Celential.ai

#65 | Ilias Beshimov, Celential.ai - How to use AI to hire software developers?

The nFactorial Club is an invite-only community of entrepreneurs, funders, investors, top managers and experts. Apply: https://nfactorialschool.typeform.com/to/LybSrqwc Get a 10% discount on any course from nfactory School using the turpentine promo code: https://nfactorialschool .typeform.com/to/K5CmYZYN How to recruit technical talent for BigTech and startups? How to use AI to fix technical recruiting? How to build and validate a successful B2B SaaS company? How do you acquire initial customers? Today, we are talking to Ilias Beshimov, a Harvard University graduate and co-founder of Celential.ai, a company that offers AI-powered recruitment solutions, and ClassHour. We discussed talent migration, the hiring process, candidate communication, and the tools used by companies to attract tech talent. Ilias shared his insights on co-founding Celential.ai and building a successful B2B SaaS company, attracting initial customers and driving growth. We couldn't cover Ilias's academic journey at Harvard University, which led him to found his startup immediately after graduation. He also shared invaluable lessons he learned from his experiences at Zynga, Scopely, Timefly, Good&Co, and Celential.ai. Arman had a lot of fun talking to Iliyas and we are sure that you will have a lot of fun listening to the new episode of our podcast. Enjoy! The episode is supported by the international technology park Astana Hub: https://astanahub.com @AstanaHub Timestamps: 00:00 Show must go on! 01:55 How Сelential.ai transforms how organizations hire and retain talent 11:01 What qualities are important in a job candidate 21:17 Talent migration 26:34 Ideal candidate profile for a startup 33:27 Perfect cold email to hire engineers 37:00 Celential.ai: origin story and MVP 42:47 Pricing and its evolution 46:51 What HR tools do companies use these days? 56:01 How to find people who can handle 50-60-hour workweeks? 01:07:05 Customer cancellations 01:18:10 The art of follow-up 01:24:34 How to pick companies for cold outreach 01:32:24 How to build great products 01:41:22 The art of effective meetings 01:47:08 Useful frameworks in product development 01:50:42 Product led-growth 02:02:01 Life at Harvard University 02:19:30 Why start a company straight out of college 02:27:47 Lessons from Zynga 02:33:40 Lessons learnt at Scopely 02:43:26 Origin of Timefly 02:46:32 Plans moving forward: ClassHour - Quality higher education at scale 02:49:49 How to 4x undergraduate-educated workforce and grow it to 800m by 2040 03:00:48 Top 3 books, movies, podcasts, blogs, restaurants, cars and cities FOLLOW ► Arman: https://www.instagram.com/armansu/ Ilias: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iliasbeshimov/ Producer: https://www.instagram.com/good.years/ #nfactorial #podcast #siliconvalley #startup #harvard