Consulting company Sandbox and IT staffing company Daybreak Solutions, both from Richmond, have partnered to create an IT staffing firm for startups called EarlyBird.
Sonny Gupta, partner at Daybreak Solutions, said his company has historically done IT recruiting for large firms across all levels. The different types of IT positions require different levels of experience and skills. But that situation is different for startups. The first recruit might be a chief technology officer, but that person will most likely play multiple roles, including writing code and fixing the printer.
Gupta and Jill Lemon, a partner at Sandbox, have known each other for years. Sandbox provides outsourced human resources and financial services to startups in Richmond. When Sandbox was launched, the company decided against recruiting IT positions. Often Lemon and the Sandbox team would pass along IT recruiting prospects to Daybreak Solutions.
“The people at Daybreak are really good,” Lemon said. “They were filling the position, but we began to have a little bit of introspection. We started to ask questions and see where the opportunity was. We really identified a need.”
Over the last year, Sandbox and Daybreak Solutions worked together on recruiting several senior-level IT positions. They realized the business model for traditional IT recruiting did not work for startups. Startups do not have the funds of a large business but also need to be guided through the process, the execs said. The position is also often a major hire for a young company.
“Often after we would get off the call with the founder, Jill and I would talk,” Gupta said. “I wanted to know if it was possible to come up with a solution. We started to brainstorm.”
The initial success led to discussions about forming a partnership. They saw a real need to help founders with IT staffing. For now, the company is housed within Sandbox, but the companies can see spinning off the organization as a separate entity.
“We have access to the startups, and a group of companies that need these positions,” Lemon said. “They have the technical skills. They come to the table with the tech recruiters, and we come to the table with companies that need these candidates. That’s kind of where the marriage comes.”
One of the differences between recruiting for a large organization and recruiting for a startup is the job description. Startups are fast-moving and have limited resources. A founder might not know exactly what a senior IT person will do within the company until the hire is onboard.
“A lot of times those types of responsibilities don’t align with the job description of a CTO,” Gupta said.
These people can be hard to identify and hire, Gupta added. Often senior IT professionals want stability and do not want the uncertainty of a startups. They also might have been away from coding for so long that they are not versed in modern programming frameworks.
“You need someone who has the hands-on keyboard skills for today, but also has these strategic vision skills,” Gupta said. “It really does take a special person.”
EarlyBird will focus on the markets where Daybreak Solutions and Sandbox operate, which is mostly Richmond and Central Virginia. The two companies recently completed a recruiting project for a startup in Nashville, Tennessee.
Gupta and Lemon said the joint venture fits well with the current state of the ecosystem in Richmond. Multiple companies are past the early stages and are looking to scale. They need more sophisticated support, and a company like EarlyBird can provide a valuable service, they said.
“This really speaks to our innovation and constantly listening to our clients and what they need,” Lemon said. “If we cannot be the solution, we want to find the solution. In this instance, we were geared to provide it.”