20VC: Biggest Takeaways From Working With Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, Why You Should Put Off Hiring For As Long As Possible & Why Seed Stage Investing Is All About Optimising The Top Of The Funnel with Harj Taggar, Founder & CEO @ Triplebyte

Harj Taggar is the Founder & CEO @ Triplebyte, the startup that is changing the world of engineering recruitment by building a new kind of interview that evaluates tech skills, not credentials. They have raised from some of our favourite seed investors and all past guests on the show including Felicis Ventures, SV Angel and Initialized Capital. As for Harj, prior to Triplebyte, he was the first partner brought in at Y Combinator since its founding, where he remained as a Partner for 4 years. Before that he was a YC founder, co-founding Auctomatic which was acquired by Livecurrent Media.

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In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Harj made his way from the UK to YC’s first Partner to now founding Triplebyte?

2.) Question from Garry Tan: What was the most surprising thing when Harj first became a Partner @ YC? What were Harj’s biggest learnings from working with Paul Graham and Jessica Livingstone in the early days?

3.) Remaining in those very early stages, from Harj’s experience seeing so many companies pass through YC, what do startups look like at those very early stages? How does Harj recommend finding co-founders? Test and iterate on ideas? Work towards product market fit? What does product market fit look like to Harj?

4.) How should we approach hiring as an early stage startup? What are the signs of great hires? What does the optimal interview process look like? How can we optimize the on boarding process?

5.) What should founders look for in VCs and vice versa? What were Harj’s learnings on how to be a great seed stage investor from his time with Garry & Alexis @ Initialized??

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Harj’s Fave Book: Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC, Harj on Twitter here!

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