focal podcast

In this episode, we dive deep into startup sales hiring with Anis Bennaceur, a masterful talent scout who's cracked the code on building exceptional early-stage teams. You'll discover why most founders hire wrong, how to spot founder-DNA in candidates, and the brutal interview techniques that filter out B-players before they contaminate your culture.

Anis Bennaceur is the co-founder and CEO of Attention, a startup building AI agents that revolutionize sales conversations. A second-time founder, Attention has raised close to $20 million from Eniac, 645 Ventures, Liquid2 Ventures, and Alvin.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:
01:25 - The Triangle of Talent: Why 80% of your employees are useless
04:26 - Level 5 superstars can't be trained - they're born that way
05:43 - Your first hires must think like founders or you'll fail
10:25 - Why Anis only hires people obsessed with Paul Graham essays
15:58 - The $100K hiring mistake that saved Attention's culture
18:35 - Two sales candidates talked each other out of joining - here's why
21:40 - Always hire salespeople in pairs to create internal competition
25:34 - The midnight email test that reveals true A-players
27:56 - One interview question that exposes scrappy hackers instantly
31:23 - Using ChatGPT to detect hiring red flags you missed
35:02 - Three biggest life failures: The therapist interview technique
41:42 - Why Brian Chesky's anti-selling method filters out mercenaries
54:54 - The Saturday night Slack test that predicted employee turnover
56:52 - How political extremism kills startup culture
58:25 - "If you had the contract, why wouldn't you sign?"
1:05:15 - Rejecting candidates who negotiate reveals commitment issues
1:12:13 - Stop listening to customers - they'll build you a faster horse

Creators and Guests

Host
Pascal Unger
Co-founder / Managing Partner at focal.vc We lead pre-seeds in North America with up to $1M: We exclusively back AI native software startups at the very start. Thereafter, we help them get off the ground better and faster, supported by a network > 200 GTM executives. That's our singular, unwavering focus.

What is focal podcast?

Pivotal early lessons of today's best startups.

Welcome to the focal podcast where we go deep with some of today's best founders and operators on ONE crucial lessons from their early days.

This podcast is not the usual "highlight reel" startup podcast that goes one inch deep across 20+ topics. Rather, we ask the questions you’d ask if you were sitting across from them. No fluff, just the real, actionable insights you’d get if these founders were mentoring you 1on1.

We cover topics including:

- What worked and why.
- Costly mistakes and how they fixed them.
- Frameworks that truly made a difference.
- Tactics to move faster.
- What they wish they’d known sooner.
- And much more!

"Only a fool learns from their own mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others."