How we built world class development and support teams with Supernova.io
After graduating from Y Combinator, Supernova needed to hire 10X developers, support and other professionals to fulfil their promise of revolutionizing product design.
Our Results
27
Avg days to hire
100%
Project success rate
72%
Reduced hiring costs
880
Hours saved (hiring team)
"Funded.club was absolutely an integral piece of our process to find-test-hire people for our company lately. This not only saved us quite literally multiple months of work in pre-screenings, but also efficient in finding candidates that we basically removed the need for a recruitment team altogether. this allowed us to focus resources on more critical things that every company should be doing, like building the product!"
CEO & HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, SUPERNOVA (Y COMBINATOR ALUMNI W19)
Jiří Třečák
Supernova.io
Supernova is the design system platform that grows with you. Create a connected ecosystem with Supernova. Our platform plugs into your existing design and engineering workflows, so your team can find everything they need, when they need it.
Notable Achievements:
- YCombinator Alumni and the very first Czech Startup in YC's Core program
- 3M$ Seed round closed in a week
- Forbes Startup of the Year
Main objectives
- Refine the product feature set with experienced Product Designer and UX hires
- Support product development with world-class developer hires
- Help the business grow its initial customer base with new sales hires
The challenge
Supernova came out of the Y combinator program with a promise to revolutionize product development and design by bringing these teams closer together through innovative tools.
A key challenge was helping the business attract talent across multiple countries where the best skills resided e.g. design talent in Amsterdam vs developer skills in the Czech Republic and Central Europe.
Running their own job ads on various job sites was not attracting the high-calibre talent they needed to build and support a world-class product. The leadership team were also spending too much time reviewing poor quality candidate applications.
All in all, we also needed to ensure that the team we were building would be credible to the company's high-profile investors in the US and in Europe.
The Solution
Collaborating closely with the management team since 2019, Funded.club has supported multiple iterations of the company's growth and waves of hiring. With our global team of recruiters, we were able to match each requirement with a local recruiter with the same industry knowledge.
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Kick-off calls for each candidate search with the key decision makers at Supernova - CEO, COO, CTO, and CPO. Such detailed conversations and preparation were critical to deciding the tactics for each hire including sourcing channels, locations, screening process, salaries etc.
- Advance payment: We sent an invoice for a small advance against the fixed project fee before starting each search. This payment validated our Exclusivity for each search and ensured the customer had some "skin in the game".
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Headhunting and job promotion: With a dedicated recruiter for each specific search, we got to work on headhunting specific candidates through outbound messaging and calls. We used a mix of different channels for our candidate research (not just Linkedin!) and some magic tools to get a candidate's attention.
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Candidate screening: After pitching a candidate on an opportunity, our recruiters moved through their screening process with qualifying questions and used scorecards to decide on a shortlist of candidates for each role.
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First candidates in 7 days: We presented a number of qualified candidates for quick feedback and iteration on the search.
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Shortlist of candidates in 14 days: 3-5 candidates per search were shortlisted with all our screening notes and recommendations.
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Interview scheduling: We scheduled and coordinated all interviews to ensure a smooth process.
- Weekly calls and reports: 20-min calls were booked each week to ensure we stay in sync with hiring managers and keep the process moving forward. Every search also generated a weekly report by email on a Friday to ensure all stakeholders were kept in the loop.
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Final selection, offer and negotiations: We helped Supernova negotiate fair offers and conditions for a wide range of candidates in different countries.
All hiring managers were able to track the progress of their search in our free Applicant Tracking System (ATS) at any time, being able to see all notes and recommendations on all candidates - not just those on the shortlist. Such transparency helped in rapid decision and prevented FOMO in the recruiting process :)
Each project was "owned" by an experienced recruiter with the same local and industry knowledge. This dedicated recruiter interviewed all candidates and also kept the hiring manager updated. Such close project management by a single person allowed us to calibrate the search between the hiring manager's expectations and the candidate market. Each project was also overseen by our VP of Recruiting to keep project timelines on track and to act as a backup for the dedicated recruiter.
The Result
Supernova grew into a balanced team over the 4 years we supported them. They built out a market-leading Design System and sold it to well-known global brands.
We helped Supernova negotiate salaries in multiple locations and to source candidates with a proven track record of getting results in a remote or hybrid team, keeping the business lean and poised for more rapid growth.
Supernova paid a low fixed fee per search, committed to Exclusivity on a job-by-job basis under Funded.club's standard terms. This approach allowed Supernova to hire the best talent in the world while also saving €210k in recruiting costs compared with traditional recruitment agencies.
Job titles filled:
Product Designer, Product Manager, UX Researcher
Product Support Engineer, Pre Sales Engineer, Full stack developer, Flutter developer, QA Tester, SaaS tester, Engineering Manager, Senior Node.js Developer
Copywriter/UX Writer, Content Creator
New Business Manager, Account Manager, SDR, Customer Success Manager, Customer Support Lead
22
Hires made
27
Avg days to hire
100%
Success rate
210000
€s saved on hiring
Let's talk about scaling your own teams:
How Funded.club Can Help You
- Determine and define project scope and objectives
- Predict resources needed to reach objectives and manage resources in an effective and efficient manner
- Prepare budget based on scope of work and resource requirements
- Track project costs in order to meet budget
- Develop and manage a detailed project schedule and work plan
- Provide project updates on a consistent basis to various stakeholders about strategy, adjustments, and progress
Ray Gibson, CEO & Founder
Let's TalkTestimonials
"Funded.club was absolutely an integral piece of our process to find-test-hire people for our company lately. This not only saved us quite literally munltiple months of work in pre-screenings, but also efficient in finding candidates that we basically removed the need for a recruitment team altogether. this allowed us to focus resources on more critical things that every company should be doing, like building the product!"
Jiří Třečák
CEO & HEAD OF TECHNOLOGYSUPERNOVA(Y COMBINATOR ALUMNI W19)
"Working with Funded.club has been a wonderful experience. The staff is highly experienced, saved us tons of time and are results driven. All of it is a fraction of traditional recruitment agency costs. Highly recommended for fast-growing startups and scale-ups!"
Johannnes Koeppel
CO-FOUNDER & CEOWETRAVEL
"We were struggling to find the right person for our senior dev role and so got in touch with Funded.Club. They quickly found candidates that fitted with our requirements and culture and we were able to fill the position. Thanks to Emma for your effort which saved us lots of time and cost."
Tony Stanley
PEOPLE AND OPERATIONS MANAGERMSUPPLY, NEW ZEALAND
"At Tesseract.io we are constantly looking for talents to join our ever-growing team. The Funded.Club team has helped tremendously in our hiring process. In addition to the responsiveness, they provide weekly summaries throughout the hiring progress. Candidates presented were pre-screened and of good quality. Candidates start streaming in very quickly after our kick-off meeting, usually within the same week. They've helped us with multiple technical positions that we previously struggled to fill. We will definitely use them for future hires. "
Colin Lee
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERTESSERACT.IO, SINGAPORE
"We worked with Bulent and Funded.club to successfully recruit a Senior Software Engineer. Bulent advised us on the brief, provided valuable insights on salary ranges and then worked diligently to provide us with an excellent shortlist of candidates. Bulent is a great communicator and provided straightforward advice which helped us rapidly conclude our search confident we had the best candidate in the market for our brief."