This was first published on March 10, 2020.

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Last week saw the end of a series of Presidential campaigns as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar all ended their bids and in doing so, released waves of talented people into the ecosystem who are especially well suited for high growth startups.

The end of each of these Presidential campaigns is the equivalent of a rapidly scaling, massively mission-driven two-year-old startup suddenly shutting down - and for high-growth ventures, it's an incredible opportunity to recruit from a unique talent pool ideally suited to the intense, rapidly shifting environment of start-ups.  

The connection between tech and political campaigns has grown stronger with every political cycle since 2000, most notably with those who cut their teeth in the Obama campaign who now dot every corner of the tech eco-system. As politics and campaigns are increasingly being driven by tech tools and organizational norms, they begin to look, feel and operate like start-ups.  Scaling start ups feel like campaigns given the heightened importance of storytelling, values-led recruitment and operational requirements of scaling across geographies look more like campaigns than anything else. But the campaign to company recruitment connection isn’t always obvious. The delta between Silicon Valley (and other start-up centers) and politics means that both groups too often fail to fully appreciate how transferable and synergistic the skills and talent of one are to the other.  

Here’s how your startup team can make the most of this unique hiring moment - and why it’s in their benefit to do so.

Campaigns: Condensed Startup Journeys

I’ve worked on two national political campaigns, been a co-founder at a cannabis media company, and am currently at a high growth start-up - and can definitely say that political campaigns are essentially startups, in a condensed window of time.

There’s a founder, a vision, and a hope for market fit.  Funds need to be constantly raised, teams need to be built (and fast) and the backdrop is one of constant change, intense competition, continuous communications risks, and general churn on all fronts.  Strategies pivot frequently based on new data points and managing the brand and public narrative are paramount.

Make this work for you:

• Attracting political talent to your start-up and getting internal buy-in from your team requires both groups to better understand how similar the trajectories they go on are, so prepare to make the case for each group.

Massively Mission Driven:

The data shows that a mission-driven team leads to a stronger company.  Individuals who come to work motivated by something more than just their paycheck are more productive, engaged, and 54% more likely to stay for more than five years at a  company (lowering operational and talent churn costs).  They are also 30% more likely to grow into high performers at their companies of choice.

Regardless of political stripes, the overwhelming majority of political staffers and operatives are motivated by the desire to have a positive impact and to be a part of something bigger than themselves -  since the overwhelming majority of campaign work, at all levels is done by volunteers.    

In the run-up to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s historical 2015 landslide win,  I was part of the six-person policy team that created the election platform for that campaign - and with the exception of the now PM (who was then party leader) - everyone else was a volunteer.

For startups looking to solve big problems, create products or services that will have a massive impact on many, and want a team that’s in it for more than the paycheck and benefits  - a talent that has already self-selected as valuing mission and impact over straight money - is an ideal fit.  

Make It Work  For You:

• Emphasize the bigger impact of your product, service, and team - and what the larger problem that you are trying to solve is.
• Focus on the opportunity they will have to make an outsize contribution to issues

“How To Give Away Their Lego”

Molly Graham spent four years at Facebook building the infrastructure and teams to support the culture, compensation, and performance systems that enabled them to go from 500 employees serving 80 million users to 5,500 employees and over 1.1. billion users.

“Give away your Legos” is a viral talk she gives on the framework that team members at high-growth companies need to have in order to grow.  

“The best metaphor I have for scaling is building one of those huge, complex towers out of Legos,” she says. “At first, everyone’s excited...There are so many Legos! You could build anything. At the beginning, as you start to scale, everyone has so many Legos to choose from — they’re doing 10 jobs — and they’re all part of building something important.”

In her talk Graham emphasizes that the people who are really successful at fast-growing companies are the ones best able to adapt to the chaos and uncertainty of adding new people and how adept they are at redefining their jobs on a regular basis.  

Political campaigns are exactly the same way, when the early initial team comes together everything needs to be done and there are equal parts ambiguity and opportunity on all fronts.  

But the success of the political campaign requires fast growth, which means, continual waves of new talent all looking for how they can add value while not crashing into one another.

Just like a high-growth start-up.

Make It Work For You

• Alumni of political campaigns alumni have been forced to become good (or at least better than average) at handling what Molly describes as the ”largely uncomfortable emotions that naturally happen when a team doubles or triples in a short period of time”- something that political teams similarly must do right from the beginning and throughout the journey.   Empower political hires to be able to share this mindset with the larger team.

Super Power Team Building Skills

Cultivating team rapport and collaboration is essential for building the momentum that is needed to grow a startup.   According to a recent study from Rotman School of Management, a key advantage to start-up success is the ability to attract experienced employees who can hit the ground running with new teams.

The importance of this team compatibility to the success of the business underpins the growing trend of recruiters looking to bring talent en masse rather than merely certain individuals.

The nature and structure of political campaign teams mean leaders from this environment are likely infused with a level of HR and leadership superpowers - developed from motivating teams built on volunteer talent and managing down the internal inherent tensions that come from stretched resources, high-stress environments, and multiple stakeholders.

Make It Work For You:

• Start-ups don’t have the time or resources to invest in internal leadership training programs  - and in most cases, what’s ideal for the business is to grow with a lean team for as long as possible.  This makes hiring people with strong people skills a natural fit.
• Regardless of what role you are hiring them for, your political hire a team to manage or motivate.  

As it comes down to the final two Democratic hopefuls now is the perfect time to get your start-up's recruitment plan in place.

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