At the seed stage, hiring great people is one of the most important things to get right. Without the right team in place, it’s much harder to build great products, find customers, and not run out of money in the process.

When I came to NextView, this is also the pillar of our Platform programming that I immediately gravitated toward. I saw this first-hand at Blue Apron — I had to hire 30+ people across a ton of different functions in just under two years. At first, I brute-forced sourcing and ran a haphazard recruiting process, but it was quickly apparent that didn’t work.

One late night in the office, I mentioned to my colleague, Director of Talent Acquisition Kristen Caldwell how frustrating my “process” was. At Blue Apron, she is responsible for Technology, Corporate, and three Fulfillment Centers across the country, and she’s had extensive experience developing strategic hiring plans for organizations during times of hyper-growth. Previously, she built Uber’s technology department from the ground up as well as overseeing hiring at Vine and Yammer.

She knew exactly what it would take to find the right people for my roles, run an efficient and effective interview process, and sell candidates on what Blue Apron would become.

Most startups don’t have the luxury of having someone like Kristen sit down and teach them how to build a recruiting machine.

That is why I am so thrilled to share that Kristen is going be NextView’s new Talent Advisor, in addition to her duties at Blue Apron.

Not only will she assist portfolio companies in 1:1 consulting sessions, but she will also be leading our first-ever Hiring Bootcamp. The full-day bootcamp will give portfolio founders, senior execs, and hiring managers real tactics and hands-on practice building out recruiting machines at their organizations.

If you have to hire several people this year, you won’t want to miss this session. If you want to learn more about booking time with Kristen or signing up for the bootcamp, instructions are in the Portfolio Dropbox folder.

Kristen, thank you for lending your time and expertise to the NextView portfolio. We couldn’t be more excited to have you on board.