“Hungry over pedigree”

Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for names and readability.

[00:00] Vineet: So, we literally would buy boxes of donuts from Dunkin Donuts and drive around the city and this is a true story. Stop at every single van that we saw and say, "Hey, you know, I know you're busy. Can I give you a donut and get five minutes of your time?"

[00:15] Larry: Hi everyone. I'm here with Vineet who is the co-founder and CEO of Robby. Vineet, thanks for being here.

[00:23] Vineet: Yeah, thanks for having me, Larry.

[00:25] Larry: Yeah. I want to start first with who Robby is for. Like who's the person whose day gets better because Robby exists?

[00:34] Vineet: Yeah. Robby is built for the technician, the plumber, the electrician, the HVAC guy who is spending hours out in the field trying to fix problems for the customer and unfortunately has to continually fight the software that exists today rather than having the software help them. And so we take a lot of pride in, you know, helping out the people that are in the trenches, as we say, making our lives, you know, easier to live.

[01:02] Larry: Yeah. And I I read that you were an engineer at Affinity and a founding engineer at Cloud Health Systems. What were you doing right before Robby? And what pulled you toward home services like of all places?

[01:16] Vineet: Yeah. So my experiences at the two companies you mentioned taught me a lot about the importance of building for customers and you know making sure the the customers are taken care of and I learned a lot about you know the discipline it takes to build a company into something successful and I took some time before we got to the idea of Robby I took some time to think about what type of business I wanted to build and I kept coming back to to this idea of building for you know people who haven't always had access say the best technology. I think in Silicon Valley, you know, they're always way ahead of the curve, but you know, I grew up in Michigan and a lot of times they they were years behind everything that happened. And so I had a really I had a I had a different take on how I wanted to build my business. And so we started a lot with you know industries that were you know document heavy a little bit less you know up to-date with technology and and kind of through iterating iterating through those ideas across a couple of different industries we kind of landed on home services because we saw that there was a lot of opportunity to be had um a lot of you know hardworking people in the industry a massive very essential industry for you know America but you one that unfortunately didn't always had the best technology. And the way that we actually got started is one of my personal favorite stories and is you know the etymology of the name Robby. So my co-founders and I we were in Boston and you know we were trying to learn as much as we could about the industry. So we literally would buy boxes of donuts from Dunkin Donuts and drive around the city and this is a true story. stop at every single van that we saw and say, "Hey, you know, I know you're busy. Can I give you a donut and get five minutes of your time?" And a lot of people said no in, you know, much less nicer way than just saying no. But one of the first techs who actually gave us a time a day, his name was Robby, and he kind of took us under his wing. We rode along with him, learned as much as we could about the industry. And so, it only felt right for us to to pay homage to him. And so he's been a great part of our process and you know just helped us get started to learn so much about the industry and you know things have just you know snowballed from there.

[03:37] Larry: That's a really cool honor for him and riding around Boston with a box of donuts. Like that's uh that's quite a a magnet if you will drawing people in. Super cool. Um, I also read that you you spent months doing ride alongs with HVAC techs before you know building. What were those first months actually like going through that?

[04:00] Vineet: Yeah. So, honestly, the first, you know, month just felt like I was drinking from the fire hose. you know, I don't have a trades background and so there was so much going on in the truck, outside of the truck that I just, you know, honestly in the beginning struggled to keep up with because it's a very difficult job. And so, you know, bit by bit, I just learned a little bit more about what the process looks like, you know, how they kind of evaluate the problems in the house. And you know, I tried to pitch in where I could, you know, grab a grab a a tool from the truck where I could and you know, learn actually learn from the guys as I was there. And so at a certain point, I became pretty decent uh with identifying faulty furnaces after having done so many of those. Um but honestly, it was it was like drinking from the fire hose. And honestly, the other thing too is spending a lot of time with those guys in the truck and talking to them and just getting to know them as people, you really understand, you know, they're they're just regular people who enjoy what they do, but have problems just like the rest of us that they, you know, honestly they they just learn how to get around it. They a lot of the things that we said we could do for them, they hadn't even realized were solvable. They just learned how to adapt because they're resilient people. And so it was very eye opening to to see the amount of, you know, problems that we could solve and just, you know, things we could do to make their lives easier.

[05:27] Larry: Yeah. I I I love that. I grew up in a blue-collar uh family in the northeast of of all places and the the this the story about naming your company after, you know, that that rep is is fantastic. Um, so I I know it's been the three of you so far. How do you know when it's time to bring someone else in?

[05:50] Vineet: Yeah. So, actually, we recently made our first hire and

[05:50] Larry: Congrats.

[05:57] Vineet: Yeah, thank you. And he's been fantastic. So, the way that we knew the time was right is, you know, we were starting to see a big uptick in the number of customers that wanted to, you know, work with us. And something that we believe in really deeply here is a very white glove premium experience. And so when a customer signs with us, the way that it works is we give them a free pilot upfront so they can see how the tool actually works for them. And then we will go down and we will train their technicians, train their office staff on how to actually use a product and spend time with them riding along again because that's our bread and butter. So we can really see how the tool is being used. And so that part of the customer experience we are unwilling to compromise on. And so as we had more and more people who wanted to work with us, we were, you know, spending a lot of time traveling, getting everyone set up, and we were starting to see that, okay, there's a lot of requests coming in for things that need to be improved. And we pride ourselves on having a turnaround time of less than one day when someone comes into us with an improvement or a request. And so to keep that pace up, we really needed more bodies. And so that's when we started hiring. And you know, the first hire has been fantastic. And we're still looking to hire a couple more. So a lot of work to be done still.

[07:17] Larry: Yeah. That's uh that's fantastic. If only you could clone that first person, right? That that that would be ideal. Yeah. So when the the ride alongs or being in the field, I mean, I think it's so important and you know, a lot of lessons learned there. Did did that change like how you think about who you want on your team?

[07:36] Vineet: Yeah, 100% actually. So, it was really important to us to be able to hire someone that could, you know, interact with the technicians, the actual end customer. And there were there were a few people that we interviewed and part of our interview process actually includes something similar to that because we want our interview process to reflect what the job actually looks like. And there was a few people who we interviewed where although they were fantastic in terms of their skills, felt like they wouldn't be able to connect with the end customer, the technician or be able to communicate effectively with them. And that definitely, you know, made us be more judicious about who we who we choose to take on because a big part of the job is talking to the customer and making sure that they're happy. So you need to be able to understand their language, their problems, you know, speak in a way that they understand. And it's it's not easy, you know, they they come from a different world and it's important for us to be able to understand their problems in their perspective.

[08:37] Larry: Yeah. So true. Is um is there something that you're doing now or your team's doing that you're like, man, if I could hand this off to someone else, this would be incredible?

[08:47] Vineet: Um it's funny. I always struggle with that question because uh as a founder eventually the goal is to start to hand things off but you know we this is our baby and we feel so strongly about doing everything and so there will there will come a time I think um definitely there's a lot of the things that we do in our sales process and customer success process will need to be handed off to you know account managers and you know people like that but honestly everything that I do right Now I love doing there will be days you know when you know not every day is fantastic sometimes you have ups and downs but overall I'd say the the overall experience for me has been fantastic and honestly the people like the customers and the companies we work with have been great um and so I yeah there there will come a day where a lot of things I do will have to be handed off especially on sales and customer success but thankfully that day is not here yet

[09:48] Larry: is um is there advice that you'd give a founder that is about to make their first hire?

[09:54] Vineet: Yeah. Oh yeah. Lot of lot of advice here. Um number one, I think you want your actual interview process, not only the technical parts to like all of it, the technical, non-technical to reflect what the job will actually look like. And so that's what we we try to do a lot here at Robby. And I think it's it's worked out very well for us because a lot of times and I've seen this in my previous role, you'll design an interview process that tests interviewing skills but doesn't test what's required on the job. And one of the good things about AI is that it makes it really easy to, you know, solve the previous interview problems of old. And so now it's no longer just about solving problem problems. It's about your thinking ability and how can you actually, you know, empathize with the problem that the customers are facing. And so we made a big conscious effort to design our interview process that way. And it's and it's worked out well. Even the even the candidates who didn't end up working for us for for whatever reason, the feedback has consistently been that the interview process has been amongst the most enjoyable that they've had and you know gives them much more confidence in the company which is great. So design the interview process for you know what your company will actually do. And the other thing too is at the end of the day you're hiring a person you're not filling a role and I really really believe that. I try to understand the person's motivations and you know why they are the way they are a lot during the interview process. And for me, finding someone who has the right whys but maybe doesn't have the right whats is totally fine. If someone doesn't have the most experience building a certain way, that's okay. I can teach them that. But if if they're hungry, they're willing to grow, you know, they care about the customer, that matters so much more to me than someone who comes from a great university or a great brand name company. It's much more about the character of the of the individual, especially in the early days. Um, you're going to be spending a lot of time with these people and you want to be able to vouch for their character more than anything else. And so that has really that has really helped us um in our hiring process. Um and the last thing is hit up your network. You you never know where your first hire will come from. Our first hire, believe it or not, was my roommate in New York when I first moved there. This is what I'm saying. So, uh when I first moved to New York a few months ago, I had a temp I had temporary housing for the summer before I moved into my apartment. And you know our first hire was my roommate. It was a random assignment and you know I got to know him. He was interning at a software company and he was you know he was great but again I was spending time working on my startup wasn't home a lot but we we would chat here and there and you know we had a a nice heart-to-heart like dinner at the end of summer where we were just kind of talking about career and what our outlooks were and he gave me and he asked me for some advice and so we had a great conversation and then a couple weeks later he messaged me and said hey you know I really thought about what we spoke about and I loved it and you know if you guys are to take someone on. I would love to work for you. And you know, that's how the interview process started. And he had already met my co-founders because, you know, they spent time in our apartment. And the interview process went really quickly. And honestly, he's been fantastic. You know, one piece of advice I got about a good hire is, you know, when you when you look two, three, four weeks in to hiring someone, if you can't imagine how your company was running before you hired them, that means you made a good hire. And by day three, day two, I already was thinking, man, how did we ever operate without this guy? Because he just gets stuff done. And he's so, you know, he's a self-starter. He, you know, he asks the right questions. Anyways, he's fantastic. I could go on about him for for hours, but we love him and we're gl we're glad that he chose to work with us.

[14:12] Larry: Yeah, I'm I'm thrilled for you. that feeling knowing that the company is better off is, you know, it's it's got to be uh almost priceless. So So how do you how do you replicate that when you're hiring for your next position? What are the things that you're looking for, the questions that you're asking to to find another person like that?

[14:32] Vineet: Yeah. So I try to ask a lot again about the whys. And so before I interview every candidate, I always have their LinkedIn, their resume, so I have an understanding of kind of the path that they've taken in their career. And I always ask them why. So why did you choose to work at this company? If they're younger, why did you choose to go to this university? Why did you choose to, you know, do these things? Why did you choose to reply to my email over everyone else's? So just understand what's actually going on in their head. And another couple questions I really like are, you know, what are you actually looking for in your next role? And honestly, this this kind of takes people by surprise. They're they're used to getting traditional interview questions, but I want to understand, you know, what are you actually looking for? Do you want high ownership? Do you want to work on super cutting edge AI? Do you want to work in, you know, backend systems? Like what do you what do you actually want you as a person? Um because at the end of the day I really think that like someone working at a company is an intersection between what the company wants and what the employee is looking to get in their kind of trajectory. And so it's in the best interest for the company to help the employee reach their goals so that the employee can be empowered to help the company reach their goals. And so really understanding their motivations helps me figure out if the person is the right fit for us because a lot of people will honestly be looking for a more stable nine-to-five job. That's not going to be us for the time being, right? Uh so really asking those questions. And then the last one that I like is if you if you fast forward two years and you spent two years at Robby, put aside the success of the company, what would constitute success for you? what actually like how would you what would need to happen in order for you to look back at these last two years and say they were a success. And so that really gets you to understand what does this person value and again how can we serve them in their goal and so that helps us understand if they're a right fit and even the way that they answer these questions will you know say a lot about the type of person that they are.

[16:43] Larry: Yeah that's fantastic. you're in a good place. You know, as a recruiter that's been doing this for for 17 years, stepping in, helping founders hire, it's usually cleaning up some messes. The interview process, you know, they're they don't they don't have that process set. So to hear you say that candidates are going through that process and then coming to you, even the ones that you're passing on saying, "Hey, this was an enjoyable experience." Like you're creating a, you know, long-term goodwill in in the uh in the community. So that's fantastic. You're, you know, you've set yourself up um you know, for for success going forward. That's fantastic to hear.

[17:22] Vineet: Thank you. I appreciate that. Uh definitely some hard-learned lessons along the way from my years recruiting even before the company. So um all a lot of that credit just goes to seeing fantastic leadership um at my prior companies who I could learn from. So Yeah.

[17:38] Larry: No, fantastic. Well, Vineet, I've enjoyed this. Um where can people find you and Robby if they're looking online?

[17:46] Vineet: Yeah, so the best place to find me and Robby is going to be LinkedIn. Um, you can look me up, Vineet Jammalamadaka. Um, we also have an X page um, for Robby and um, those are the primary social medias that we're on. Um, we post a lot on LinkedIn. We have a blog. So, if you're interested in following along um, yeah, take a look there. And like I mentioned, we're always hiring. So, if you know someone that's great or you think you'd be a great fit for us, reach out directly. U, my email is [address omitted]. You can always hit me up on LinkedIn or our website as well. Um Yeah.

[18:24] Larry: Yeah. And I I love the I'm probably gonna steal the the idea of grabbing a box of Dunkin Donuts if I need to go find someone.

[18:32] Vineet: You should.

[18:32] Larry: To lure them in. That's great.

[18:34] Vineet: You should um just just be prepared to get some, you know, weird looks, but generally people people love donuts and uh I don't blame them.

[18:43] Larry: Yeah. Especially in the Northeast. Well, cool. Thank you, Vineet. I've enjoyed this.

[18:46] Vineet: Yeah. Thank you, Larry. Appreciate the time.