Exploring People & Culture challenges for startups. Speech at the Deep Tech School Milan, September 2021

1. People, Culture, Talent & Teams:
A crash course for startups
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Raffaele Mauro
Partner
Primo Space
Deep Tech School
Milan
September 2021

2. Technology
Finance &
Venture Capital
Policy
Innovation
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3. What I’m going to talk to you about today
1. Hiring philosophy
2. Screening and selection
3. Motivation and management
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4. Context 1:
The role of the CEO
Three priorities:
1. Vision
2. Fundraising
3. People & Culture
• Do not delegate final decision on teams !
Everything works if you take care of those pillars.
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5. Context 2:
How tech entrepreneurship works
VUCA
• Volatility
• Uncertainty
• Complexity
• Ambiguity
Þ “We’ll have one job description in future:
creative, adaptive problem solver.”
(Neuraltheory/Vivienne Ming)
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6. Startups challenges and leverages
Challenge: Hiring and motivating highly talented people with but
without the same financial leverage, stability and structured career
progression of a large company / organization.
Leverages:
• Impact and big challenges
• Intellectual stimulation + selected people & environment
• Horizontality
• Flexible time and office conditions + freedom / self organization
• Quick growth
• Stock options
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7. General selection
Key selection criteria:
1. Motivation + Background:
• Demonstrable passion for the specific area of activity
• Potential > Experience!
2. Behavioural Traits:
• Fluid intelligence and flexibility
3. Character / Personality:
• “High ambition with low ego”
• You will develop new technologies, products and strategies to
disrupt frontier markets …. ... and perform data-entry, lift
packages, clean up rooms, etc.
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8. General selection – Senior staff
Key selection criteria (in addition to the previous ones):
1) Reputation
• People look at him/her for advice and mentoring
• Professional network to be leveraged
2) Skills and experience
• Worked at challenging projects
• Built something from scratch
• Growth mindset
3) Autonomy and independence
• Good at self selecting objectives and prioritize
• Good at self management
• Good at managing other people
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9. Tips for sourcing scarce skills in a
competitive market
Failed startups
• Failed startups could have great teams and fail for other reasons
(inexperienced founders, bad investors, market timing, etc.)
• People with startup experience often have the right mindset
and are ok with uncertainty & ambiguity
Peer-recommendation
• Great minds think alike
• Good to offer perks or cash bonuses if an employee recommend
someone than pass the selection criteria
Communities
• Sometimes non-professional and non trivial topics (gaming,
niche programming languages, etc.)
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10. Diversity is key: Why
Pros of diversity
• Ethically desirable (no need to explain)
• Increase performance: resource in complex problem solving
• Increasingly needed for fundraising and ESG regulation
• Reputation and communication
Cons of diversity:
• Hard to manage in terms of habits and communication patterns
• Could reduce speed and “camaraderie” (needs to be engineered)
Pros > Cons !
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11. Diversity is key: How - 1
• Diversify yourself: Explicitly avoid to hire copycats of the
founders (very common!);
• Psychological ecology: Team members compensate each other
in terms of strengths / weaknesses;
• 360° diversity: Differences in professional background, gender,
nationality and ethnic background, lifestyle, beliefs, family,
socioeconomic status, age, communication style, career
objectives, personal interests.
• Please note: Diversity is an indirect by-product of selection
philosophy, not of direct interview questions ! (which could be
disrespectful / illegal / inadequate)
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12. Diversity is key: How - 2
Specific tools:
• Internal communication: (example) Gender neutral terminology,
be carefool about jokes (religion, ethnicity, geographical origin,
etc.);
• External communication: Extra attention, very easy to generate
indignation on social media;
• Participation in diversity initiatives: (examples) SheTech, Girls in
Tech, etc;
• Recruiting from non-traditional channels: (examples) Non-
traditional colleges and degrees;
• Training for the team: (example) Internal workshops on diversity;
• Take inspiration from ESG frameworks and standards
• Collect and report diversity metrics: At least internally. 12

13. Planning
Hiring requires time!
1. Definition of the job requirements
2. At least 2-4 weeks for collecting applications
3. At least 2-4 weeks (months for complex selections) for selection
processes and interviews
4. Communications to selected and non-selected candidates
• Reply to them all. More detailed / personalized feedback for
candidates in the final stage of selections.
5. Time for resigning from other positions, typically 1-2 months at
least.
=> Safe to plan at least 3 months before 1st day on the job
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14. Selection process
Origination
• Proactive search, referral, job posting, self-application.
• Examples: website, LinkedIn, event and conference presentations, posting with
academic career services, alumni networks, etc.
Screening
• Filter weak and untargeted applications
Active Selection
• Typically 3 macro phases are optimal
1. Take home exam: testing skills, judgment and motivation
2. Interviews with peers + technical interview (if pertinent)
3. Interview with manager
Offer
• You are selling yourself as an employer
Onboarding
• Strong predictor of future motivation and performance 14

15. Job Description Example
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16. Examples of Interview Questions
Motivational Questions
• What is XXX (our company)? Why XXXX ? Why now ?
• What did (and didn’t) you enjoy in your academic and professional career ? (be specific about
tasks, courses, people, etc.)
Technical Questions
• Open questions: (example) What is an NPV in corporate finance ?
• Open questions: (example) Why Tik Tok is successful ?
Behavioural Questions
• You are the Country Manger at (well known startup) Italy. What are your priorities ?
• You are the CEO of our company. What will you do in the next 2 years ?
• How did you behave in (difficult or conflictual situation) in the past ?
Values
• Tell me about someone you admire: you would like to be like him/her in 20 years. Could be non-
famous or an imaginary character. Avoid common answers (Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, etc.).
Creativity
• The Zombie Apocalypse is starting in Milan. What would you do ?
Notes:
• Always leave space for candidate’s questions 16

17. Onboarding
Physical
• Physical space in the office
• Computer
• SWAG
Immaterial
• Welcome pack: presentation about the company, clients, org chart,
policies, industry research reports, etc.
• Email and access to IT platforms
Relational
• Welcome email to whole team
• First day of introduction + tentative work plan + lunch with the new
team members + (optional) announcement on social media
• First week: 1-1 with key people and training
• First month: 1-1 outside the core team and assessment
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18. Culture & Values
Culture
• Company DNA, relatively stable in the long run
• Evolves with challenges, failures, growth, internationalization
Not corporate vaporware but something material
• Values as a tool for decision making in ambiguous situations
• Ambiguity force hard choices with no 100% right decisions and
multiple conflictual priorities
• Values and culture make “the wave function collapse”
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19. Compensation
Base compensation
• At startups typically below market standards, in particular in comparison
with consulting / finance / big tech
• Exceptions for scarce profiles (developers), senior managers, scale-up phase
Bonus
• Good for retention and performance
• But be careful about impact on team collaboration!
• Typically for sales and business development positions
Stock options
• At least for early employees and key people
• 4-year vesting
• Option pool: typically 10-20%
Indirect compensation
• Work environment, perks, food, unlimited vacation, training, budget for
conferences and books, retreats, field trips, sabbaticals, etc.
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20. Teambuilding
Retreats (annual, semestral or quarterly)
• Not in the office environment
• Opportunity for socialization and informal exchanges
• Great chance for discussion what is “relevant but not urgent”
Lunches and dinners
• Good also for periodically gather remote workers
Teambuilding day
• Escape rooms, games, etc.
Community work day
• Once per year, 1 full day of team work donated to a charity
• Environmental work, helping fragile communities, etc.
• Sense of purpose, great for teambuilding
Professional Coaching
• If you have resources 20

21. Inclusion
Ordinary decision processes:
• Iterative discussion and feedback loops
---> Easier to spot hidden errors and wrong habits
---> Diversity as an explicit enabler of high performance
• Consensus whenever possible
---> Of course achievable only with small teams
• Ownership of results
---> Key process need to have a single point of reference
Strategic activities:
• Everyone included in discussions about office strategy, evolution
and growth
• Everyone allowed to access budget information
• Everyone included in hiring processes 21

22. Feedback
Quarterly feedback
• 1-1 With manager: motivation, objectives, team dynamics, necessities, training
and special needs, etc.
• 1-1s With team members
Reverse feedback
• Managers should always ask for feedback about themselves and P2P feedback,
non only top down
Yearly career conversation
• At least once per year a safe space to ask questions and discuss career evolution,
performance, job title and pay upgrades
Other considerations
• Performance is collective for most of the tasks, often collaboration > individual
performance
• Feedback should be transparent (no taboo topics) and constructive, with
actionable improvement plans
• Negative feedback always to be delivered in private 22

23. Career progression
Provide growth opportunities
• Careers in startup cannot be linear and clear like
banking/consulting but there are some tools
• Examples: More responsibilities, provide A-Z responsibility for
projects or processes, job title evolution, compensation
evolution, etc.
The more you approach the scale up phase, the more you need
career planning
• Note: If employees leave to start their own startup, consider to
invest in them
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24. Underperformance and firings
Underperformance
• Early detection is key
• Assess root causes and potential external drivers (processes, managerial
failure, team dynamics, etc.)
• Provide clear feedback
• If underperformance endures, improvement plan with clear timeline and /
or relocation to another internal team
Firing (for underperformance, not failure of the company or illegal behaviour)
• If underperformance endures, firing is undelayable
• Try to depart in a good way
1. Do not personalize, a great employee in organization A could not be not
perfect for organization B
2. Help the person to find another job
3. Allow enough time + If needed, severance package
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25. Training
Mandatory training
• Safety
• Industry specific regulation (example: fintech, etc.)
Job—related training
• Virtual and online external classes
• Internal training
• Participation to industry events
Self training
• Individual budget for books, conferences, courses, etc.
Peer to peer training
• Let the people teach each other any kind of skill or passion, even
if not work-related
• Great for teambuilding 25

26. Examples of great team
selection and management
Italian tech companies
• Bending spoons
Italian historical cases
• Olivetti
US companies
• Netflix
US historical cases
• Bell labs
• Apollo program
Finance
• Bridgewater associates / macro hedge fund
Military
• Navy Seals – Team 6
• Israel Unit 8200 for cyber intelligence / cyberwar 26

27. Thank you !
raffaele.mauro@primo.vc
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28. Raffaele Mauro
Raffaele Mauro is passionate about technology, policy and global finance.
He is General Partner at Primo Space, a venture capital fund focused on the new space economy.
Previously he was Managing Director at Endeavor Italy, a global organization that provides access
to smart capital, talent and markets to scale-up companies, Head of Finance for Innovation &
Entrepreneurship at Intesa Sanpaolo and worked at venture capital funds such as United Ventures
(formerly Annapurna Ventures), P101 and OltreVenture.
Raffaele holds an MPA from Harvard University, a Ph.D. from Bocconi and attended the Singularity
University Graduate Studies Program at NASA Ames. Raffaele is a member of the Kauffman Society
of Fellows, the “Young European Leaders – 40 under 40” network, the Aspen Junior Fellows group
and the Young Leaders group of the US-Italy Council. He is also mentor at TechStars and
Mentors4U, member of the executive committee at the Global Shapers Hub - Milano, a World
Economic Forum community, and invested in high growth companies such as Multiply Labs (YC
2016) and Strive School (YC 2020) and Serenis Health.
Raffaele is a publishd author at Harvard Business Review Italy and wrote the books “Hacking
Finance” and “Quantum Computing”. @rafr
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