Episode 203: Paul English - Co-Founder & CTO, Lola.com; Serial Entrepreneur

The VentureFizz Podcast

This is an exciting episode because Paul is my first repeat guest on the podcast! I interviewed him about 2.5 years ago for Episode 37 where we spent a lot of time talking about his background and all the details around KAYAK and Lola.com. This time around, we took a slightly different approach. We of course caught up on Lola.com, which as you may remember is focused on helping companies with business travel. We talk about the effects of the pandemic where business trips booked on Lola.com were down 97%. But the real story here is the resiliency of the team. Not only did the team fight against an incredibly tough situation, but they launched a major new product called Lola Spend and expanded their product offering and value for finance teams at companies. We also talk about his latest side product that he’s been working on called Moonbeam which is a new podcast player. Moonbeam is the easiest way to discover great new podcast content. It’s almost like a TikTok for podcasts, plus it has additional features that make it unique in terms of growing an audience, monetization, and other cool features. But then, we spend a lot of time talking about hiring. I was particularly excited about this part because Paul is well known for his hiring practices, as he’s a master in this field. For hiring, we discuss: * His 7 Day Rule - which has been written about many times. It is the timeframe and speed of his process from when he first hears about a candidate to making an offer. * How to qualify and hire talent for remote teams. * His thoughts on building out initial teams within engineering and design. * What job seekers should be thinking about before joining a company. * When is the right time to bring in a company’s first recruiter. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.