I’ve known Robby Nathan for years, and my story with him starts with someone I have known and worked with for almost 20 years, Jett McCandless, Founder and CEO of project44.
I was coming up to Chicago for a business trip and Jett asked me if there was anyone he could introduce me to. “I said, do you know Robert Nathan?” “You mean, Robby?” He knew exactly who I was talking about, and he had some pretty specific advice about how I should go about meeting him.
Robby was building a freight brokerage, and Jett said he was a “whale” so I’d have to do what he wanted to do, when and where. He also said that he liked the Cubs, and he told me to get really good tickets, lower level, in the shade for a Friday afternoon ballgame.
So I brought a Ryan McGuinness, who worked with me at the time, and we went up to Chicago to meet with project44, and of course Robby, after Jett made the introduction.
Robby Had a Different Idea About the Fees
So the day I met Robby, we got a tour of his office and I saw something going on there that really stuck with me. Every other week, the ladies in the office could get their nails done as a company culture/benefit type thing. You know how sometimes companies do pizza or free beer friday’s? Robby treated the ladies to nails!
We also went to a Friday, 1 o’clock Cubs game. So we’d had some time together, we’d seen the business, and by the end of everything, I thought we were in a really good place. But, as these things go sometimes, he bluntly stated, “Hey, man, I appreciate it, but I’m not going to pay you any fees. I just can’t justify paying you to find me people in Chicago. Never have, never will.”
Naturally, I was pretty bummed about it. I went up to Chicago, did all of my pre-meeting prep, discussed our value proposition and showcased outcomes we had had with other growing companies. And here he was telling me he would never pay a recruiting fee. He left no room for debate and he didn’t leave me wondering whether or not I should take that as a no. It was loud and clear.
Then I Got Into an Uber
Soon after I got shut down, I got into an Uber heading to the airport to fly home. This was no ordinary Uber ride, though. The woman driving the Uber also moonlit as a reporter writing culture pieces for the Chicago Tribune. So I told her about Robby and what I’d seen at his office. The nails were a pretty interesting thing to be doing at a freight brokerage, and she was somebody who wrote about exactly that kind of stuff.
I put her in touch with Robby, and they ended up doing a piece about the overall culture at his company and of course the nails. I’d gone up there to talk about recruiting top talent and ended up connecting him with a business culture writer for the Tribune.
I’ve always liked that part of this business. We have always worked off of referrals and you get to meet and know a lot of people. Sometimes you meet somebody and realize, hey, there’s someone you should talk to. I could make that introduction, so I did.
Not long after that, Robby went to his CFO. He wanted to take another look at what working with us would cost him, obviously looking for clear ROI.
Now He Wanted a Spreadsheet
He wanted his CFO to budget it out. If we pay this guy KJ all these fees, how many people are we hiring? Where do we break even? At what point do we make money? “How can this increase sales and our valuation?”
Now we were having a conversation I could do something with. I knew how Robby felt about recruiter fees. He’d been pretty generous with his thoughts on that already. But if he wanted to look at whether hiring through us could pay off for the business, I was happy to talk.
Long story short, within about five months, we’d probably placed 40 people with him. He gave us the opportunity, and we ended up doing a whole lot of hiring for somebody who said very clearly that he wasn’t going to use us.
Robby built up the brokerage, sold it, and pretty much retired in Boulder, Colorado. Then he started Envoy, and we had another opportunity to work together.
The Birth of Envoy AI: Robby Had Another Team to Build
Envoy needed a product leader, a go-to-market leader, and an enterprise seller. Robby had a deep network, but he couldn’t give sourcing that foundational team enough time to get it done as fast as he needed. So, he retained us to help him build it.
Ryan already knew Robby from our earlier brokerage work, so I had him on those searches at first. They had an established relationship, and we’d already done quite a bit of hiring for Robby. It made sense to start with someone he knew.
But as the searches got going, Robby and I had a pretty direct conversation about what he needed from us. He was putting an important part of his company in our hands and wanted to feel like he had my full attention.
OK, You’re Only Going to Work With Me
Fair enough. This was Robby’s next company, and he was trusting us with some important early hires. We’d known each other for years, so I was comfortable being just as direct with him. I said, “OK, you’re only going to work with me from now on, Robby.”
I took over those searches myself, and we helped him procure Alex Amorello, Nate Puskaric, and Michelle McBride. We made those three foundational hires across product, go-to-market, and enterprise sales in 30 days.
I’m proud of those hires. Robby had trusted us with a lot of recruiting over the years, and now we were helping him build another business. I was happy to get in there and work directly with him on the people who were going to help him do it.
Robby Was Right to Say Something
I’ve been on the other side of this too. When I was inside project44, I hired some of the best retained search firms in the world and got to study how they operated. You start paying attention to which consultant you’re getting, who they know, and what they’ve done. What were their outcomes?
Some of those consultants spend all their time talking to CFOs. Others know the best product leaders on the Planet. That’s their whole practice. When you hire them, you’re buying access to the relationships they’ve built and their ability to get those people interested in what your customers are doing.
Robby had known me for years, and he wanted to feel like he was getting our best work. I could understand that. We’d come a long way from him telling me he’d never pay a recruiter, and now he was paying us to help build another company. So I got on all of the searches and helped him procure his foundational hires.
If you’re a firm that has the same type of needs, tell us. Begin the search.