all right on this episode with Simon Bartram. We talk about all sorts of stuff, and it is a pretty wide ranging conversation, but it is all good stuff way start off on triple by. We talk about how it works. The founding story. We might hint at a product launch that's coming out in the next couple of weeks, but what we don't know she deep into it and then we need a TV a little bit. We talk a little bit about home schooling. We talked a little bit about the future and what the Internet has done to Credentials Way. Talk about the future of the workforce, honestly, and he was so generous with his time, and I really appreciate him coming onto the Hawk asked chatting with me for about 15 minutes. For your knowledge. Triple bite is little leader stage the most of the companies that come on. There are a couple of years into it,

I guess four years into it. So you have that context, you know, while you're listening. Also, before we get into it, just know if you like the episode, you want to see just any gas. Do you want to say hi to me. I'm on Twitter. You can find me a mat. Underscore, Sherman, that is M a T underscored. S h e r m E n. But you're not here to listen to me promote my Twitter.

You're here to listen to this podcast with that. Let's get into it. All right. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of forward thinking Founders were talking founders about their companies, their visions for the future and how the two collided. Today. I'm very excited to be talking Thio Almond Bartram. It was the co founder and CEO of Triple Date. Welcome to the show. How's it going?

Thank you, Max. Great to be here. It's going well here.

Good. Yeah. It's great to have you on. I remember one triple by first launched. I'm like, this is gonna be a giant company one day. It's such a genius idea. And I'm excited to just talk about how it's going. But for people listening that don't know what triple bite is, Let's just start there. What are you working on? The triple eight?

Yeah. First thing I'm thank you for the for the, um, kind words. She'll bite fundamentally is a hiding marketplace. Eso were service. We connect software engineers with start ups and large company looking to hire saw for engineers. What we do that's kind of distinctive in this space is that we focus on technical evaluation. And so engineers on our platform go through a background blind assessment where we really, you know, measure their pregnant till we don't look at you know what school they went to. We don't look if they've worked for Google, if if you have to be from Stanford, we look at, you know, can this person actually write code and then we match that? You know,

engineers with companies are looking for skills. Um, that that the engineers have and what that means is that we can help candidates who have skills. But you don't necessarily come from additional background to people who are self taught people who maybe you have an associate's degree or gushing from a lesser known university to help those people get access to, uh, top jobs.

So is it one of these things where you had you? So you have this evaluation you have You have something that they prove their skills and one stay. Is it buying Mary and that you passed the test? You now get our resource is or or you You didn't pass years where you can improve or how do you How does that work once they go through the evaluation?

Yeah, that's that's a great question. It's actually changing this week. So I get to announce new future here, a new a new feature here. Throughout most of our history, we have been a single community, and that meant there was a binary pass fail element, and so engineers would apply. And, uh, you know, it was kind of elite group. And so only about 10% of engineers who applied would I would pass, and we would give you give detailed feedback and and and and links to resource is two people who didn't play our bar on your left thumb. Reapply. But it still was this kind of elite community,

and something that we're launching right now is a much broader platform. So as of as of this week, actual bite is going to be a committee for everybody. And so we're gonna detain the the feedback element. So, uh, and engineers anywhere can apply to our platform, do our assessment and get back detailed feedback. You know what you strong in? What you less strong in what our resource is that you know that you can continues to improve. And that's a very rare thing. It's very rare to get honest, unvarnished, you know, evaluation advice. I'm kind of where you stack up.

Um, but our observation is that our previous product was a little bit exclusive and our mission really is too help engineers get job regardless of their background and, you know, to really, you know, live up to that mission and help everybody. We're launching this kind of thing. This much more mass platform that we really think has it has has the potential to fully replace kind of linked in angels any of the other, the other platforms that that that suffering is used to get jobs.

Well, that's really exciting. I and your your mission or vision is something I really align with as not so much on the engineer front, because I'm not engine engineer myself. But I live in Phoenix, and there's a lot of start ups here that are awesome but may not have access to capital if they were living, you know, in in New York, or like a San Francisco, etcetera. So I really I care about getting access to some, Uh, I mean, if you have the skills, if you have it, So I love to hear a little more if you're open to sharing, and apparently this is very new,

and so I don't know how much you're able to have a share, but can you kind of go into What does this community for everyone look like? And instead of it being binary, ultimately, is it kind of like a scale where hey, like you're here and you just need to get, you know, with improve on these things and then you're in or you're just go a little more tea in the detail. For my knowledge,

here I am making an impromptu product announcement. I don't go to too much detail on this

new problem. No worries,

Um, releasing next few weeks. And I think our ah, the product and marketing person would be upset if I if I scooped them. But I could talk about the philosophy behind it. Yeah, you know, the the philosophy This is the biggest. The biggest misses. The biggest miss misconception we had going in was that engineering skill was a single access, right. There were people who were skeleton. There's the people who are not skill engineers and our job as a, you know, as a hunting platformer. The company hiring for ourselves is to find the school engineers. And what we found,

as we launch pretty early on, was that it doesn't work that way. The and the that. There's a lot of noise in the process of beyond noise Cos really are looking for very different things. And I remember there is There's an actor in my mind from early in a couple of really illustrates this. We have a candidate and a platform that candidate interviewed at Apple Apple is that it is a kind of ours. I'm an interview at box there, another client and, you know, got me back in that company. And, you know, Apple absolutely loved by that point. We were very small. I was getting from every customer, right,

And the mandroid apple. Do you know said this is a you know, 505 no messages I've interviewed in months, you know, we're definitely making him an offer. And then the engineering Harry Measurement box said, This person was terrible. You know, we had to walk them out. You know this this this. This undermines my respect in your process And just that discrepancy the same candidate. And what it came down to was Apple in Box Kay about different things. They're looking for different skill sets. And so it really is the case that engineering ability isn't. It's not binary. It's about the there's there's this whole raft of skills you can have and someone who might be a fit for one company.

I may be very poor fit for another company, and I think a big problem in the industry is that there's very little transparency is really believe. There's very honestly, very, very little self self awareness of this company's tend to not really quite be aware of how the skills they look for a different from other companies, everyone tells themselves, were we hired the best engineers and they assume that means the same thing to them. It's just everybody else, but it does it. And so what we've done here, in our position as a middleman, getting kind of unbiased data on the Harry marketplace. What able to do is work with ah much broader swath of candidates who have, you know, who are strong in this area and recommend them to companies that look for those skills and not really coming here where they're gonna fail. That's gonna be,

you know, dramatic for everybody involved. And so that's that kind of focusing more on the different still profiles different candidates, that that's the core approach we're taking to the kind of more, more mass market product.

That's awesome. I love that philosophy, and I'm looking forward to seeing the product announcement the next couple of weeks and check it out. Sorry for entreating there. It didn't realize

no problem. I could I could I could keep my mouth shut. So

no problem. Yeah, no sweat, no sweat. So let's talk about a little bit on the other side of the marketplace on the people hiring you Thio for your developers. So would you say you position Well, I don't even want to put words in your mouth. Lee, how do you position yourself to an apple thio? Usual to someone that wants to use you or your recruiter or something. Something

else? Yeah, um way. Use this phrase hiring platform. Um, and I thought the newest phrase, Um, yeah, we don't typically use the phrase recruiter or agency just because those those established place with a lot of negatives that we're trying to overcome but functionally our relation with companies is relatively similar. T that of a gigantic companies come to us to help hire. What's different is they don't come to us to hire a single person, a classic agency. I'm trying to hire a security engineer. I'm struggling because you know, everyone's side street engineers for many of them. And so I go to agency. Were Maura about,

you know, our our product is better with scale. So to really capture the value of company needs to be hiring, you know, 10 15 2025 engineers throughout platform over the course of a year. And so we were kind of Maura about bread and butter, helping improve the core hiring final for companies and less about helping them higher, specific, hard to feel rules.

That's so smart because it's obviously helped. I mean, if you kind of position like that and it worked, which obviously it is that's going for the bottom line. See, we're on the top line like people use you more and it's good for business. I'm curious when you first started, um, with you when you first started triple by, Was that how you ah, positioned it to cos you And I guess if you don't mind sharing that, how did you get the first couple of customers? I'm on board with you and what you learn from those interactions to enable you to take us to get to the scale that you've gotten to?

Yeah, um, that's one of the hardest parts of a business like this, right? We are a We're a two sided market place with a lot of trust required on both sides. And so the Crocs the problem is that are you know, if you have company on platform, then we're not offering great value to candidates. And, you know, if candidates on platform not offering very much valued companies and getting over that hurdle, um was really hard. And if you look back at the history of companies have tried toe start up in the space, this has been the great film. Anything that keeps most those companies from from succeeding. And, you know,

we don't have actually very magic answer. I think we have a lot of a lot of luck in a lot of context. You know, this is my second company. I started previous company Social Cam. It was ah, you know, success. We require about a desk. My my cofounder Hard Cigar was a partner in my company there. And so those relationships meant that we had a pretty large table of companies that will give us a shot Day one. And then that, in turn, meant that we had a, you know, launch announcement with name brand companies that,

you know, I could go back on hacker news and drive in, you know, 1000 candidates they won and that, you know, it certainly boost up exactly that that's totally solve the problem. But that that got us over the hump where I think most people in this base have have died in the past.

So that's actually a really interesting point that I wanna don't drive into. So you have it. What? Maybe like a investor, we call like a unfair advantage through your network and through, you know, through who you knew. And that's not something. This is a It's hoping that when I started my company public, which I'm not actively working on anymore, I had no idea this was a thing like, you're supposed to have these when you start. Cos I started on two credit cards and I hustled and I found it to A to a place that was good. You know, I didn't make it. No, that's okay.

But like you're saying no, like, you're not trying to make it happen, even playing field with your competitors. You're trying to start something where you give that this the the chips stacked in your favor. You kind of talk about that and how founders should be thinking about when they want to start a company, how they can stack the chips in their favor.

Yeah, I think they, like, pressed a bit of a contrarian view. I think if you have this, it's awesome, and I think it's played a key role in my company. But most people don't have this or don't have it in as clear away as as we did in this case, Um and so I don't Yeah, I put that as one of a number of things on the list to vibrate when thinking about a startup idea and probably below. You know, I think I think Number one that list is is the EOE isn't your idea solving an important problem free people and is something that you find exciting and motivating says that you want to work on it for the next 10 years. I think those though that's 80% of the of the issue, and then some portion of the remaining 20% is Do you have an unfair advantage? And if you do that's great, it's gravy. And if you have a idea that's really important,

that's that's, you know, solving a problem people and that you're enthusiastic to work on. So in our case, I think all three of these things lined up here, Um, but it's hard enough to check Box and B. I don't think people should be insulting. You know, the upside, the head too much over, over, over boxy,

you know? Yeah, that's I mean, you're totally right and that, um, like I I we got two from 0 to 25 km. Are are just from cold emailing people on the bay like, Yeah, I know. And that's obviously like what I Well, I think one of the biggest lessons I learned in my startup journey so far is like, hustle is great, but unfortunately, hustle doesn't scale your own hustle won't scale. But your hustle will get you to the get you to a point and and if you if you have the hustle on your and maybe you're a spurned enough, you're able to do a lot with nothing I think is a good like mist has to see if you're you could be a founder.

Yeah, I might phrase that house get too far enough that execution and just the quality of product could take over. That's the That's the goal anyway,

Definitely indefinitely. So I think what would be interesting to talk about for the people listening that may not have the may not have heard of you before just to get a little bit of context. Your, um you've been working t talk about when this company was founded and, uh, just a little bit on the journey to where you got today. Just to give a little bit of a timeline for the listeners.

Yeah, so we started about 4.5 years ago. Um, I ve just free cofounders myself. My two co founders, um, and right now were about 75 people. Let me talk about kind of our mission. What kind of what motivated me is that Is that topic

for you met? Yeah, that's very interesting. I would love to hear the y. Yeah.

Yeah. So what? This This is my second company. First company was Social Cam, Um, started in 2010 with ah, Michael, Sybil and demons on NewsMax. Mayko found her here as well, and ah did that for three years. Got acquired by auto desk, and then I took a year off. Um, and I thought really hard what I want to do and what motivated me was finding another type idea that had a type of social impact. So Santa can was a social video ap and and that was exciting. We had we know what we had, you know,

tens of millions of users. And there's a lot of lot of national growth in this time that comes from that. Ah, but I really want to find something that was important to me. So she didn't never take that second box of me That that, you know, I feel like I want I found this deeply exciting. I want to work on it for 10 years and so true. But is that company for me and what motivated me? Waas This problem's problem of hiring, finding hirings offer engineers and the fact that I kind of acutely felt both sides personally, um, I had I had, ah, distinctive style that I grew up on a hippie commune and I was home schooled. How?

It just was awesome childhood last time, running around the woods with wild kids, and I did not her medication at all. My parents were great job teaching me, Got into programming. Um, but it makes it hard to get into college and you have no documentation, and they ended up graduating from ah, pretty poorly ranked state school in New York. Um, and let's just say they're you know, Google didn't come to my my career fair. Um, my school right. I don't think there's a single company that my career fair. And so I graduated and it was just me sending in resumes.

And for months I would just send in resumes and nobody would just never hear back and single if you booked and just the Yeah, it's one of the one of the lowest time of my life on this list mix, but all this time in the university and then just not not being given a chance to show the skill, Um, and looking a job at Twitch when which was, ah, small startup they had. They had a coding challenge, and I I did their coding challenge. And then I progressed the ranks there pretty quickly. And then, you know, you and 1/2 later I was I was leading a small team there and hiring for my team. And suddenly I was on the flip side. I was getting resumes in and making you got calls. Okay.

Who, Who, who, who? Who is worth my teams? Time to bring in an interview and I saw the guy broke. You believe they would do poorly and I saw the other incentive, right? It's not prior to that. I Did. You do that? Oh, people irrational there, judging me unfairly based my credentials and then suddenly being other side saying no credentials do correlate, you know, as a population having a degree from MIT from over there that the politicians who have degrees from top schools as a group are better than people who don't.

If I'm a hiring manager was desperately trying to save my team's time and bringing candidates, it's not necessarily irrational to begin candidates preferentially who have, you know, elite schools on their on their on their resumes. Um, and I you know, we know what the solution is. The solution is data size. The solution is to gather data and find signals. Okay, you know, there's this credentials have this downside. They correlate with someone being better. But pool of people who don't have credentials is so enormous that if recruiters act on those that signal at least people out and ultimately blinds the recruiters through this pool of very talented kids could have hired otherwise. And so the motivating idea, actually, But it was to say, we're gonna do the work. We're gonna gather the data we're gonna interview thousands of people and we're gonna build late is that that allows us to build a fundamentally more accurate process that ignores backgrounds and looks at people's actual skills.

Would you say that you're building a credential with triple pay triple by credit, just in a new type of credential?

Uh, yes, but I don't. I want to avoid the connotation that we're just replacing. You know, we're doing something more important and more fundamental than just launching a new M I t. And create a new potential. That function is just like the mighty credential in that our mission is directly measuring skill and providing access to our systems of one of our one of our kind. Of course statements. Here is access. We're always going to allow everyone anywhere in the world who can go on a website fare level, access to our assessment. That's not true with M i. T. There's all of these layers of access based on what school did you go to know how rich your parents, you know, what's what's your gender with your skin color?

These things end up erecting barriers, and it is far from the case that everyone with talent has hasn't, you know, equal, even shake at showing a mighty their skill. And so our goal. We think a lot of social importance in I can't even control by carrying much of the same signal that a candidate you know, having a mighty degree carries. But there's this important difference of access

CIA. The listeners air probably like shaking their head right now because they know that I'm obsessed like I literally so the thought of a credential and with the new type of credentials that are being built like Why's dilemma becoming a pioneer tool fellow being a beginning to trip like these things, they're, I don't know. I haven't put my finger on what ecosystem there they're creating, but I feel like it's treating the new school of credentials that are gonna matter. This might be against how you feel about it, so that I said it's totally fine. But, like, not replaced the old school but just other credentials to refer to, which makes me so excited as someone that really aligns with so many of the topics that that you're saying, I'm curious. Do you? Do you? Do you see other types of these types of credentials like the pioneer, the triple by the Y? See what else do you see? And you see correlation between them and see almost in ecosystem forming a new type of potential of your thoughts on that,

Yeah, I couldn't be more wrong. It's a great way to look at it. And, you know, I think you can see Look at that Comes on the market force to understand why why this need to exist. So traditional potentials are simply not keeping up in volume with the with the world. So, you know, in the space of software engineers, there is on the order of 50,000 new CS grads of Year in the U. S. Of course, most those come from, you know, state schools and colleges and and, you know,

schools that don't confer much of her credential. But even let us, let's ignore that. Second, assume that there's already represented M. I. T. And Stanford, right? There's 10 X that the demand for new open positions is half a 1,000,000 right? So there's 10 times the demand for new start fresh news as there is credentialed supply. And you know that that gap is the reason you see, you know, land a school and and MOOCs and this kind of really exciting space of alternative schools and ah, big piece that's missing from this kind of schools is the credential piece, right?

What's the What is the, you know, credential izing mechanism that, you know, hopefully in a positive, sometimes negative way provides access to the best students. You know, what is that system for? People who are self taught people who are coming from all these these alternative schools? And so I think I think what we're doing and, you know and also this other kind of other other things you mentioned is stepping in to help provide some of that credential infrastructure around all these alternative, fast moving, you know, brand new ways. People learn skills,

something that you said that something you said gives me a thought. And it's it's something I heard advice on Twitter or somewhere like Twitter that it good in good investors triangulate the trial, listen to signal. And if they hear about someone in this category than the hearing, a totally separate group, etcetera there like, great. Like this is data. So I can make an investment decision and I kind of think these credentials almost like as a podcast. I was looking for interesting people. I almost used these new credentials to triangulate to where It's like, Oh, they were crying here. There were also this. They also have these mutual friends like, Oh, I have a almost like either.

I have a model in my head of who you you might associate with, and that's you know, that's right. That's like, That's like a right way to think about it. But so far, it's served me well. Andi, help me find really interesting people. I don't know. I'm interested in exploring the torrential world. It further

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of things. I think I think there is a bit of a danger there with all connected, which is that if you know overconfidence and false negatives. So you know, I encourage you to be open to the fact that there are probably very interesting people for your podcast, too. Don't necessarily. You know, how have those of the indicators that you found to be I've been in the

past? Well, so what? What what's what's interesting? So I totally agree with you and I. It's interesting because I probably wouldn't like it if someone else was me. It's this podcast host and I was using the same like the same way that I'm looking for guests. That we're sorry this person was, like insane, right? I was I probably wouldn't get. I probably wouldn't get on the show. I'm not a pioneer on mother s t. I s u grad. Like I'm on family average on paper, but I don't think I'm an average first about on paper on average, which is what you deal with a lot.

You know, you're trying to separate who actually has averaged verses, like not but the thing that the potential that I think is the biggest one that I've learned is who Who's Who do you associate with? Not necessarily like disease or anything like you smart friends, like, Even if you haven't accomplished that much yet. That's cool. You're these people think you're cool enough to be friends with. So credential almost in that sense. And that might be thinking about an issue like, uh, kind of a weird way. But I do think about the credential stuff a lot, and it's ah, it's just, uh,

uh interesting. Yeah. Um uh, yes. So one thing I want oh, I want to dive into is the fact that you're when you're entering a question about 10 minutes ago, you said you were home school. Um and I have I don't think I've had the chance yet on this broadcast a gm out about this type of future of end or just education in general. I was talking about, like, land a school type stuff for, like, higher level. But I've got t m a little bit on on just home schooling and K through eight education, love. Think you're like,

Why? How do you How do you like home schooling as a kid? And, like, just what do you think about, um Yeah, I guess. How do you like it? What was your experience like, if you don't mind sharing?

No. Happy. Happy too. I don't wantto outside of my personal expenses. Not a particular experts in this field. You point more than I do. Um, actually, i'll be through high school. So So I You know, I my first time in a real classroom was was freshman year of university. Um, it's a complicated topic and have pretty mixed feelings. It worked extremely well for me. I had a very happy childhood, and I had much more time to pursue personal interests and side projects. Um,

then then most most kids. My parents followed a very unstructured construction. Homeschooling, which which means that I didn't have classes. I was basically not forced to do anything that they fired me. Resource is, and you took me to lectures and bought me books, but I didn't have problem sets or papers that would do or anything of that nature. I just have one of the extreme liberal end of home schooling, and for me that allowed me to go super deep into into woodworking or the whole. You know, I went to work with a wooden boat bill there for four hours a week for four years during my, uh, my teenage years and you learn about blacksmithing and you know, all these really interesting hands on skills. I got the programming,

you know, in that same time frame and would spend, you know, 2030 hours a week programming be taking part of online programming communities in a way that I wouldn't have been able to if I if I had to go to school. Um uh, many of the things I was also wanted somewhat unique situations like hippie commune and so There was a kind of natural community of a bunch of other kids of varying ages right around me, all doing the same thing. And so I didn't experience any. I had a very social environment kind of by default. Um, yeah, it was a huge positive for me. Um, I do know a lot of people who were home schooled, you know, partly.

And my communion also, just just, you know, I talked about this, and so I meet people, and my experience is near the knew the top. There are many people from school that have have have a less positive perception of it. And I don't involve that. You know, there's my parents kind of elected me. I mean that. No, no, you know, if you could be here because of this, my parents don't know if you like,

but, you know, on paper, they kind of let me whatever I wanted to do and didn't force me to learn to read or write o r do math. And that worked out great for me, but doesn't always work out great. So Yeah, I'm very conflicted.

Yeah, I totally understand that. Thanks to thanks for sharing your experience. The reason The reason I asked, you know, as you know, is you know, and as I think the listeners know, I think you all know. I don't know if I've actually mentioned it before, but I I'm working like in this space with the company called Brenda, which is kind of like a middle ground between home schooling and public school. And I never really thought I never put much attention towards education for K through eight or K through 12 but that he's been like, what happens after high school? What happens up there, high school? But I just,

uh, after after being on this team for a bit, hopefully for quite a long time just makes you think about it. I feel like what everyone needs is just the right model for them. And for some, that's gonna be a public school for someone's going to home school if someone's gonna be printed. But it just seems like there's this one model that's pushed it for everyone, and it doesn't work for everyone. Didn't work for me like I didn't get good grades. But I'm like a smart dude, you know, and it's just like I don't know, like, do do do do you think Obviously you're more so in triple by and in that world. But do you spend much time thinking about it? Future of education?

Um, and it's not that, I guess. What What friends do you see in the world of that interest? You Right now

I went to the first question. A lot of friends. There's a lot of overlap. So we're in the assessment space assessment credentialing, I would say. And there's a lot of natural convergence to assessment and an education. Um, and so it is something we think about, Ah, lot. We're also always entirely focused on higher education or people who are self taught during a similar kind of similar phase in their their education. So I earlier to case something I don't know very much about, Um but yeah, what friend is doing on this idea of providing I some middle ground between very unstructured. Have what I experienced. We've worked out great for me but does have these downsides and then the kind of Maur a school where it can't be personalized and where where there's some something, there's a little bit of a lowest common dominator effect in terms of progress,

speed and kids just, you know, spending a lot more time and not having free time. And so the idea of fighting some middle ground there, I'm fine, really compelling. And again, you're probably more fun with this state. I am, I think, is a pretty strong trend. That direction, I believe the numbers have have, are growing very quickly. Is that correct?

Yeah, it is. I think I think, the trend, and it's more quality, that thing quantity than quantitative. But what I find I talked to parents all day like that. I'm growth, which means I talked to parents that are born. I enroll their kids. I'm pretty much like front lines for Brenda right now, and they all just one of you. The best thing for their kids and, uh, is fascinating to hear the emotions that come out of them that, you know from both ends, like the factory,

how public school has hurt their child or home schooling hasn't worked out either. So for me, I just think there's finally some Optionality and parents are just learning about it. Almost like the auction, Ality is having its own ask Earth and that we are. We're just helping people realized lately there's a middle ground somewhere on. Duh. I'm touched every time I talked to, apparently like That's emotional because it shows you know how important this work is, And I I would have benefited from it myself. As a kid, I was kind of a crazy kid, you know? And I think a lot of kids are Yeah,

and I believe the outcome data. I think there's not a huge is that here. But the outcome data for home school students is pretty encouraging. There's no evidence that home schooling leaves kids at a a long term academic deficit with regards to more additionally schooled peers. I believe

Yeah, I mean our own data, which is not substantial at all. We've been We've only just started about two years ago, but it looks good for for the eighth graders, I went to high school like it's looking good. It looked like indefinitely, uh, you know, do well on the test but also thrive in the ways of school. Doesn't really track. Yeah, so what's Ah couple. Actually, I have a couple of questions within within triple bite and then a couple of questions kind of unrelated. You, you know,

it's been it's been a few years. It's been a journey you've had, you know, a good amount of success. But this also isn't your first your first rodeo as you've mentioned. So I'm trying to frame this question, right? But when going into start triple by it, uh, and growing triple by, are there things that you came across that you learned that you didn't necessarily? You thought you got it, But actually you didn't. And it's just another learning opportunity. And let me hear some of those moments, if you have any.

Yeah, um, the biggest one was this point. I already mentioned about you. The diversity just of skills. How kind of high dimensional skill spaces. It's not about one access good, bad. It's about this cued range of skills and people make everyone is strong and seven week another. So I think that's the single biggest, um, thing we didn't know going in. Um, there's also a lot of kind of more mundane details about, um, just team structure and and, I don't know,

as as an engineer, um, I prior to bring this company I wasn't super sympathetic. Sounds it sounds bad, but to recruiters, you know, the recruiters, the people who were asked me on linked in there they're not, You know, they're not, you know, I don't know. I didn't It didn't go much beyond that. And we kind when he started thought, Oh, well,

we're gonna We're gonna build a product is so good that, you know, coming won't need recruiters bacon, bacon, You know, they're they're they're hiring manager and go straight to us. And that was arrogant and did not end up being the case, right? Recruiters are doing an important fundamental task at the company, and we realized probably six months in that that no, like, you know, she'll bite is actually at a company. Our users are the recruiters there and that we have to build two, which helps them do their job. You know better.

We have to talk to me after you to listen to them. You know, we have to augment, you know, they're they're this important job of making, you know, called bad decisions and thinking about, you know, balancing, you know, balancing the team and that by our goal, is not to replace them. Our goal is to provide detail talking assessment data so that they can find more diverse candidates they might not have field found, you know otherwise and free up there times you are no better job focusing on on culture. Add on pitching companies on pitching candidates on making that whole process run as smoothly as possible.

And another question that I just thought of Is there a So you're pretty much mastering the identity identification of talented engineers. You they come through your system, your test and then come out The other star look great. Like this person's a genius. We got we got ah, you know, find them a company. Is there like, are you Kansas publisher assets in the beginning? But, you know well, from that point, do you just tell the tech companies Hey, Tad, cos we got someone that has the triple my credential. If you if you want to frame it like that, um,

here you go, like, have at them like and then they just flock. Do you work with recruiters to then get uppers and placed? I guess what happens once you find that person. Obviously have hundreds of these people are thousands. But when someone passes the test, what's their life after that? How does that work?

Yep. Um, so we make a pretty big ask of couples in our platform, and that is that they trust our technical assessment and don't do their own technical screen up front. So companies agree. The face uses fast tracks of companies agreed to fast track it on our platform straight through their final round interview. And so the experience McCandles point of view is, ah, little more red carpet than a different process. So I can't be applies to troll bite. They go to an assessment and they then see a list off all the companies on the platform. They're interested in them, and they get to decide, you know, from those those those company which is which of these might interested in and, you know, you know,

from the ones they select. Then we have a phone call, and that's a non technical phone calls. It's not. It's not technical screen. It's a it's it's it's kind of AA meeting. Greet with a recruiter, typically, and after that phone call, if both the kidney and company want to go forward, then it goes on to the final round on the interview, and the company does their radio technical assessment. Mom, you have to determine if that can be a good fit for their role. So it's not too similar way. The platforms,

we manage it. And so it's It's a little bit lower friction for both the good and the company. Honestly, um, it's a bit faster. Um, and you know, there's this. There's this this this important detail of skipping the technical assessments upfront

and it are you the triple A bite eventually in division, doing this process for different verticals a k like not necessarily just technical already are trying Thio, uh, own the technical recruiting. They're not recruiting but owned the technical world first, and only that I guess it was just looking more forward. Do you want to expand the other verticals?

I'm not in the immediate term, so I think the world really needs it. I think what we're doing this I think this idea of doing skills assessment and help people get jobs regards their background. It's probably more needed honestly and mother to help you doing it for nursing, for teaching that would be, you know, really important. I would love to do it a start. As I'm sure you know, just focus is absolutely key and, you know, and you're hiring, isn't it? Is that huge vertical? And so from a company perspective, Um, I think the right move is just a pretty laser focused on engineers for the next few years.

And I hope that by that point, people will have launched companies doing somewhere thinking trilobite for nurses, trilobite for teachers. I would love to see that. And if that means she's still there When? When? When? When we get to that, you know. Ah, size where it makes sense too. Diversify Focus. I would absolutely love that.

And the last kind of topic I want to touch on before we get to the final couple of questions is actually focus on and how to think about focus as a founder. But actually, specifically, do you have any frameworks on how to allocate? Focus when you're looking a for, um lately, when you have a start up? Obviously you you're working on that. Start up and you can't really go off and you can't start something else. You fool. You do what's best for that start up. But there's a lot of people, and I'm honestly in this boat. But I got my job friend up. It's dope. I love it, you know it's going to be there for a while.

But I also got my nights and weekends, which I want, which I want to spend on stuff. And but I don't actually, like have that thing and like, but now everything looks attractive. Leo, I should do that. I could do that. I could do that. Second, that you have any frameworks for knowing how to allocate focus that yields the best. Like I guessed outcome, which is something that works and maybe, like, makes money on the side. Do you think about focus?

Really interesting question, I don't

know, But also you could also apply it Thio. You could also apply it within triple by how you allocate focus where you might wanna work on this feature. But actually, it's you know, you could think about focus however you want. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on how you think about it.

Managing focus is one of them is a very important thing. Um, but I think it's actually a little bit easier internally because there isn't agreed upon goal. No, my co founders and I are employees were trying make thing happen. We have a mission. We have a goal. We have KP eyes, we have metrics. And so it becomes, I think, a well formed question of what's the best martial use of my time. I have a marginal our to spend. You know, Right now you have just called from from from 3 to 4. What I work on on that because you know that there's a There's a lot of options that becomes at least a well formed question. I think about it.

You know, I have a process I have. I have to do lists. I audit my time. Use every we can try to make sure that the the usage was growing right. There's a thing I focus on, but the question is well formed. Um, I think the question in terms of your personal time is harder. I many people are not clear about their personal goals, So I I at this point my life I've pick my stuff is my is my number one person of golden. So I put my time into it and and and, you know, those things lined up. If if I had nights and weekends free to function of the things I think I would try to think really hard about what's my goal? Is it too?

Is it to be fated? To be happy is a utilitarian because my personal happiness, um, is it, you know, regret memorization, is it? Yeah, whatever it is and then and then kind of you to similar framework. But I am done picking a great answer for me.

Oh, no, that's all. Get, um, I I like how you think about every ant's every hour. Like, great. I have some time now. Where do I put this time? Because I feel like a lot of people, including myself. E don't think about time like that all the time. Just like I got an hour. I'm gonna play Oculus quest. And even though I could play it this evening after my work, I'm gonna you know,

and it's just it's just being intentional about your time as an asset is ah is probably a very practised tohave. Um, one thing that they the one thing that I um, for me. If I If I was to say, I'd like I'd like a start up, it would be this podcast. So I kind of like whenever I have ideas, don't do this to do that. I'm like, No, it's like invite someone else under the show just for the sole activity. It of not seeing the shiny object and acting on it literally for the extra size. Um, but yet I appreciate that answer. So I have two more questions for you before we before we wrap it up.

The you know you're working on, obviously troubled by is working, and it's working well and you're scaling, um, and and you want your new products and it's exciting. And I love to hear 10 years from now or 20 years from now when triple bite, you know, this big it can get, you know, You know what, as big as it is because you can think of what? What does it look like? What does it do it for the world? And, uh, I would just love to hear that vision a little bit.

Yeah, I think it's like it's a continuation of the kind of the line drawn by by the mission, right? Our mission is to help engineers get job to collect their background. And if you draw that line forward, you get to a place where the world is opened. Education in all of these forms, right? You can you can choose to expend four years attending, you know, Stanford or M I t o r Connecticut state or any any use for it anywhere. I mean, that's a totally valid way to have a great experience and ghetto, you know, social life and and learn lots of things, including, you know,

programming. Um, but you can also, you know, taken online boot camp made with an income share agreement. And you can also get involved in a video game mod community and, you know, geek out about about about about about, you know, counterstrike and and and and and, you know, whatever it is. So all they're all these alternative, all these paths And there isn't this value doesn't for one is takes preference over the other and everybody, regardless, their background can get jobs to have the skills.

Right? Um, there's a word. It's a complicated with member talks in my throat out there. It's a complicated word that word has come. It has has fallen into disrepute recently for legitimate reasons, right, mainly around people using claiming the system's meritocracy when there are these obvious, entrenched advantages for certain groups. But I'm a big believer in tryingto fight for the ideal that represents right there is, you know, so the road Silicon Valley is not a meritocracy. That's totally clear. But our goal is to move in that direction into a world where people have opportunities, basin, the skills they break.

Um, and I think achievable. I think we were doing it is just flat out better for everybody. It's better for a candidate because they don't have to, you know, get access to want to spend all this time focusing on I presentation, right. You can focus on just having the skills, all right. And if you have those skills, you get these opportunities on the better for companies, you know they have access to the full range of people. No, I I I there's a ah ah, wait. Like frankness is the observation that you know,

human human potential human ability is uniformly tribute across across people from different backgrounds. but that accessed opportunity to demonstrate that in that ability is not and so are our mission, really is to change that is, to provide, you know, increase the width of distribution of access to its opportunity. That's our goal, and I think achievable. And, you know, our vision is a world where that's the case where people get jobs based on the skills they have.

That's a vision I can get behind. I'm all about opportunity and access, so so that's awesome. But obviously, to make that happen, you're gonna need a lot of help along the way. And you got all these people listening to this broadcast. You know, the question is coming. The question. The last question I have for you is how can the forward thinking founders, community it, help you? Is there someone that you want to reach, is there and ask that you have. But now is your time to make any ask for the people listening?

Yeah, let me. Well, the simple answer. Just good care giver. Probably drive your software engineer looking for a job. We work primarily in Silicon Valley area, New York. L. A in Seattle is looking for a job. Um, you know, Come, come, come, come. Give our give our side to try If you're coming looking,

hire engineers. You know, tribe. I would love to love to speak to you. We have We have access to a great pool. Diverse engineers, very talented. Um, more specifically, that that's more than ad, not an ass. And then they can ask. We are looking to hire a editor for a writer for a block. We've been logging about that. So have you go about our business of running that just this This company generate tons of really insightful data. We get kind of inside view off the hiring process at,

you know, a huge swath of companies you know, big names, not not. You know, not just what's going on and on about how they look with the difference is how how they vary. Um, and, you know, I've been very occasion running, blogged, posting this data. They tell you to really well, get a lot of a lot of a lot of use, and it goes to hire somebody. Probably my journalism background.

I would actually love if they could be on location in the Bay Area, but It is also an option. Really. Be a full time writer working for the block. And if that sounds interesting, um, shoot me now, but I'd love to speak.

That sounds like an awesome position If if if anyone wanted Thio, uh, if the writer was listening and it sounds like the perfect fit, I guess last question is, where can they find you online? Where can they find ship Will bite half. Then they get in touch with you. Um, if they're compelled by the vision and you know they're interested in what you're doing?

Yeah. Truman email. Any reason happy? They're happy. Too happy to speak. My email is arman actual bite dot com. That's a m m o n actual by t r i p l e b y t e

dot com. All right, Thank you for coming onto the show. I appreciate what your ability and I appreciate your vision and keep on. Keep on going on. It's on. It's exciting stuff. Okay, Awesome film. That is a wrap. Thank you for tuning into that episode of forward thinking founders. If you liked it, let me know on Twitter. Just search Matt Sherman or type in the M 80 underscored S h E r M A N and I would look forward to hearing from you. And I will see you tomorrow for the next episode, Pete.