSELF SITTING ON 
A BEACH IN 20 YEARS WITH THIS 
PERSON, AND LAUGHING ABOUT THE 
MISTAKES WE MADE WHEN WE FIRST 
STARTED WORKING TOGETHER?" 
(3) DO YOU 
WANT 
THEM TO 
DO THE 
JOB?
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_ 
WHAT ARE YOUR 
VALUES? 
If you don't have a set of values then you'll 
need to sit down with your co-Founders and write 
them down before you start this part of the inter-
view process.
They don't need to be a fully refined set of 
values that's shared with the wider company at this 
point, but among the senior team you need to be 
aligned on what's important to you so that you can 
score candidates against how well their values align 
with yours.
_ 
ASK THE CANDIDATE WHAT THEIR 
VALUES ARE
Assessing the candidate's values is very much 
open to interpretation; there are a large number 
of values that can be perceived as being aligned 
but not exactly the same - for example, honesty 
and integrity. You'll need to gauge the candidate's 
answers as you go, and look out for any red flags - 
for example, you have a value of "honesty" and the 
candidates cites "doing whatever is required to win 
a deal".
 
Address each of your values, one at a time, and 
ask the candidate to:
1. Describe their own interpretation of the value
2. Recount a time when they behaved in line with 
the value
3. Give an overview of why the value may 
interfere with general business objectives
 
Score the candidate's answers based on 
alignment with how you perceive the values and 
associated behaviours.
_ 
WORKING TOGETHER 
 
To fully understand how each candidate operates, you'll need to 
run a white board session with them. To do this: 
 What is the most pressing issue affecting the business at present 
within the function for which you are hiring the C-Level 
candidate?
 Gather data sources related to this issue
 
Block out two or three hours for you and your senior team to 
have a whiteboard session to tackle the issue, with the candidate 
leading the session.
 During the session make notes on the following topics and score 
the candidates based on their:
 - Understanding of the scale of the problem 
 - Assessment of the levers available to solve the problem
 -
Chemistry with the team - this is a hard one to score but, in 
brief, do you enjoy working with this person and is the session 
productive?
 - Ability to add a perspective or knowledge that you do not 
already have on the team
 -
Ease with which they approach finding a solution
 -
Connection between strategy and execution
(i.e. it's not useful if they have great ideas but no indication of 
how to implement them)
PRACTI-
CALITIES
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CONSISTENCY ACROSS THE EXISTING TEAM
If, at the end of the Culture and Values interview, you have 
radically different scores for the candidate on each value then you've 
likely come unstuck in one of two ways:
_ 
1
You aren't aligned on what your values mean. To resolve this, 
independently write a definition of each value and then compare notes.
_
2
You didn't question the candidate thoroughly enough; ask them 
to come back and re-do the interview on the basis that you'd like more 
information.
THINGS 
TO LOOK 
OUT FOR
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(4)MAKING 
A 
DECISION
DISCUSS THE RANKING TO MAKE SURE -  AMONG 
YOUR SENIOR TEAM - THAT YOU ARE ALL ALIGNED 
At the end of the interviews and whiteboarding session, you'll 
need to make a decision on who to offer the job to.
THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO DO THIS
_ 
1
Sum up the total scores and rank the candidates, and then discuss 
the ranking to make sure -  among your senior team - that you are all 
aligned that the candidate with the highest score is the one you want 
to offer the role to.
_
2
Weighted average: decide on which aspect of the hiring process 
was most valuable and give the scores from that aspect a great 
weighting than others. For example:
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SCORING
Round 1
ScoreWeightingTotalRound 2
Round 3
Candidate 1
Candidate 2
Candidate 3
Candidate 1
Candidate 2
Candidate 3
Candidate 1
Candidate 2
Candidate 3
= 16 
= 18
= 20
x2 
x2
x2
8/10 
9/10 
10/10
= 10 
= 10 
= 10
x1 
x1
x1
10/10 
10/10
10/10
= 30 
= 24 
= 24
x3 
x3 
x3
10/10 
8/10
8/10
28/30
 
27/30
 
28/30
Candidate 1
Candidate 2
Candidate 3
Final
= 56 (Total weighted score) 
= 52 (Total weighted score)
= 54 (Total weighted score) 
Total ScoreTotal Weighted ScoreCandidate 1 is the highest performing of all candidates. 
BEFORE YOU MAKE THE OFFER DO SOME SOFT 
REFERENCING
Who's in your network that knows the candidate well and has 
worked with them before? Ask them for an NPS style review - very 
quick, very simple and will give you an indication of whether it's a 
green light or if you need to do more digging.
Ask your mutual connection to give the candidate a score from 
1-10, off the top of their head, based on overall performance. If it's a 
9 or a 10, consider that good enough. Query a 7 or an 8, and consider 
pulling the plug on a 6 or below.
Your investors can - and should - play a big part in this soft 
referencing.
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BEFORE YOU START, YOU'LL NEED:
 The Job Description, including "Key Responsibilities" that outline 
the expected deliverables for the role
 A consensus on who will be interviewing
Coordinated diaries for everyone who will be interviewing to ensure 
that all candidates meet the same people from your team for the same 
duration
_ 
INTERVIEW 1
CAN THEY DO THE JOB?
What are the actual things that you want them to deliver according 
to the "Key Responsibilities" in the job description and can the candidate 
explain in detail that they have done them before and suggest how they 
would do them in your company?
_ 
INTERVIEW 2
WILL THEY DO THE JOB? 
What's driving them to want to take on a new challenge and does 
it align with the challenges that you can offer?
_ 
INTERVIEW 3
(AND WHITE BOARD SESSION) DO WE 
WANT THEM TO DO THE JOB? 
When loads of things have gone wrong and we've all been working 
for 18 hours, can we imagine that we'll still be happy to be in a room 
with them?
_
PART 4
MAKING A DECISION 
What are the scores for the candidates that completed Interview 3 
and the white board session? Were some rounds more important to you 
than others, and if so, weight them accordingly.
 
MAKE SURE YOU REFERENCE THE CANDIDATES BEFORE 
MAKING AN OFFER.
SUMMARY 
OF THE 
INTERVIEW 
GUIDELINES
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Chris Tottman
Partner, Notion
INDUSTRY 
VIEWPOINT
THE THEATRE 
OF HIRING
Chris Tottman is a General Partner at Notion, having co-founded MessageLabs, 
which was sold to Symantec in 2008 for $700m. 
As an investor, Chris focusses on market need as a start point: "I am attracted to 
painful market problems and counter intuitive solutions and with this approach we find 
extremely rare Founders dedicated to solving some of the greatest challenges this and 
the next generation of businesses face".
With this approach to investing Chris also puts an emphasis on creating the 
conditions for success via the formulation of the leadership team of each of the businesses 
he invests in. 
He's one of the trailblazers of supporting venture backed businesses with 
introductions to Game Changing people.
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...everyone who's worked with me knows I struggle to use them as 
a standalone guide for the hiring process. I find the Game Changing hire 
is particularly nuanced - in comparison to a mid or junior level early 
stage hire - because the founder is trying to get the candidate to make 
a big bet on their career, with high risk decisions. Neither party will be 
entirely comfortable in the process, and rightly so! 
Frameworks for hiring - like the Guide for Interviewing Game 
Changers - are useful, but there are other elements to the process that 
must be considered.
WHEN IT 
COMES TO 
'FRAME 
WORKS' 
FOR 
HIRING...
 
Chemistry - as a founder you need to ask yourself 'Can I see 
myself sitting on a beach with this person in 20 years, laughing at the 
mistakes we made, the battle scars we share and the successes we had 
in the early days of the business?'
 
Repeat Pedigree- you want someone on the team who's done the 
journey from startup to exit before; someone who isn't phased by 
bumps in the road which will inevitably crop up. They still have 
the hunger and can look their partner in the eye and say "I've got 
this" even though joining your startup is fundamentally illogical.
 VC Raising & Clock Speed - if you don't have anyone on the team 
who has this experience, then you're out there raising on your 
own, naked. Utterly alone. It's not impossible, but it gets harder 
and harder to raise bigger rounds, with different expectations 
at each stage whilst managing a bigger business with increased 
complexity.
The Pyramid isn't a fixed measure: it'll need to move as the 
business moves. You'll need to assess each Game Changer's fit with 
the Pyramid, depending on: 
 
The revenue stage you're at. Do you need this person to take you 
from $0 to $10m, or $50m to $100m? Have they taken previous 
businesses on the same ARR journey?
 
The globalisation strategy you have. Are you going into the US, 
or is your present focus on your domestic market? What's the 
THE OTHER ELEMENTS FOR HIRING A GAME 
CHANGER FORM A PYRAMID:
Repeat Pedigree
Chemistry
VC 
raises
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Game Changer's background, have they focussed on geographies 
that you'll need them to focus on?
 How much money they have raised. If you need them to help you 
raise $20m, have they done this much before? How involved were 
they in the process the last time that they did it? 
 Who the target customer is. Is your business moving up into 
Enterprise deals or down into SME, and has the Game Changer 
made that shift in the past? 
Put simply there are normally 2 or 3 highly critical points 
of execution that need to go well for the business in the life of the 
current capital & it all rests on the Founders shoulders. The people you 
hire will be the shoulders you ride on. No pedigree, no shoulders. 
The last part of the Game Changer hiring process is one that often 
gets fumbled by Founders and is - in my opinion - essential to get right. 
IT IS THE THEATRE OF THE HIRING PROCESS
Alongside raising money and selling the company, persuading a 
Game Changing hire to join your business is the single biggest sales job 
you'll ever have to do as Founders. This is not to say that you need to 
cover up the negative aspects of what's going on in your company - far 
from it - it's to say that there's a lot of non-business process, EQ and 
cultural step change to consider. 
You have to think about all aspects of it to really give the 
candidates a feel for what they're getting involved with; you have 
to think about what to tease them with and how to give an honest 
reflection of what you're about, both as a person and as a business 
leader. As a visionary and as someone who will be demanding (this 
is the VC backed startup landscape after all!), it's the game of the top 
1% of companies for  the top 5% of people. It's neither a normal nor 
rational place to work. 
You have to put on a show, and the show has to portray the day 
to day life of the business. If the chemistry is right and the theatre is 
right then maybe on their way home, as the dust of the day settles, 
they'll quite comfortably conclude that they never want to go to work 
in a corporate again or that tomorrow feels like a commute to prison.
It's about being truly authentic as a founder and as a culture 
without a 'business' or 'corporate' veneer.
Put simply the objective of the Founders and anyone involved 
in the hiring process is to be highly distinct and deliberate about the 
mission, the people and the buzz of expectations. 
Do this well and you will have many Game Changers to choose 
from; do it wrong and you'll fumble incredible candidates until you 
start getting it right. 
CHRIS'S CHECKLIST FOR THE INTERVIEW PROCESS
Things to consider when interviewing Game Changing 
candidates:
 What you wear 
 Where & how you meet initially - Everyone I hired at 
MessageLabs came to the kitchen with me and I made them a 
cup of tea or coffee. 
 Who else they meet? 
 
The role of each person in the interview process?
 Dinner or no dinner?
 Do you communicate via Text, Whatsapp, Email or Slack?
 What's the biggest challenge to tease them with? Situational stuff 
is critical with Game Changers  they love puzzles because of the 
contextual richness
 How much selling and how much interviewing? Too many people 
interview too much too early. Would you interview a date with 
deep level questions on the first date? I don't think so  that's the 
job of the headhunter. 
 How formal and how informal (I'm always informal as everywhere 
else is formal) 
Here's a trick to make this easy: If you had to fly them to your city 
(that you love) HQ to understand the business and be interviewed, on 
the understanding that they would be expected to relocate their family 
if they got the job -  how would you plan and execute the day, the night 
and the morning of their visit before they flew out again?
And if they live down the road, how do you make the experience 
memorable enough that their visit to your office feel like they were 
'flown out', despite it only being a 5 minute drive away?
That's how I advise people plan and execute the hiring Game 
Changers.
THE TOP MISTAKES WHEN HIRING A GAME CHANGER
 
Selecting the wrong vs the right search firm - doomed to failure 
from the get go, if you get the wrong one
 
Negotiations and compensation - when the big picture become 
a small picture - 50k extra is nothing if the Game Changer 
increases your ARR bookings by 10x in the first year on the job
 
Poor management of internal stakeholders - who's leading the 
sellers and the decision making support
 
Declaring too early - the premature articulation - take time to 
make the right decision, but not too much time (or the candidate 
will go elsewhere)
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Jonno Southam
Senior Business Development
Venture Capital at Amazon Web Services
INDUSTRY 
VIEWPOINT
HIRING AND 
DEVELOPING 
THE BEST
Jonno Southam leads Venture Capital (VC) business development for Amazon Web 
Services (AWS) in Europe and is part of a global startup team, focused on helping VC backed 
customers achieve their long-term growth plans. Jonno is also an Amazon 'Bar Raiser', a role 
dedicated to maintaining the high hiring bar, and which supports the Amazon leadership 
principle of 'hire and develop the best.'
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WHAT IS A 'BAR RAISER?'
Bar Raisers are dedicated Amazonian's who receive extra training 
in the interviewing process to facilitate debriefs and determine if the 
candidate would raise the bar in terms of talent at Amazon. They 
are part of the hiring process for a candidate's interview 'loop' but 
are not the hiring manager and are not on the hiring team. They are 
motivated to hire well rather than hire fast and facilitate the decision-
making process to ensure only candidates passing an interview loop 
demonstrate that their past achievements will build upon the quality 
of the existing team and have a long-term impact at AWS.  Bar Raisers 
ensure the process of hiring remains at an exceptional standard both 
for AWS and for candidates. 
BECOMING A BAR RAISER REQUIRES DEDICATION?
Dedication to the bar raiser program is critical as it involves 
a rigorous selection process and can take up to a year of training to 
qualify. You have to be driven and have a fundamental understanding 
of Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles, which our entire hiring process is 
based upon. When I applied for the Bar Raiser program, I'd been at AWS 
for two years and had completed hundreds of candidate interviews. I 
am particularly passionate about getting bar raising people into the 
business, but equally, I believe in ensuring the right outcome for the 
candidate. This Bar Raiser program is a mechanism within AWS to 
ensure this.
BUT IT'S BEEN ENTIRELY WORTH THE COMMITMENT?
Absolutely. Learning to become a Bar Raiser allows those involved 
to develop a broad range of hiring skills, such as competency-based 
interviewing, teaching others to interview better with the goal of 
getting the right hire each time.
AMAZON IS KNOWN AS CUSTOMER 
OBSESSED, SO IS THIS HOW YOU APPROACH 
THE HIRING PROCESS AS WELL?
 
The key component of our hiring process is Amazon's 14 Leadership 
Principles.  They are at the core of our culture, and we use them for 
hiring, employee development programs and to help us maintain a 
shared vocabulary so that we stay focused on what it means to be an 
Amazonian. All 14 Leadership Principles are all equally important, and 
candidates are first introduced to them during the interview process. 
Customer obsession is one of the Amazon leadership principles, and 
since we view all candidates as customers, the candidate experience is 
of utmost importance to us, and we're laser-focused on ensuring that 
their experience is a positive one, even if the candidate does not get 
the job.
WHAT IMPORTANT LESSONS HAVE YOU LEARNED 
ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH STARTUPS 
FROM YOUR 6-YEAR TENURE AT AMAZON?
Firstly, a lot of startups I work with face hiring challenges in 
that they often struggle to get the skill set and right cultural fit for 
their business.  This is a challenge for organizations of all sizes, but 
for startups, it is fundamental that their first employees are Game 
Changers because they set a high bar for hiring and developing the 
best people for all future hires.
Second, we see a real opportunity for startups to use cloud-
native applications to scale their businesses globally as Fanduel and 
Deliveroo have done.  Using cloud-native applications such as Amazon 
DynamoDB for non- relational database workloads or Amazon 
Kinesis for processing big data in real time, startups can focus on 
building scalable, secure and cost-effective infrastructure from the 
start, enabling them to focus on what matters most to their business, 
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rather than on unseen infrastructure legwork that has historically 
been a barrier to growth.  Startups are then able to focus on building 
innovative products and services that deliver value to their customers 
but can also double down on hiring great people.  
HOW DOES AWS HELP BUILD BETTER PRODUCTS 
THAT WILL HELP CUSTOMERS SCALE?
At Amazon, we use a process called 'Working Backwards' where 
you start with a customer problem and work back to get a minimum set 
of requirements that make it very simple for customers to understand 
and eventually adopt.  We start by writing a press release, and an FAQ 
document that combined provides both a simple way to describe what 
the product does and the specific detail of the questions customers 
would generally ask. We also define the customer experience by 
telling a story of how the product will solve their problem and lastly, 
write a user manual to define how customers will use it.  Having 
these documents to present to trusted customers and other internal 
stakeholders help us clearly communicate what we are trying to build. 
A good example of two services that we've launched as a direct result 
of many customers' requests is Amazon Redshift and Amazon Aurora, 
database solutions that make it simple and cost-effective to store and 
then analyse data. 
HOW CAN STARTUPS DEVELOP A STRATEGY THAT 
ENABLES A 'GAME CHANGERS' HIRING PROCESS?
By moving to the cloud, you can refocus your capital on hiring 
great people that really help differentiate your product and business. 
At AWS, we are passionate about educating early-stage startups to 
build secure, scalable and agile cost-efficient infrastructure from the 
very beginning.  We encourage all startup customers of all sizes to 
engage with us to request an architecture review and consider adopting 
the AWS Well Architected Framework which provides a consistent 
approach for startups to evaluate architectures and provides guidance 
to help implement designs that will scale with your application needs 
over time.
FINALLY, WHAT ARE YOUR TIPS FOR GETTING 
BAR RAISING 'GAME CHANGERS' ON BOARD?
Firstly, the interview process should be structured, measurable 
and data-driven but also well understood by the hiring team. You 
need to be able to benchmark candidates against current employees 
in similar roles, not other candidates, to measure the hiring bar of the 
candidate. 
Second, understand your culture and values before you start 
making great hires.  This requires that Founders take the time to define 
and clearly articulate their culture.  The backbone of the hiring process 
at Amazon is our 14 Leadership Principles. We interview candidates 
by asking for examples that demonstrate impact in the context of these 
principles. 
Third, every candidate is a potential customer or future employee, 
so you want them to be a great advocate for your business whether 
they get the job, or not. If they don't get the job, you want them to be 
clear on the reasons why so that they'll come back to you in the future 
as a candidate for an alternative role or as a customer.
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Chief Financial 
Officer
Salary
Bonus
Equity - Fully diluted 
Source: VCECS Survey and Notion proprietary data 
Chief Revenue 
Officer
Chief Technical 
Officer
Chief Marketing 
Officer
Chief Operations 
Officer
THERE ARE THREE KEY ELEMENTS OF THE CANDIDATE'S 
COMPENSATION PACKAGE TO CONSIDER:
The amount of each element should be a reflection of three things:
 
- What the candidate's current total package is
 
- What you think the candidate will be worth to the business
 
- What you think (or know, if there's another offer on the table) the 
candidate will get elsewhere
The candidate's current package and what they're worth to the 
business are case-by-case, but the offers from elsewhere will usually be 
guided by compensation benchmarks.
COMPENSATION BENCHMARKS FOR EUROPEAN 
SOFTWARE BUSINESSES WITH <$25M REVENUE
Element
1
2
3
Salary
Bonus
Equity
Cash
Cash or Equity
Equity
Compensation Type
106,865
108,571
15,464
0
1.22%
0.88%
Mean
Median
Mean
Median
Mean
Median
127,657
128,500
100,031
90,000
0.89%
0.46%
96,562
87,500
20,674
0
1.65%
1.09%
96,288
89,250
8,714
0
0.66%
0.53%
119,981
120,000
29,222 
0
1.53%
0.78%
THE COST OF 
HIRING GAME 
CHANGERS 
AND WHAT 
YOU SHOULD 
OFFER THEM
As with most things in life, the good stuff doesn't come cheap. 
Neither do Game Changers but, as we saw earlier in the section on 
Why it's hard to hire Game Changers, the process should be considered 
as an investment decision and measured as ROI rather than a 
deduction from profit.
Maddy Cross
Head of Talent, Notion
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five
TOP 5 COST 
CONSIDERA-
TIONS WHEN 
PUTTING 
TOGETHER
AN OFFER
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BEFORE YOU START THE PROCESS OF 
INTERVIEWING CANDIDATES, HAVE 
AN ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM NUMBER IN 
YOUR HEAD THAT YOU CAN AFFORD 
TO PAY IN CASH AND IN EQUITY.
GOING TO 
THE RACES
ONE
When going to the horse races there's a "classic" take on avoiding 
the loss of a lot of cash, which is to decide a number that is the absolute 
maximum you'll hand to the bookies irrespective of how much you 
win. "I'll only give 100 in total to the bookies, even if I win 1000 
on the first race." It's a preventative mechanism against escalation of 
commitment and general excitement of the positivity of the moment.
Hiring a Game Changer is exactly the same. 
BEFORE YOU START INTERVIEWING, FIGURE OUT WHAT 
THE ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM YOU CAN AFFORD TO PAY 
SOMEONE IS 
This should include a total cash number and a maximum equity 
percentage. You don't have to share these numbers with anyone, but 
keep them in mind in case you meet an incredible candidate who's 
asking for a lot more money than what you'd expected to be paying.
If this happens, you'll have to ask yourself how much you can 
afford while being influenced by how much you like the candidate and 
making a trade-off against other potentially less suitable candidates, 
which can bias your decision.
If you already know what the maximum you can pay someone 
is, it makes the negotiation more straightforward and also removes 
bias from the decision-making. You can either afford your preferred 
candidate or you cannot. If you cannot, it becomes a board decision 
around finding extra capital versus taking the second candidate in 
the running.
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Compensation benchmarks usually cite the mean, which gives a 
gauge for market average. When you're hiring a Game Changer you 
are not looking for someone average: you are looking for someone who 
is a Game Changer and therefore an outlier.
 Outliers (aka Game Changers) will command compensation 
packages that are not inline with the mean because their performance 
is not in line with the mean. When using benchmarks, consider the 
mean, the median and the range to ensure you're benchmarking the 
compensation of a Game Changer against the correct metric.
This isn't to say that you should hire someone who demands a 
huge cash salary - it's to say that the candidate's overall expectation 
may be higher than a benchmark mean. This is OK if you think that 
their career track record, alignment with your goals, and cultural fit 
with your organisation are a proportionate amount "above average".
Where the 'mean' 
compensation lies 
on the scale
Where we want the 
performance of the 
Game Changer to be
BUT THEY ARE NOT THE BE-ALL-AND-END-ALL
TWO
COMPENSATION 
BENCHMARKS 
ARE 
USEFUL
LOW
HIGH
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ARE A REFLECTION OF THEIR 
POSITION IN THEIR PERSONAL LIFE AS 
WELL AS THEIR WORK LIFE
COSTS 
FOR GAME 
CHANGERS
"BUSINESS IS BUSINESS"
But when you work long hours and have made huge sacrifices for 
your career, business is life and life is personal.
Some Game Changers will have kids in school that they need to 
pay fees for, others will have taken $20m from their last exit and don't 
necessarily need cash but would rather the experience of another 
early-stage business and the equity that comes with it.
When you make an offer to candidates, remember that the cash 
they're asking for may be no reflection on your business and how they 
see their place working with you, but more of a reflection on what they 
need to take home to keep their kids in the same education system that 
they're currently in.
For some people, taking equity in place of cash is simply not 
possible and for others it's their key motivation for continuing to work.
Personal situations shouldn't affect the overall value of the 
compensation package, but should affect the balance of equity vs cash.
THREE
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ANCHOR-
ING
VERSUS
THE 
CHILLING 
EFFECT
FOUR
ANCHORING
 
"A well-known cognitive bias in negotiation and in other 
contexts, the anchoring bias describes the common tendency to give 
too much weight to the first number put forth in a discussion and then 
inadequately adjust from that starting point, or the 'anchor'. We even 
fixate on anchors when we know they are irrelevant to the discussion 
at hand.
Economists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman first 
documented the anchoring bias in an experiment involving a roulette 
wheel marked with integers ranging from 0 to 100. Each participant 
witnessed a spin of the roulette wheel. They were then asked whether 
they thought that the percentage of United Nations member countries 
in Africa was greater or smaller than the number spun on the wheel. 
Next, they were asked to make an estimation of the true percentage.
Participants who saw the wheel stop on the number 10 guessed, 
on average, that the actual percentage of African countries belonging 
to the United Nations was 25%. By contrast, those who saw the wheel 
stop on the number 65 guessed, on average, that the percentage 
from Africa was 45%. In the experiment, a clearly random number 
nonetheless had a dramatic impact on people's judgments.
Even experts, such as real estate agents, can be powerfully 
affected by anchors in negotiation, research shows" - Katie Shonk, 
Harvard Law School.
 
In summary, low-balling candidates with an opening offer for a 
compensation package will likely affect the outcome in your favour, 
i.e. they will adjust their expectations to arrive at a lower compromise 
than they otherwise would have come to.
 
THERE'S A HUGE CAVEAT TO THIS, 
WHICH IS... THE CHILLING EFFECT
"Sometimes, negotiators think that they can establish dominance 
by making an extreme offer. However, this backfires and creates a 
chilling effect. A chilling effect occurs when offers are so outrageous 
that the other party loses all motivation to continue negotiating."  - 
Prof. Leigh Thompson, The Kellogg School of Management.
When combining Anchoring with The Chilling Effect we end up 
with: make a compensation offer that's lower than  what you'd expect 
the candidate is worth, but not offensively so.
There are no hard and fast rules for what this looks like in 
practical terms because it depends on how you justify the package; if, 
for example, you've just announced a Series C raise of $50m and you 
offer someone 50% less than the compensation benchmark for their 
role, it's quite a different scenario to offering them 50% less when 
you're in the process of raising a Seed round.
 
As a general rule, consider the following before you make an offer:
 
 What the candidate's current compensation package is
 
The situation of their current employer in terms of what they can 
afford to pay
 What the compensation benchmarks are for a business of your 
size in your sector
 What other offers the candidate has on the table
 What the personal situation of the candidate is (this should impact 
the balance of cash vs equity rather than the value of the whole 
package)
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THE
COMPEN-
SATION 
SCALE...
...OF THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS HAS NO EFFECT 
ON THE OFFER YOU MAKE TO A GAME CHANGER
FIVE
THE COMPENSATION SCALE OF THE OTHER 
PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS HAS NO EFFECT
ON THE OFFER YOU MAKE TO A GAME CHANGER 
Something that we hear often at Notion from our portfolio 
companies is "We can't pay them what they're asking because it's more 
than double what anyone else in the business is making".
WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
If they're going to contribute more than double the value than 
anyone else is contributing, it doesn't matter. Pay them relative to 
what they'll deliver, not a multiple of what other people in unrelated 
functions are making.
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INDUSTRY 
VIEWPOINT
FINDING
GAME 
CHANGERS 
AT EVERY 
STAGE OF THE 
BUSINESS
Tien Tzuo 
Founder & CEO, Zuora
Tien Tzuo is the founder and CEO of Zuora (NYSE: ZUO). As early as  2007, Tzuo 
began to evangelize the shift to subscription-based business models, coining the phrase 
"Subscription Economy." Since then, Tzuo has spent 10 years building an award-winning 
subscription management platform to support this new economy and power any 
subscription business. 
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Before Zuora, Tzuo was one of the "original forces" at Salesforce, 
joining as employee number 11. In his 9 years at Salesforce, Tzuo built 
its original billing system, later serving as chief marketing officer and 
chief strategy officer. 
Tzuo holds a BS in electrical engineering from Cornell and an 
MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. He is the author 
of the book "SUBSCRIBED: Why the Subscription Model Will be Your 
Company's Future - and What to Do About It."
YOU HAVE TO BE AWARE OF WHERE THE 
BUSINESS IS, AT ANY GIVEN TIME 
The first thing to consider before hiring a Game Changer is that 
there are different types of people who need to contribute different 
things at each stage of the journey. 
In the very early stages of a new SaaS business, you're either a 
Developer or you're not a Developer. The former do the development 
work, and the latter do everything else. So in the very early stages of a 
business, a Game Changer is a jack of all trades, rather than a specialist. 
At the beginning of the startup journey, everyone in the company 
needs to have a shared experience so that they're aligned. 
Ultimately, we are an unfinished house. Any new employee is 
going to have to go in and try to live in that unfinished house. They'll 
walk into the bathroom and see that there's no shower; they either 
complain about it, or they join in and start building. 
Once the business grows, different skill sets come out in different 
people. Functional experience has to be wound up with skill and 
collaboration. When those three things come together, that's when 
Game Changers start to emerge. 
IT'S ABOUT CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT 
FOR PEOPLE TO THRIVE
You have to create an environment where people can thrive. 
In this way, you can nurture Game Changers rather than just hiring 
people who are already Game Changers.
Sometimes you aren't sure who'll thrive - it's often 50/50 as to 
whether they'll be a Game Changer, once they're into the job and 
working. We try to interview with the idea that people are never good 
enough and should always be learning. You have to always want to 
grow.
When you really boil it down, though, startup companies must 
create loyalty. Everyone is going to want a great job that gives them 
personal satisfaction. Employees have to feel that the challenge is 
worth it, so the organization has to be mission driven and provide 
opportunity for personal growth and development for everyone. 
There are a number of questions that every employee needs to 
ask themselves: "Am I enjoying being with the people around me?", 
"Do I have a voice here?", "I'm frustrated is it positive frustration 
or negative?". 
YOU HAVE TO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT THAT ALLOWS 
PEOPLE TO ANSWER THESE KINDS OF QUESTIONS FOR 
THEMSELVES. 
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LEAVE THE 'BIG IDEAS' TO EVERYONE ELSE
If you're a founder who believes you know everything - it won't 
work. The leader plays a huge part in alignment, but at Zuora the best 
ideas don't ever come from me. I create alignment and prioritisation but 
leave the big ideas to everyone else. 
I didn't even come up with the company culture, which we call 
"ZEO" which means that everyone in the business is the "CEO" of their 
own career at Zuora. The ZEO culture underlines everything we do at 
Zuora. We're all aligned behind the mission and we want people to be 
empowered to fulfil their career trajectories.. But I didn't come up with 
this concept and vision; I just got everyone on board with it. 
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN ALLOWING 
GAME CHANGERS TO THRIVE IS TRUST
At Zuora - and in early stage businesses in general - we talk a lot 
about innovation, striving for the next big thing, having a sense of 
empowerment, and approaching things with entrepreneurial spirit. 
We are always trying to do something new, that's never been done 
before, and that's really, really hard.
Over the years I've spoken to a lot of entrepreneur-Founders, so I often 
find myself in the situation of trying to reflect on my own experience 
to help them out. The thing I've noticed is that everyone hits at least one 
pivotal moment at which they need to evolve; at some point they will 
come unstuck and be in a real struggle. There's the point at which your 
business hits a point of scale where the culture starts to break. 
I didn't have the right vocabulary for describing the culture in 
the business at the beginning, so it's something I've had to work 
hard at and think about a lot so that I could build a great culture at 
Zuora. After giving it a lot of thought, I've realized that trust is at the 
core of our company culture -- and it's this same trust that enables 
Game Changers to have impact.
TRUST IS BUILT AT THE TIMES WHEN THINGS 
GO WRONG.  WHEN YOU HIT SIGNIFICANT 
PROBLEMS AND HANDLE THEM WELL AS A 
TEAM OR AN INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTOR, 
THAT'S WHEN YOU BUILD TRUST.
Trust develops when people work through difficult situations. 
You have to have a culture of not avoiding tough issues and of 
mutual respect. You have to create, an environment in which people 
feel like they can speak up. 
IF YOU CAN TRUST GAME CHANGERS TO DO
THEIR JOB, IT'LL HAVE A HUGELY POSITIVE 
IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS.
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Mns Hultman joined QlikTech in 2000 as CEO, taking over from the Founders who 
started the business in Sweden in 1993. 
Mns Hultman invested in Qlik in 2000 and stepped in as CEO, growing the business 
and refining the model until it was investor-ready. From 2004 to 2009 he also served 
as Chairman. In 2004, Qlik attracted a $12.5m round of funding led by Accel Partners 
(Sweden's Industrifonden and Jerusalem Venture Partners also participated).
Mns Hultman
CEO, QlikTech 
THE GAME 
CHANGER 
POINT OF 
VIEW
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Not wanting to serve as CEO of a quoted company, Hultman stood 
down at the end of 2007 (with his CFO taking the helm). At that time 
Qlik was ready for an IPO, but due to the turbulence on the financial 
markets in 2008 it didn't happen until 2010. 
Since then, Mns has held a number of investor and board 
positions, at Zobito and 83 North amongst others. 
MNS' LEARNINGS FROM BEING A GAME 
CHANGER AND AN INVESTOR - GAME 
CHANGING SKILLS ARE HARD TO LEARN
It has to be a combination of skill and an intrinsic drive to work 
hard and succeed. 
Intrinsic drive is usually something that people are born with or 
develop in early childhood, so it's very hard to learn it as an adult or 
have an external motivating factor that prompts it. It spills into being 
an element of commitment to the business, and very much impacts 
the personal and professional lives of the Game Changer themselves. 
To be a Game Changer you have to have the intrinsic motivation and 
commitment to make big sacrifices; kiss your spouse goodbye and get 
on a plane to the US for three months, or understand that you won't be 
able to put your kids to bed during the week. 
The skills can be learned, but it has to be a combination of both 
experience and drive; one of the two is not enough to succeed. 
COMMITMENT IS KEY
As an investor you have to work really hard to filter through the 
conversations with the founder to really get to the core of what their 
motivations are. Building a business is a huge commitment, both in 
terms of intensity and longevity. 
One of the most gratifying aspects of being an investor is when 
you choose to back people who really do know how hard the journey 
is. Many people say that they're willing to make the sacrifices but very 
few can actually do it. 
BE HUMBLE, HAVE FUN, AND DON'T GIVE UP 
Three of the overwhelmingly consistent traits of Game Changers 
are humility, the ability to have fun, and stubbornness. 
When you talk to people who're average, they often describe 
themselves as world class. Game Changing people seldom describe 
themselves as such, they describe themselves as average. Game 
Changing people are constantly trying to learn. They're curious by 
nature, and they're incredibly humble about how much they actually 
know versus how much there is to know in the arena of global 
technology. 
Game Changers are more likely to hire world class people and are 
not afraid of hiring people who are better than they are, while average 
leaders usually hire people who are on par with themselves, or below.
Game Changers also make things fun - not only for themselves 
but also for people around them. Their management style, confidence 
and ease of getting things done will make people feel wanted and like 
they have a place that they can grow and learn and feel valued.  People 
in organizations that are run by Game Changers usually talk about it 
like it's the best job they've ever had which, as a leader, is incredibly 
rewarding. 
There's also a stubbornness with Game Changers.  When people 
say something can't be done, Game Changers are the people who 
simply don't accept it. They just keep working to find a solution or a 
work around. The curiosity and unwillingness to give up are traits that 
proliferate across the business. 
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CONTRIBUTORS
NOTION 
Maddy Cross - Head of Talent - mcross@notion.vc
Stephen Millard - Chief Platform Officer - smillard@notion.vc
Chris Tottman - General Partner - ctottman@notion.vc
NOTION FAMILY 
Brynne Kennedy - CEO and Founder, Topia
Charlie Osmond - CEO and Founder, Triptease
Derek O'Carroll - CEO, Brightpearl
Hiroki Takeuchi - CEO and Founder, GoCardless
Mike Laven - CEO, Currencycloud
Nicholas d'Adhemar - CEO and Founder, Apperio
Vasco Pedro - CEO and Founder, Unbabel
PARTNERS
 
Andrew Banks - Managing Partner, International - True Search
Jonno Southam - Senior Business Development, 
Venture Capital - Amazon Web Services
GREAT PEOPLE
 
In the process of researching this Insight report - both 
via formal interviews and informal, ongoing chats 
- Notion have been lucky enough to have input and 
insight from a large number of exceptional people: 
Abbie Pugh, Multiple 
Alan Cairns, Octopus Ventures
Dan Hynes, Atomico
Dominic Jacquesson, Index Ventures
Jane Reddin, Balderton Capital
Kiana Sharifi, Balderton Capital
Mans Hultman, Zobito
Maureen Taylor, SNP Communications
Mike Snelling, The Table Group
Renn Vara, SNP Communications
Tien Tzuo, Zuora
Zoe Jervier, EQT Ventures
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS
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Functional expertise in Technology, Go-to-Market and Operations roles.
For any Game Changer who's going to take a role in your business... 
It isn't a risk for them, it's a leap of faith because they'll back 
themselves to be pivotal in making the whole business succeed.
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