Seattle Chapter Member – Aniket Naravanekar of Skillsheet.me

Q. Describe what your company does in 25 words or less.
A. Skillsheet is KYC for hiring – find, vet, and assess talent in a single platform.

Q. Why does the world need your company?
A. Fake applications and candidates are adding stress to an already overloaded ecosystem. We need to put trust back in the recruiting process. Many Talent teams are still running on little to no automation. Agentic sourcing with a human in the loop is the perfect solution that keeps the human touch while adding efficiency and quality gains.

Q. What has been the biggest win for your company?
A. Besides signing up notable brands like Startup Haven and H10, learning that mid-market talent teams are an untapped market has been a big boost for us.

Q. What do you like most about being a founder?
A. I like seeing the happiness or satisfaction from a customer that our product made a difference for them. That’s the most rewarding feeling as a founder for me!

Q. What is the hardest thing about being a founder?
A. The buck stops with you. If you don’t know how to do something, you need to figure it out fast or find a trusted person who will. Either way, you need to solve problems you’ve never solved before and hone rusty skills. The most important one of these for me is learning how to sell.

Q. What has been the biggest obstacle you’ve had to overcome as a founder?
A. I think we often limit ourselves with barriers of our own making. Realizing that many hurdles are mental blocks was a big revelation for me.

Q. What’s your favorite hack for dealing with the demands of running a startup?
A. This isn’t as much of a hack as it is old, tried, and tested wisdom that I’ve learned from my own parents. It takes a village. Build your village by helping others around you and bringing them along in your journey. Suddenly, the journey becomes an enjoyable adventure.

Q. What were you doing before you started working on your company?
A. I’ve worked as Head of Product, Chief Product Officer in 2 startups before.

Q. If you weren’t building your company, what else would you be doing now?
A. I’d probably be advising and mentoring Product people

Q. What advice do you have for founders who are two stages behind you?
A. You will get plenty of advice (including this one). A lot of advice is well-intentioned but not necessarily applicable to every scenario. Vinod Khosla said this, and I’ll paraphrase: the single most important skill a founder should develop is the skill to determine which advice to take from whom and in what situation.

Good advice in my mind is like a book. It falls in 3 buckets roughly: 1. ones you should internalize and apply quickly, 2. advice that you should ruminate on for long, 3. advice you should consider and set aside until you see a pattern. Most advice should be in buckets 2 & 3. For any advice to be in bucket 1, it would have to come from someone you trust immensely – someone who knows you thoroughly.”

Q. How has Startup Haven helped you on your journey?
A. Startup Haven is the best place for founders to be themselves. I’ve met other like-minded founders who feel like hikers on the same trail. Investors open up and share war stories that you normally wouldn’t hear. I highly recommend it!

Q. What superhero power would help founders most?
A. See “advice for founders” question

Q. What do you need… what’s your “ask”?
A. If you know of a hack on how to reach mid-market talent teams, I’d love to hear it. Besides that, if you have ideas on hosting fun, memorable events that people find value in, please reach out!

Q. What help can you offer to other Startup Haven member founders… what’s your offer?
A. We’re going to offer Skillsheet as a product to every member as an unbeatable deal. Use it to find a co-founder, your first or 10th hire, or even early customers.

Q. If you were to found another company (after you exit your current company) and you could choose any real person, living or dead, to be your cofounder, who would it be?
A. Sudeep – he’s been my best friend since College. Working on something together would be a dream come true!