20VC: Faire's Max Rhodes on Three Steps To Hire the Best Candidates, Why Every Company Should Have a Strategy Doc and How To Do It & The Art of Referencing; How to Get the Most Out of Every Reference

Max Rhodes is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Faire, the online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe. To date, Max has raised over $1.1BN with Faire from some of the best including Sequoia, Founders Fund, DST, Forerunner, Lightspeed and many more. Prior to starting Faire, Max spent close to 5 years at Square in numerous different roles including Director of Consumer Product at Caviar.

1.) The Founding Story:

• How Max made his way into the world of startups with his joining an early Square team?
• How did his 5 years at Square impact how he approaches company building with Faire?
• How did Square's approach to product and mission impact Max's thinking?

2.) How To Hire Effectively:

• How does Max construct the hiring process? Where do many founders make mistakes?
• What does Max mean by "deep behavioural interview"? What questions does he ask?
• What are the signals of 10/10 candidates? What are red flags he looks for?
• How does Max determine capability? What literal tests can be done to test for this?

3.) How To Reference People:

• How does Max approach the referencing process when hiring people?
• How does Max make the other side feel comfortable, so they will open up and share everything?
• What have been some of Max's biggest lessons on what it takes to do referencing well?
• Where do many make mistakes with referencing?
• How does Max use an "out of 10" system to determine the quality of the candidate?

4.) How to Strategise:

• How does Max use strategy docs to orient the direction of the company?
• How often does Max write them? How long do they take to write?
• What are the core components of the strategy docs?
• Who else is involved in their writing? Once written, what is the right format to discuss with the team?
• How does Max approach how rigid he is to the strategies outlined? How does he determine whether he should change strategy or stick to plan?

Max's Favourite Book: Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Who: The A Method for Hiring