33 min
The Modern Recruiter #68: Founding a recruiting collective from scratch, Bryan Lee, founder @ Narwhal Search. The Modern Recruiter
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- Entrepreneurship
Hey there Modern Recruiters!
I’m back episode of The Modern Recruiter. Same as with Chris (from last week - listen to it now if you haven't already!), I connected with Bryan after my LinkedIn post to ask for guests recommendations. I was looking for agency recruiters/founders willing to go all-in with the transparency and share everything that's happening behind the scenes.
Bryan accepted to share his journey that took him from agency (TEKSystems), to tech companies (Google, Apple, Uber, Boosted), to a finance company (Volean), to one of the best venture capital firms in the world (Sequoia Capital) to know launching Narwhal Search, a unique recruiting collective/agency. What a ride!
We dove deep into his ongoing journey of building a $5M business, and it’s a story filled with insights, challenges, and learnings!
Here's what was interesting to me in that conversation:
1/ Bryan's approach to Building a Different Kind of Recruiting Agency
Narwhal Search functions more like a collective than a traditional agency. Recruiters have the freedom to work on any of the roles, and they can also bring in clients themselves.
That's something I hear a lot for early stage agencies, and Bryan does a great job of explaining how he managed to do it. Collectives are an easy and natural way to get started.
2/ How Bryan made the jump into entrepreneurship
Bryan's extensive experience, especially at Sequoia, led him to meet a lot of early stage founders. He realized that many of them, especially in early-stage startups, struggled with the same question: “How do we hire engineers?”, and he couldn't help them all while at Sequoia.
Launching his own dedicated business seemed a natural progression. That's a theme that I hear again and again: most agency founders start by doing more of what they already do, for clients they already know. Now Sequoia did intro him to some clients, but most of his early clients were from his network, friends, people he worked with in the past.
It's also Bryan’s advice to his younger self: "Keep throwing myself into the fire. You learn to ride the wave or dance in the rain".
3/ His efficient Growth Story
Bryan’s journey wasn’t a walk in the park. Starting from scratch in June 2022, Narwhal Search has now reached a stage where they are eyeing $5 million in revenue in the next year. How?
1/ Efficiency and priorisation: "being more efficient in how we're running our business" and "making sure we're spending our time with the right clients and customers."
Funnily enough, Bryan's first submittal to a client resulted in his first placement - a good proof of his efficiency!
2/ Automation and AI: "If we don't automate as much as we can, we're gonna get left behind".
I like how Bryan thinks about the future and the impact of technology in the recruiting process - when he asks himself things like “How is my child gonna find opportunity?”
By the way - I wonder if people really read all these long summaries or if they just go to the podcast episode. If you did read until here - please hit reply and let me know! And if nobody replies, maybe it's time I rethink the format :)
Until next time!
Robin
PS: During our conversation we mentioned Jose Guardado AGAIN, so remember to listen to our discussion together: The Modern Recruiter #63: A masterclass to improve your candidates closing rates, Jose Guardado, Partner @Riviera Partner.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themodernrecruiter.substack.com
Hey there Modern Recruiters!
I’m back episode of The Modern Recruiter. Same as with Chris (from last week - listen to it now if you haven't already!), I connected with Bryan after my LinkedIn post to ask for guests recommendations. I was looking for agency recruiters/founders willing to go all-in with the transparency and share everything that's happening behind the scenes.
Bryan accepted to share his journey that took him from agency (TEKSystems), to tech companies (Google, Apple, Uber, Boosted), to a finance company (Volean), to one of the best venture capital firms in the world (Sequoia Capital) to know launching Narwhal Search, a unique recruiting collective/agency. What a ride!
We dove deep into his ongoing journey of building a $5M business, and it’s a story filled with insights, challenges, and learnings!
Here's what was interesting to me in that conversation:
1/ Bryan's approach to Building a Different Kind of Recruiting Agency
Narwhal Search functions more like a collective than a traditional agency. Recruiters have the freedom to work on any of the roles, and they can also bring in clients themselves.
That's something I hear a lot for early stage agencies, and Bryan does a great job of explaining how he managed to do it. Collectives are an easy and natural way to get started.
2/ How Bryan made the jump into entrepreneurship
Bryan's extensive experience, especially at Sequoia, led him to meet a lot of early stage founders. He realized that many of them, especially in early-stage startups, struggled with the same question: “How do we hire engineers?”, and he couldn't help them all while at Sequoia.
Launching his own dedicated business seemed a natural progression. That's a theme that I hear again and again: most agency founders start by doing more of what they already do, for clients they already know. Now Sequoia did intro him to some clients, but most of his early clients were from his network, friends, people he worked with in the past.
It's also Bryan’s advice to his younger self: "Keep throwing myself into the fire. You learn to ride the wave or dance in the rain".
3/ His efficient Growth Story
Bryan’s journey wasn’t a walk in the park. Starting from scratch in June 2022, Narwhal Search has now reached a stage where they are eyeing $5 million in revenue in the next year. How?
1/ Efficiency and priorisation: "being more efficient in how we're running our business" and "making sure we're spending our time with the right clients and customers."
Funnily enough, Bryan's first submittal to a client resulted in his first placement - a good proof of his efficiency!
2/ Automation and AI: "If we don't automate as much as we can, we're gonna get left behind".
I like how Bryan thinks about the future and the impact of technology in the recruiting process - when he asks himself things like “How is my child gonna find opportunity?”
By the way - I wonder if people really read all these long summaries or if they just go to the podcast episode. If you did read until here - please hit reply and let me know! And if nobody replies, maybe it's time I rethink the format :)
Until next time!
Robin
PS: During our conversation we mentioned Jose Guardado AGAIN, so remember to listen to our discussion together: The Modern Recruiter #63: A masterclass to improve your candidates closing rates, Jose Guardado, Partner @Riviera Partner.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themodernrecruiter.substack.com
33 min