Three Harvard Business School students hope to revolutionize how startups hire employees and direct more young talented people to these small thriving businesses. The goal is to take the model used by Teach for America and The Kauffman Fellows Program for venture capitalists to create a program for college graduates to help them enter the world of startups.
UpStart is creating a highly selective, branded experience to recruit, train and match young talent with high- growth startups where they will learn the skills and build the habits of entrepreneurship. Everyone complains about the talent shortage, but no one is doing anything about it. Human capital management is widely considered a “mommy-track” job, a back?office afterthought, despite the fact that successful CEOs spend the majority of their time on HR issues. This is an area ripe for disruption which UpStart will initially attack by developing best-in-class predictors of which young talent are most successful in high-growth environments.
UpStart will recruit smart, hard-working people with the ability to help founders immediately AND the horsepower to grow with the company. UpStart will train this talent on a continuous basis and provide a summer startup boot camp taught by industry leaders in addition to events during the fellowships for constant learning. UpStart wants to match the best young talent with high-growth startups who value the leverage they can get from high-potential candidates.
UpStart is better than using a headhunter because they are not just playing match maker. The program would not stop once one of their members got a job, instead that employee would continue to work with UpStart to help them get on the fast track up the startup ladder. They retain a relationship with the person.
There will be an application process, but it won’t cost the potential employee anything. There will be an upfront fee for the startup and then a retainer fee if they keep the person.
CEO, Sarah Dillard, believes a lot of people don’t want to work for a no-named startup, but if that person was apart of a larger highly selective network engaged in the startup space than it might be more attractive for them.
Participating businesses would already have their series A funding and have about 25 employees. These startups would be seeking to get more leverage in order to focus on their top priorities. The exact fee structure hasn’t been worked out yet. UpStart is not looking for funding at this time. They plan on running as a for profit business unlike Teach For America.
