Cooliris : Building an A+ Team

1. Cooliris : Building an A+ Team Group 3

2. Introduction • Cooliris, Inc. is a US corporation. Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Cooliris develops products intended to enhance user experience of online media. As of 2011, the firm offers four freeware applications: LiveShare, Cooliris, CoolPreviews and Discover. • Cooliris, Inc. was founded in January, 2006, and later launched Cooliris Previews for Firefox, followed by versions for Internet Explorer and Safari. In May, 2006, the company released Coolringer, and introduced PicLens in October, 2006. • Early versions of Cooliris Previews displayed the contents of a link in image form, which limited the user's ability to explore the contents of the page. • Cooliris, Inc. received funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in July 2007. • Recognition: • In 2008, Cooliris won The Crunchies 2008 Best Design award by TechCrunch. • In 2009, Cooliris was listed in the The Guardian's list of the "100 top sites for the year ahead". • In 2010, Cooliris received 2010 SPIFFY Award for Engineering Excellence. • In 2010, Cooliris was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.

3. Products • Cooliris is a plugin that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images. The software places a small icon in the corner of an image thumbnail when the mouse moves over it, which launches into a full-screen photo viewer when clicked. • CoolPreviews opens a preview of the underlying content of a web link when the mouse hovers over the link. The stated goal of the software is to optimize browsing by allowing review of multiple links while preserving the context of the originating page. For example, one could preview a list of news headlines before deciding which article to read in depth. • Cooliris also develops apps for Apple iPhone, and more recently, for Google Android devices. • Discover is an iPad application that allows users to explore Wikipedia in a magazine-style interface. The application pulls from the Wikipedia featured article and the featured picture to create a magazine cover that updates daily. • Liveshare is a mobile and web application used to share photos from many people at an event in real-time to one live photostream. The photostream is accessed via Facebook, the web or mobile devices. • Decks is an iPad application that lets users create a personalized set of shopping catalogs as decks of cards that update continuously.

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IlFNUc7ZUk • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jt_mHvFzaY • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAKvmli2tFU

5. Cooliris Hiring Process • Hiring a top-notch technical team as one of the most critical actions • Recruit people both entrepreneurial and technically briliant • Motto: “A players hire A players, B players hire C players, and C players hire bozos.” • Hiring great team seemed as a comparatively easy task • The leader of a hiring team : cofounder Josh

6. Cooliris Hiring Process (cont) • Where to search for a recruiters: • Company´s social network profiles, Josh´s social profile, and KPCB´s profile • To motivate extented social network, Cooliris will pay $1,000 for a candidate recommendation that led to a hire 2. Search online databases such as LinkedIn and Google • Post advertisments on LinkedIn and the San Francisco Bay Area edition of Craigslist • Tapping the team´s social networks produced the best results

7. Cooliris Hiring Process (cont) • The reason for the bad response: candidates with significant talent ignored ads (whey were receiving good job offers through other channels) • From over 1,200 resumes, Josh took 400 to the further process (sending introductory email) • First round interview- 50 candidates • Interview : - ten minute outline about the company - screening the candidate for his technical ability • Second round interview- 9 candidates • Interview focus on deeper technical discussion • Very important: open and clear communication about the potential upsidies and risks • Offers to be as financially competitive as possible

8. The Results • Of the five offers- four offers were turned down • Fift candidate verbally accepted offer before going for a trip to Europe • After coming back from the trip, the only candidate refused offer as well • THE FAILURE OF THE RECRUITING PROCESS • Who is actually an “A player”? • How do you attract those people to join your team?

9. Question 1 • If my team has to innovate in complitely new area, I will emphazise on ingenuity more than on experience (“how innovative you are” tests, programming questions, general logic puzzles, personality checks) • Identify company´s culture? Do candidates fit? • Where would I look for my candidates: networking, industry contacts, hire headhunters (or recruit professionals), campus scouting • Put my ad at the place where profesionals are looking for, make a good (and true) job description, identify my company´s culture, as well as requirements one has to pose (be specific and clear)

10. Question 2 • Overall, Cooliris recruitment program is not good enough • What they should do: • Managing better candidate experience • They are looking for a people to fill different job positions, but, they use the same recruitment process • Make faster hiring decisions (process lasted for too long) • Assume that interviews don´t have to be too accurate (do not rely only on it) • Do not post ad on searching job engines (only candidates who are looking for a job will reply, but what is with other professionals who are not actively looking for a job) • Identify job acceptance criteria • If they are competing with Google in hiring process, they should revise their list of benefits (do not think money is the only motivation for a job)

11. Question 3 • Hiring engineers is not the same as hiring sales manager • Make a precise job description (expectations), so that candidate can apply for the right position • During the job interview, ask specific questions related to the potential position • In the outline of the company introduce sales to sales person, technical part to engineers etc.

12. Thank You!