Diverse teams start with diverse venture capital

Startups are often quick to say they value diversity but slow to implement hiring practices that reflect that. It’s the path of least resistance for a growth-stage company to hire from familiar Silicon Valley pipelines, but if a founder wants a diverse team, this value must be put into practice from the first hire.

Leah Sullivan, founder of Taskrabbit and founder and managing director of Precedent.VC, joined Isabelle Johannessen on Build Mode to discuss how she thinks about hiring while leading Taskrabbit. As the company transitioned from relying on Sullivan’s personal credit cards to one of the defining platforms of the gig economy, the leadership team intentionally sought diverse talent for each role.

Diversity doesn’t happen by accident Sullivan and their team have built this into every aspect of the recruiting and hiring process. “But if you do it from the beginning, it becomes easier, because the culture that’s built, the team that’s built, the network that you’ve built as a company, is more diverse, and it feeds itself. It becomes an ecosystem,” Sullivan said. “It’s too late if you wait until the expansion happens and it’s finally there.”

Every startup has a network of talent with the founder at its center, and it makes sense for the network to reflect the founder’s community. So a more diverse tech industry, in many ways, starts with who invests in those founders. As an early-stage investor, Sullivan has seen money flow from both sides of the table.

“If you follow the money through the system, it comes from limited partners, and they are the ones who decide who is going to give the money, which is the venture capitalists,” Sullivan said. “From there, the venture capitalists choose which founders to invest in.” “The money is there, but it is controlled by people with different biases.”

However, the founder or the venture capitalists who support them do not have to be underrepresented to intentionally recruit from a diverse talent pool. Sullivan suggests setting a goal of seeing two female candidates’ resumes for every man’s, tapping into a broader range of networks, and encouraging people from different backgrounds to take on leadership roles.

“You’re asking someone to walk off the edge of a cliff, ‘Let’s build a net for them to jump into,’” Sullivan said.

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New episodes of Build mode Drop every Thursday. Hosted by Isabel Johansson. Produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience development led by Morgan Little. Special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.