Startup Notes #2: On hiring and culture at Trell
A few months back, I had an insightful conversation with Neeraj Kumawat, AVP Engineering at Trell for understanding the importance of the team in scaling a hyper-growth startup-like Trell. So I thought of sharing the key takeaways & insights from the conversation we had that might help if you’re a founder or working at a startup.
Trell which is India #1 vernacular lifestyle community app for vlogs targets people living in Tier-1,2,3,4,5 cities.
Out of all the Indians who do online shopping, 30 % are English speaking, and 70 % of people are non-English speaking i.e vernacular speaking. Plus, out of all the content available on the internet in India, 96 % of the content is in English and only 4% is in vernacular language, and Trell is one of the players that are trying to fill this gap.
Even after having 100+ employees, the company have a horizontal culture where any team member can approach any senior team member. Reachability from the lower level to higher-level management should be as quickly as possible.
At Trell, every team member is assigned ownership during sprints (happens every 2 weeks) they make sure that at least 80% things are delivered within the timeline.
According to him, the company should have a rewarding culture, where if one employee finishes the assigned task 2 days before the timeline then he/she can take the next two days off.
Feedback policy- once in every 6 months every senior person usually has 1:1 to with their respective team members. The agenda of this 1:1 is to understand in which direction things are moving, what challenges they are facing (if any) and where they can help them.
Based on their performance in past months they reward the person from the perspective of compensation, promotion etc.
In a hyper-growth startup, the vital thing an employee should have is the ability to take ownership. If a candidate has remarkable skillsets but lack of ownership, then he/she is not a good hire.
The best way to handle a stress full environment is to over-communicate with your senior leaders or team members.
One of the key things that happen in a hyper-growth startup is rapid experimentation. The major challenge faced by them is to assess which experiment matters the most.
This is decided majorly on three key metrics:
Impact of doing x over y
The complexity of x over y
Resources required (finance, human, time) for x over y
Four important factors for retaining good talent is giving them:
A platform to work on challenging ideas
Freedom to make mistakes and fail
Opportunities to learn more
Work they are best at doing.
In case of mistakes and failures, the senior leadership will be there as a Soft cushion behind the team, helping them to rise again.
Big Thanks to Neeraj Kumawat for sharing his knowledge and wisdom.
Thanks for your attention and going through the pointers. I hope you have found it helpful. Feel free to leave out any feedback you have in the comment section below :)
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