About a year ago, software startup InterviewIA launched a platform to help remove bias from hiring. And, in April, the company proved its early traction by raising nearly $2.2 million in seed funding. Co-founders Joe Thurman and UB Ciminieri recently chatted with Colorado Inno to talk about InterviewIA, winner of Inno on Fire's Catalyst category.
What does the early adoption of your technology say about the industry’s needs surrounding hiring? Every conversation we’ve had has acknowledged one thing: hiring is more critical now than ever, for a couple reasons: The pandemic pushed all of us into a new world of work, whether it’s work from home, a hybrid model of work or simply a more challenging work environment. It also pushed many employees to re-evaluate their jobs and their companies, on a massive scale. “The Great Resignation” is a real phenomenon and organizations cannot afford to continue with the status quo of hiring and interviewing if they are to recover. Candidates are in control, they expect more, and they will not settle. If companies do not become more intentional in their approach to engaging and interacting with candidates throughout the hiring process, they will lose out on great talent. You have to accommodate inclusivity and equitable practices, or candidates will simply move on to another option.
What’s been your biggest 2021 accomplishment? After building our interview platform and raising our seed round in just 11 months last year, our biggest accomplishment this year was our pivot to build the self-service model of our technology. Our goal has always been to put our interview platform in the hands of every interviewer. Limitations in the technology early in 2021 prevented us from doing that easily, but our product and engineering teams rallied together to solve for those limitations, and as such we were able to launch a free single-user subscription and very affordable team subscription this month to really make our solution inclusive for anyone wanting to truly connect with talent and ultimately interview better.
Are you in the stage of the life cycle you expected to be at this time? We are actually a bit ahead of where we originally thought we would be as a company and with our technology. The startup lifecycle is anything but linear — we have an amazing team, great investors, and an awesome board of directors, so even at this early stage we are extremely focused on the one powerful thing that we want to bring to the market. Enabling structured interviewing and reducing bias in hiring overall is the huge task that we have chosen to make easier. Meaningful and purposeful interviewing is a core part of the future of work. Ease of adoption and ease of use for our customers is our No. 1 focus.
How would you define your company’s “new normal”? Our new normal is simple: We are a remote-first global organization continuously learning how to support all of our employees with their remote work environments, with their mental health and with their feelings of belonging and inclusivity. Launching a full SaaS platform in the middle of Covid-19 has been an incredible, and sometimes difficult, journey for our team. The only way we’ve been able to accomplish everything in the past 18 months is focusing primarily on our people.
What’s your next big move? Our next big move is the single-user and team version of our product. This is a major step in enabling hiring managers and teams at all levels to adopt our solution. We will be launching over 100 prebuilt interview templates, or "smart scorecards" as we call them, for a number of industries. Small businesses and startups create a lot of jobs and interview a lot of people. Our team version finally allows us to effectively support smaller companies and startups.
What’s your No. 1 piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? You must have a team of people who are 100% aligned on the mission and outcomes of what you are building together. And each person should clearly understand their role in accomplishing your mission. To do that, you and your co-founders or fellow leaders have to have a clear understanding of the required skills for each role and the specific traits that align to success in your company.
InterviewIA
Category: Catalyst
Location: Denver
Top exec: Joe Thurman, co-founder and CEO
