Adam Robinson - Ionix Hiring Systems

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing: Adam Robinson - Founder of Ionix Hiring Systems

Name: Adam Robinson

Company/Product: Ionix Hiring Systems (Ionix)

What is Ionix? Most businesses' #1 problem is, simply put, hiring the right people for the job. Ionix is a comprehensive, web-based solution that helps managers choose the absolute best fit for any given job opening, and then helps them ensure that their new hire is immediately productive. Our product guides managers through the process of defining their open role, selecting the right predictive interview questions to ask, scorecarding results, and building a performance plan for the new hire's first 90 days. In doing so, we save companies a boatload of money and substantially improve the productivity of new hires.

How did you get involved in Ionix? I co-founded a Recruitment Process Outsourcing firm, illuma, in June of 2004. Over the course of four years, we great that company to nearly $4M in annual reveneue and services some of the best-known mid-market firms in the Midwest. As a result of running that business, I knew that there was a huge gap in the marketplace for products that help managers and entrepreneurs achieve hiring sucess - so here we are.

What is the best thing about working at Ionix? We are a company that rewards results, and goal-focused people can do exceptionally well here. We're not building software for technology's sake - we're building a product that has to work for our customers (and it does). For the right people, that's incredibly rewarding, and a lot of fun.

What kind of people do you think are best suited to work at start-ups? The first employees into a start-up have to think like owners, and they have to be comfortable with ambiguity. There's nobody else who's going to pick up the slack for you - you own the result, good or bad. The lack of defined processes and structure can be unsettling for people who are used to doing their one job in the corporate world, particularly mid-career managers and executives. People who are able to buy into the vision while recognizing the harsh reality of limited resources and long odds make for good hires.

Genevieve Thiers - Sittercity

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing: Genevieve Thiers- Founder of Sittercity.com

Name:Genevieve Thiers

Company/Product: Sittercity

Role: Founder and CEO

What is Sittercity? Sittercity is America's first and largest network to find caregivers online, with a little more than a million caregivers nationwide in five caregiver types: child care, pet care, senior care, home care and tutoring.

How did you get involved in Sittercity? When I was about to graduate my senior year of college, I saw a nine month pregnant mother climbing 200 steps posting flyers for a babysitter. I could not believe she was walking! I posted the flyers for her and as I was posting them (this was in 2000,) I thought "it would be so interesting if someone took all the caregivers in the country and put them in one place...kind of like an online dating service." I ran back to my dorm, used my roomate's computer, and saw that no one had created an online web site to match parents with caregivers online in the format that I envisioned. I was so excited! I called my dad, borrowed money for the domain name, hired two college friends to build and design the site, began flyering the city of Boston to get sitters, and never looked back.

What is the best thing about working at Sittercity? The performing is my favorite thing! I am trained as an opera singer, and have been performing since the age of eleven. I love doing press for the company--we've been on Ellen, The View (2x), TODAY show (5x), GMA, CBS Early Show...you name it! It's been awesome. I also love doing speaking events. If I were asked, however, what the best thing about the company is, I would say the people. We have an incredible team, with so much talent.

What kind of people do you think are best suited to work at start-ups? You have to be a bit of a zealot, in my mind. You have to believe 100% in your vision and be willing to take up a banner and run with it and never look back. If you falter, the army behind you does too.

Pek Pongpaet - Tweetlytics

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing: Pek Pongpaet - Founder of Tweetlytics.

Name: Pek Pongpaet

Company/Product: Tweetlytics

Role: Founder

What is Tweetlytics?
Tweetlytics is a social media monitoring web based application that provides various analytics on Twitter. Brands, marketers, and PR agencies can use it for brand monitoring and seeing a big picture view of their campaigns. Tweetlytics lets you slice Twitter data by various dimensions including time, geography, gender, sentiment, and location and more.

How did you get involved in Tweetlytics?
Our company has built several Twitter based apps mostly games that are consumer focused, some of them for clients. As we were building more and more of these, I was curious to know the effectiveness of these Twitter apps so that I could answer the question that our clients had of what am I getting out of this? Questions like how many people is this reaching, who where when what? And so the idea of an analytics dashboard came up that could be used for such a task. However we realized that this was an even bigger idea. The field of social media/brand monitoring was huge and that was how the product came about.

What is the best thing about working at Tweetlytics?
By far the best thing about working at Tweetlytics is the people. We bring on really talented people who are great at what they do and we have them do what they do best. I'm constantly amazed at what people have produced for Tweetlytics. Also the field of social media is so young and new that it is very exciting to be working in this space. Aside from being an entrepreneur which means we are trying to figure out what to do, we are also trying to figure out this new field of social media, so it is doubly exciting.

What kind of people do you think are best suited to work at start-ups?
I believe the people best suited for start-ups must have at least these 3 qualities: passion, perseverance, and self motivation.

Start-ups are hard. And more often than not, start-ups will eat up your life. If you do not love what you do, it will not happen and I believe it will be difficult to succeed. Passion means you believe in your idea wholeheartedly. If you do not believe in your own idea, how will you convince someone else either to join your cause or buy your product.

Start-ups also do not succeed overnight. Every time you hear of an overnight success, it usually involves years of lessons learned. It could be the founder tried several start-ups before finally hitting on the jackpot. The idea that you can just build a site and tons of users will immediately flock to it is a romantic fantasy. Behind the graceful execution of that is usually a bunch of people working hard at making it look effortless much like a swan that moves around the lake gracefully. You do not see it kicking its feet beneath the water. People who do not have the stomach to persevere through the ups and downs of start-ups and willing to roll up their sleeves for good old fashioned hustling are in for a rough ride.

Start-ups can also be very open ended and ambiguous. The very definition of start up means that there are not yet processes in place. Things are also usually so crazy that if a person needs to be micromanaged and told explicitly what to do, they would find it hard to succeed in a start-up. I believe a start-up requires people who can self identify tasks, opportunities, and goals and just go ahead and execute them. The essence of a start-up is a different beast than a corporation. In a corporate setting, your role is clearly defined. This is what you are and hence what you do is already predefined.

I also agree with Mark Achler that you have to be a little crazy to want to work at start-ups. No one in their right mind would want to subject themselves to the stresses of start-ups. There are much easier ways to earn money than to go in a start-up. But for those people who are not motivated entirely by money, but to the pursuit of creating something lasting and of value and have a helping hand in shaping and creating a new entity, then start-ups might be for them.

Scott Robbin - Songza

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing: Scott Robbin - Founder of Songza.

Name: Scott Robbin

Company: Songza

Role: Founder

What is Songza?

Songza is a music search engine and Internet jukebox that allows users to listen to any song or artist simply by typing in
names and titles. Users can share songs with friends through e-mail, create links to songs and share music via social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

How did you get involved with Songza?

In the Summer of 2007, I had been working with Aza Raskin and friends, updating the Humanized website. When that project came to a close, we realized how much we enjoyed working together, and decided to try something else. It turns out that "something else" was a music search engine that Aza had prototyped earlier that year. The idea was simple: find a fast and legal way for users to search for, and share, music online. We spent the next month building the site, layering Aza's innovative UI designs with my content aggregation and business logic. In November 2007, we launched Songza to the public. 7 days later we had over 1 million song plays. In one month, Songza's traffic had grown exponentially, and we decided to spin Songza off into its own business entity. I became that entity's President.

What is the best thing about working at Songza?

Disclosure: I'm not longer with Songza. We sold the company back in October 2008.

That said, my favorite thing about having worked at Songza was the vibrant community of online music start-ups and their founders. I've become good friends with many of our would-be competitors. At the end of the day, we're all just fans looking for a better way to discover music.

What kind of people do you think are best suited to work at start-ups?

I think there are two types of people out there: those who are excited about things, and those who want to make money off of people who are excited about things. Both work at start-ups, but only one succeeds. The best suited are those recognize this trait in each other.

Troy Henikoff - OneWed.com

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing: Troy Henikoff - CEO at OneWed.com.

Name: Troy Henikoff

Company: OneWed

Role: CEO

What is OneWed?

OneWed is the ultimate online source for the truth in wedding planning, providing couples with a wealth of tips, advice, and creative suggestions to help personalize their wedding experience. The site’s newest platform, WeddingPreParty.com, is a virtual way for couples to start the celebration early and keep in contact with guests through a social wedding planning network. OneWed boasts the largest searchable directory of local wedding vendors with over 230,000 vendors nationwide with honest ratings and reviews. Additionally, the site has all the other things you would expect; Blog, online wedding checklist, free wedding websites and ideas for everything from engagement rings to honeymoon planning.

How did you get involved with OneWed?

Most start-ups begin the entrepreneur in the basement or garage, working hard to prove out an idea and then having to pitch it to potential investors to get it financed. With OneWed, the process was reversed. Lake Capital, a local Private Equity firm, had the idea initially and was looking for an Entrepreneur to take the reins. It started as a consulting gig, doing market research, building out the business plan and financial model and presenting to the investment committee. Once they gave the idea a "thumbs up", it became a full time job executing on the plan. We launched the new OneWed in October of 2008 and have not looked back since!

What is the best thing about working at OneWed?

We are taking an existing, established industry (total wedding spending in the U.S. is over $100 Billion / year) and leveraging new technology to turn it on its head. We are constantly looking at how users are looking for information and making buying decisions and providing them the tools to do more of it on OneWed. User contributed Ratings and Reviews are a big part of our vendor database. Allowing the brides to create their own mini social network in WeddingPreParty is leveraging our target market's familiarity with Facebook, and we are always looking to do more!

What kind of people do you think are best suited to work at start-ups?

Working as part of a team at a start-up is very different from working in corporate America. You have to be comfortable with a much higher level of ambiguity than in larger organizations. By their nature, larger organizations have been around longer, have proven ways of achieving well defined goals and a structure to make that process repeatable. In a start-up, you are trying to figure that all out still, so things are constantly changing and there is much less structure and process. For some people this is liberating (me for example...) for others it can be paralyzing. I look for people that seek adventure, like figuring things out and are intellectually curious. You couple that with a willingness to work very hard and a competitive streak and you will have a great fit.

Daliah Saper, Saper Law Offices, LLC

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing: Daliah Saper – Principal Attorney at Saper Law Offices, LLC.

Name: Daliah Saper
Company: Saper Law Offices, LLC
Role: Principal Attorney

What is Saper Law Offices?
We are intellectual property and business attorneys with significant transactional and both federal and state litigation experience. Our most recent court cases have involved trade secret misappropriation, intellectual property infringement, defamation, and commercial disputes. Click on the News tab to learn about our upcoming events and announcements, sign up for our Seminar mailing list, and read what clients are saying about us.

Why did you start Saper Law Offices?
I’ve always been a creative person with an entrepreneurial spirit. When I started Saper Law, I did my research and realized that there weren’t a lot of law firms handling cases for the up and coming rock star, or the new fashion designer, or the start up tech company. Most established law firms were either too big to service businesses in the incubation stage or simply didn’t have the necessary expertise in new media and intellectual property law. Saper Law was born to fulfill that need and has flourished doing just that.

What is the best thing about working at Saper Law?
I am proud of the culture I have created for my firm. We don’t work in stiff corporate offices, wear buttoned up suits, or hide behind a hierarchy of secretaries and support staff. We are accessible and that means clients become friends and vice versa. On any given night I am invited to gallery openings, movie premiers, or new business launches. These activities, in turn, inspire me to be a more creative business owner. Over the last five years, Saper Law has built a reputation for being the law firm for “creative entrepreneurs and innovative business organizations.” You can read about all our awards and acknowledgements at http://www.saperlaw.com/.

What kind of people do you think are best suited to work at startups?
Individuals best suited to work at start ups are those who understand that building a company requires creativity, perseverance, and most importantly patience. Being a leader and a team player doesn’t hurt, and neither does mastering the art of delegating and bartering.

Mark Achler - redbox

Today Gigs at Startups is interviewing
Mark Achler - VP Redbox

Name: Mark Achler
Company: Redbox
Role: VP


What is redbox?
Redbox is a national network of over 20,000 kiosks located in prominent retail stores (like Walmart, Walgreen's, McDonald's, most grocery stores) that rent DVD movies for $1 per night.

Why did you start redbox?
Gee, I wish I did. Actually Gregg Kaplan was the original founder of the company while he was in strategic development at McDonalds.


What is the best thing about working at redbox?
Redbox is completely disrupting the movie industry. It's growing at over 50% year over year. But most importantly our customers love us. We bring a lot of joy into people's lives each and every day.


What kind of people are best suited to work at startups?
Well, you have to be a little crazy. I look for passion, great communication skills, street smarts, integrity and a little bit of fearlessness and comfort with flying without a safety net. Did I mention passion?