Podcast: Download
The guys talk about the Irish Pub that conducted a hiring search through the use of Snapchat. They then answer, “I am setting up a team for my startup company. Who are the essential people we need to have?”
Full Podcast Transcript
NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business.
This is Nasir Pasha.
MATT: And this is Matt Staub.
NASIR: And welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions and put in our legal twist to those business news topics that I just referenced beforehand.
MATT: It started out so strong.
NASIR: But, ah, welcome to our podcast anyway, nonetheless.
MATT: It seemed promising. Hopefully, the episode doesn’t go like that, too. I guess we’ll have to see.
NASIR: Well, I’m excited because this is Social Media Week, apparently.
MATT: Yeah. Yeah, not by plan, just by coincidence.
NASIR: Speak for yourself.
MATT: As teased in the last episode, today, we’re going to be talking about SnapChat and this is pretty intriguing – an Irish pub only accepting job applications through SnapChat. Now, if you’re not familiar with SnapChat – unless you’re under the age of 15, I guess you might not know – it’s basically a way to send pictures and I think videos as well to another person like a text message, but the thing is it disappears after ten seconds. I think you can it make anywhere from two to ten seconds – whatever it is. If I wanted to take a picture, let’s say I see something cool, I take a picture, I send it to you, you can see it for ten seconds, and then it disappears. That’s it.
So, this Irish pub is using this technology to try to find new people for the positions they’re trying to fill. I guess I’m confused because I don’t know how this is really going to work. I mean, I get how we just want you to make a good first impression and do it in a condensed period of time. But, first of all, you can’t really even do that much in ten seconds. I mean, maybe you can – I don’t know – but I don’t really see how the follow-up is going to work. Is the person’s information on there and you just have to write it down really quick? It just seems too burdensome.
NASIR: Now, I know you use SnapChat – like, every day – but, when someone messages you, you know who to message back, right?
MATT: So, I do have the app and how it worked is I downloaded it and then it basically just pulled my contacts list and told me every person on my contacts list that was also using it and then I could add people based on that. I think there was maybe 30 of my contacts also had it. If I wanted to, I could add them and then they would be my SnapChat contacts and that was that. I don’t know how it’s going to work for this pub.
NASIR: But, if I’m not in your contacts and I message you – which I’m probably not in your contacts, I wouldn’t be surprised – if I message you and you see the image that I sent you for 20 seconds then it goes away, are you able to somehow respond to me?
MATT: Yeah, you can respond.
NASIR: Okay. So, I wonder his responses are. Is it like a picture? “Hey, I want to interview you,” and then it goes away for 20 seconds and then that’s it?
MATT: I guess, yeah. But, I mean, how do you send follow-up correspondence? Is it just a constant string of ten-second messages? It seems way too difficult.
NASIR: Yeah, not only do I not get SnapChat, anyone that actually uses it as some kind of useful utility seems just ridiculous to me. But what’s crazy is this bar or pub received over 2,000 applications – if you want to call it that – or 2,000 SnapChats. Out of those, he’s already interviewed about 15 and hired 6. He’s going to hire about 20 total which is a lot of hiring for a pub but maybe they’re just starting out but, you know, interesting.
MATT: I wonder if the interviews are conducted over this as well. He asks a question and you have ten seconds to answer.
NASIR: Oh, that’s great. It doesn’t make sense to me but, hey, you know, you’ve got a fun response and we’re talking about their pub – even though we didn’t mention their name – Sober Lane.
MATT: If you sit through the comments, some people are saying this was discriminatory, but I don’t really see how that’s the case. I mean, for someone that doesn’t have a smartphone but I don’t really see that being an issue.
NASIR: Yeah, I can see people saying, well, because it uses certain technology that only young people would use, then maybe it’s discriminatory towards older but, I mean, that’s the nature of any kind of application process – whether you’re having them email you a PDF – some people don’t know how to make a PDF but, sometimes, weeding people out that are able to do that and have at least a small lower common denominator to weed out candidates.
MATT: I agree with you. I don’t really see that being an issue but this is interesting. Maybe we should try to use this somehow.
NASIR: We just went through an interview process internally. I should have done the SnapChat thing – dang it! Missed our opportunity.
MATT: It would have made things so much easier – just tons of ten-second videos.
NASIR: I know, it would have been so much easier, you’re right.
[MUSIC]
NASIR: Okay. Let’s get to the question of the day.
MATT: “I’m setting up a team for my startup company. Who are the essential people we need to have?” It comes from a sunglasses startup in Phoenix, Arizona.
NASIR: Essential people – well, actually, I have a pretty solid understanding of what I would like. I would like a suit – you know, someone who is all about business, financials, things like that. You need to have a CEO or a leader – whether that’s somebody that is also another… it’s good to have them as a separate person. And then, almost every company needs a sales and marketing. I don’t know. Then, it depends upon what kind of business. Maybe you need a tech person because you’re tech-heavy. I mean, this is a sunglasses startup. I don’t know. I think three solid people are enough. If you have more people, then, obviously, there’s going to be other roles filled.
MATT: Yeah, I think that’s a good start. All three of those are pretty important roles.
I would assume the CEO in this case would be the decision-maker but you definitely need one person who is going to be a decision-maker above all else – someone with some background. It’s helpful to have someone who has some experience in the industry that you are looking to go into. But, if you do your research, you can kind of learn that beforehand.
NASIR: One thing I’ve seen with our clients, the startups that don’t have somebody that is just really business-savvy can go through a lot of growing pains because, even when you’re working with an attorney, you have to have some basic knowledge of what to look for and what are some issues in order to discuss these aspects with your attorney because your attorney is not going to be able to run your business for you and that’s just some kind of personal experience. The only reason I mention that is, oftentimes, you have a tech startup or some kind of startup that is based upon a product or a service that the founder developed, that person may be great at what they do – whether it’s a software they developed or a service they developed – but not have any experience in executing it in a business environment and those are two different things. And so, oftentimes, that business person – that “suit” that I call – is missing.
MATT: Did we mention attorney? We should probably mention that.
NASIR: Yeah, but, as far as a founder…
MATT: It’s helpful.
NASIR: They’re going to be there. As far as your founding team, if you guys are working together, you guys are going to come up with the attorney that works best for you or the law firm that works best for you and also the accountant and the insurance – all these different outside consultants are, of course, abundantly important as well.
MATT: Now that I think about it, it should be just attorneys.
NASIR: That’s all you need, basically.
MATT: That’s all you need.
NASIR: Just one attorney.
MATT: Five different attorneys.
NASIR: First of all, that’s the start of a joke, it sounds like, but that would be a terrible idea – five attorneys in the same room, starting a business. I guess it’s a law firm but…
MATT: You’re just against the idea of law firms.
NASIR: Other law firms.
All right. Well, I think that’s our episode. Thanks for joining us again.
MATT: Yeah, keep it sound and keep it smart.
