How to Seek Out an Ideal COO: YUIME Talks About Hiring with a VC Firm

Written by the Universe Editorial Team

YUIME INC. (YUIME) offers a platform for supporting the primary sector including agriculture. This startup had a problem. With only one member responsible for recruitment activities in the company, YUIME had not been able to actively tackle hiring activities.

To solve this problem, YUIME began working with GBHR which specializes in offering recruitment support and is a subsidiary of the independent venture capital firm Global Brain (GB), YUIME’s investor. Through this collaboration, YUIME successfully hired talent indispensable for its future growth, including the head of its Corporate Department and a member dedicated to driving digital transformation. Furthermore, by leveraging GBHR’s career consulting service named GB Innovators Lounge (GBIL), the startup has welcomed a COO (in Japanese only) who has experience working at Rakuten, Inc. (Rakuten, current Rakuten Group, Inc.) and Gurunavi, Inc. (Gurunavi), and is now on its way to building a more robust organization.

We sat down with YUIME’s CEO Kohei Ueno, COO Toshio Tamura who joined via GBIL, GBHR’s Yuya Namiki, and his coworker Kojiro Tanaka to learn more about the keys to the startup’s successful hiring.

(The names of departments and roles may have changed after the interview.)

One recruitment staff was not enough

──First, what was the situation and the challenges like before YUIME embarked on this recruitment initiative?

Ueno: Before we started working with GBHR, we had no clear plans around recruitment. We even had no idea about what kind of talent we wanted for our teams or what the best way for us was to work with GBHR.

In addition, with only one person taking care of recruitment activities, we had not been able to spend enough time on scouting. Although one person was enough for handling incoming applications, it was not sufficient for considering the requirements of potential hires or for drafting and sending just the right scouts to candidates.

However, after we began working with GBHR, we were able to recruit the head of the Corporate Department and also successfully filled new positions by hiring the digital transformation member and COO Tamura-san. These hires are building a stronger organization.

──How did GBHR help YUIME?

Namiki: We first sat down with YUIME to understand its to-be state and challenges related to HR. Also, by discussing with Sorita, our venture capitalist who invested in YUIME, we grasped what positions YUIME needed to fill to grow its business and what the hiring requirements were.

Upon organizing the hiring requirements, we had two key pillars for identifying ideal talent which were someone who can succeed and perform in each role and someone who is interested in YUIME. The former is easier to define. For example, if we wanted to hire a new member dedicated to driving digital transformation, we would be looking for someone who has experience in improving work processes or implementing systems and tools.

However, the latter requires deeper thinking. To picture a clearer persona of someone who would be interested in YUIME’s business, we broke the second pillar down into more detailed factors such as what kind of worries and struggles such a person may have experienced in life, and what way of living would be of value to that person.

Ueno: Working with Namiki-san made me realize that this is the level of detail needed when setting requirements. I felt firsthand how carefully planned recruitment activities are the most effective, and this experience led to our successful hiring of COO Tamura-san.

I had crossed off startups from my list

──Tamura-san, you registered on the career consulting service GBIL after receiving a message from GBHR Tanaka on LinkedIn. What was your reaction to Tanaka’s approach?

Tamura: At that time I was actually in my final phase of job-hunting, and had final interviews scheduled with multiple companies. Therefore, to be honest, I was thinking it would not be very realistic to consider working for a startup at that point in time.

Also, a different venture capital firm had reached out to me about working for a portfolio company of that firm before, but I had crossed off the option of working for a startup.

This was because executive officers of large corporations and recruiting agents I had spoken with in the past had repeatedly told me the success of a startup largely depends on luck.

Given my experience working as an executive member of a publicly listed company, most of them were of the opinion that I should choose a more promising position at a large corporation. Although I was personally interested in working for a startup, hearing what others had to say had made me unconsciously limit my possibilities.

However, since GB is one of the largest venture capital firms in the industry, I decided to join Tanakan-san’s career consulting session, thinking it might help me build connections for my future.

──What did you talk about in the consulting session?

Tanaka: In our conversations with people who register on GBIL, we do not merely introduce job postings of our portfolio companies. Rather, we focus more on learning what kind of views people have regarding work and how they plan to build their career in the medium to long-term.

The same goes for my conversation with Tamura-san. I deep-dived into his values by asking him why someone with a career like his was thinking of changing jobs and why he decided to meet with us when he already had some final interviews lined up. I remember I also asked him what he would like to do if he were to go out of his way and pour his heart into something.

Tamura: Tanaka-san did not talk about anything like tips for preparing for interviews or procedures for applying for job openings, but instead he deep-dived into my career from a long-term perspective. Given I was 42 years old, he asked me what I wanted to do after I spent the next five years working for my next company. The conversation with Tanaka-san going deep and far made me rethink about my career, which gradually opened me up to considering working for a startup.

What pushed him to join YUIME

──How was Tamura-san hired by YUIME as COO?

Namiki: Ueno-san and I hold weekly recruitment meetings, and one time he told me that he thought the company needed someone like a COO who can oversee the entire business. It was around that time Tanaka was talking with Tamura-san, and since I was aware of it, we were able to connect the two at the best time.

Tanaka: Namiki had shared with me YUIME was looking for a COO. In my first interview with Tamura-san, he told me he wanted to engage in work that requires overseeing an entire business, so I mentioned YUIME’s name. Since Tamura-san was interested, we shared Tamura-san’s resume with Ueno-san the next day, and after going through an interview he became a member of YUIME.

──Tamura-san, what made you decide to join YUIME?

Tamura: The biggest push was Ueno-san’s vision of the future. When he told me he does not want to merely support agricultural workers but envisions to build a platform that contributes to agriculture, I felt it resonated with my own vision.

My background is relevant here. I was actually born as the eldest son of a farmer, and for many years I had been wanting to contribute to solving agricultural challenges. I felt guilty working in Tokyo, leaving my 74-year-old father working as a farmer, while my friends in my hometown had succeeded their families’ farms. Therefore, YUIME’s vision matched my personal willingness of wanting to do something to support agriculture.

Before joining, I had an interview with GB’s Sorita-san who had invested in YUIME, which pushed me to make my decision. Since I used to work as an agricultural business development consultant at a consulting company, I have experienced firsthand the difficulty of agricultural businesses. I had let myself believe that agricultural business is too difficult for me even if I wanted to do it, but hearing Sorita-san’s vision of YUIME’s growth scenario and future state made me confident that YUIME is the place where I can achieve my goals.

Also, GB’s strong commitment to YUIME led by Sorita-san and Namiki-san was a big plus for me. I felt that YUIME’s growth does not depend on luck but it can be proved scientifically if this many people are watching and supporting the startup.

──Thank you. By the way, given Ueno-san and Tamura-san were involved with GBHR from different positions, what do you think is unique about GB’s recruitment support?

Ueno: The most significant difference compared to common recruiting agencies is its depth and length of engagement. Since Namiki-san and I had weekly meetings, he was flexible to address sudden changes that are unique to startups. I could share with him very minor differences in nuance, explaining how my thinking had changed in the past week, and he would reflect such changes to our recruitment activities right away. I am very grateful for this flexibility.

Tamura: As I got to know Tanaka-san and Sorita-san, I felt GB truly engages deeply with its portfolio companies. Compared to venture capital firms I used to work with in my past job, GB had a very profound understanding of its portfolio companies, and I could see GB was seriously committed to enhancing the value of startups.

Also, in contrast to the about 20 to 30 headhunters I spoke with for my job-hunting, the GBHR members had deep insights of the startups posting job openings. I had the impression they were working together with the portfolio companies with a good grasp of working-level operations. I believe this is the reason GBHR had a clear image of how I can contribute when they connected me with YUIME.

Namiki: Our strength is the quality and quantity of information we have access to as a venture capital firm. Our relationships with the CEOs allow us to have weekly in-depth discussions with them, which is why we have firsthand information of our portfolio companies.

In recruitment, there are important factors that cannot be described in job descriptions, such as the atmosphere or nuance of an ideal candidate, and what kind of values and work ethics you want that person to have. I visited YUIME’s office multiple times for discussions to clarify what kind of person can become a long-term performer at YUIME.

Another unique aspect of GB is that we offer thorough hands-on support to our portfolio companies, which allows us to understand the startups from diverse perspectives including sales, marketing, development, and PR. We sometimes identify challenges even the CEO had not noticed, and compiling organizational strategies to solve those issues is something I believe only GBHR can do.

Tanaka: As shareholders, we are able to find talent who can contribute to the startups’ growth with a medium to long-term perspective. Without the pressure of having to close a set number of recruitment deals, we can focus on truly understanding our portfolio companies’ businesses and identifying the optimal talent. This is a big strength.

The keys to hiring ideal personnel

──Looking back on your recruitment activities, what would you say are the keys to success?

Ueno: The most important thing is to articulate your image of recruiting to the extent possible and communicate it accurately. Through our weekly meetings with GBHR, we went back and forth in our discussions and worked hand in hand to form our recruitment style. Since we carried on our discussions continuously instead of engaging in periodic recruitment activities, we were able to clarify our images of ideal candidates step by step.

When communicating with the candidates, I am mindful not to talk big. If we are facing issues I share them straightforwardly, and instead of saying vague things like “This company will change the world,” I tried to talk about what exactly we were doing to actually change the world.

Namiki: That is very important. Startups tend to focus on big dreams in interviews with candidates, leaving out more details such as what they are doing right now and what the challenges are, but Ueno-san explained those points very carefully. I feel this is why few people have different impressions before and after joining YUIME.

──Lastly, now that Tamura-san is on board, what is your vision toward organizational structuring?

Ueno: Up until now, YUIME was in the zero-to-one phase where I gave all the instructions. However, the way our organization functions will change greatly now that we have Tamura-san as a middle management member. Since I have a clearer view of what actions I must take as the CEO, I am eager to focus on what I truly need to do in order to grow the business.

Tamura: YUIME’s growth has been supported by talented individual players. Going forward, we need to convert those individual capabilities into our organizational capability. By maximizing the capabilities of our excellent talent, I am excited to make YUIME a more robust company with a strong organizational power.