Ryan Barry is the CEO of Appcues, a user engagement platform serving over 1,400 technology businesses worldwide. Before taking the helm at Appcues in March 2025, Ryan spent nearly 11 years at Zappi, co-authoring the best-selling book The Consumer Insights Revolution and scaling the company as President alongside founder Steve Phillips. In this episode, Ryan reveals the unconventional leadership frameworks he used to recruit an entirely new executive team without outside recruiters, why he refused to hire a chief of staff or executive assistant in favor of AI productivity tools, and the four non-negotiable traits he screens for in every single hire.

What You'll Learn:

- Why Ryan eliminated most one-on-ones from his calendar and what he replaced them with.

- The four traits he screens for in every hire: curious, adaptable, smart, and growth-minded.

- How he recruited a full executive team through crowdsourcing instead of executive search firms.

- Why he refused to hire an EA or chief of staff and used AI tools instead to force himself to learn the cutting edge.

- His framework for deciding which decisions need to "breathe overnight" versus which should be made immediately.

- The difference between coming in hot with passion versus assuming you know the answer in week two.

- Why he embeds team personality profiles and decision-making guides directly into company AI tools.

Chapters:

00:00 Trailer - Why This CEO Removed All One-on-Ones From His Calendar EP 8

01:03 Introducing Ryan Barry, CEO of Appcues

05:08 Why coming in hot fails most new executives

06:16 Breaking down silos in two hours instead of three weeks

08:41 How AI elevated support roles instead of replacing them

11:11 Recruiting executives without search firms

17:20 The four non-negotiable traits for every hire

21:04 Managing a geographically dispersed team across Latin America

27:48 How he manages energy and async work across time zones

31:22 Empowering teams to make decisions without approval

35:06 Why he removed most one-on-ones from his calendar

39:21 One piece of advice for first-time founders and leaders

Where to find Ryan Barry:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-barry-8354036/

Appcues: https://www.appcues.com/

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: https://latamcent.com/

Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/

Annmarie Neal has spent 20+ years as Chief Talent Officer at Cisco, First Data, and Hellman & Friedman where she achieved an 85% success rate across 20+ CEO transitions. Now as Chief People Officer at Zendesk, she's transforming a $2B company into an AI-first organization while activating over 1,000 leaders. In this episode, she reveals the hiring frameworks, referencing strategies, and leadership playbooks that separate successful executive transitions from costly failures.

What You'll Learn:

- Why hiring people who "look and feel like you" is the biggest hiring mistake leaders make

- The 10-12 reference rule: Why 3 references will never give you the full picture

- The "vanilla ice cream walk" approach to convincing reluctant leaders to step up

- How to assess whether a CEO can scale through acquisitions and complexity

- Why the best successions start with strategy 3-5 years out, not solving today's problems

- The critical difference between hiring for roles vs. hiring for outcomes

- When to bring in your first talent/people hire as a founder (hint: earlier than you think)

Where to find Annmarie Neal:

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/annmarie-neal-psy-d-b35aa9/⁠

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: ⁠https://latamcent.com/⁠

Who We Hire: ⁠https://whowehire.org/⁠

In this episode, we cover:

00:00 The hiring mistake most founders make but never talk about

02:16 The 85% success rate playbook for executive transitions

04:00 Assessing talent: identifying superpowers and kryptonite

07:45 What actually causes executive transitions to fail

09:12 The executive who surprised everyone and crushed it

12:24 Activating 1,000 leaders during a $10B transformation

19:54 What AI transformation actually requires from your talent function

28:21 Why replicating yourself is the biggest hiring trap

30:38 The voicemail hack that saves hours on reference checks

31:02 The one thing founders building teams need to hear

Juan Betancourt spent a decade placing C-suite executives at Fortune 500 companies through Korn Ferry and Heidrick & Struggles, then discovered everything he knew about hiring was wrong for startups. In this episode, the Humantelligence CEO reveals how he rebuilt his entire recruitment playbook after striking out on three marketing hires and four salespeople, and why giving "B and C players complete freedom" led to zero turnover in five years.

What you'll learn:

- Why hiring "A-plus superstars" from your executive search days will actually kill your startup, and the "Bad News Bears" mindset that works instead

- The critical reference check question that reveals whether someone can thrive in remote work (hint: it's not about their resume)

- Why you should never hire a salesperson who's currently unemployed, and the compensation structure that filters out pretenders

- The counterintuitive leadership flip: how going from "90% doing, 10% leading" to "90% leading, 10% doing" eliminated all turnover

- Why letting employees make decisions you know will fail creates more productivity than micromanagement ever could

- The psychometric interview hack that prevents you from accidentally hiring a team of clones who all think the same way

- Why executive search reference checks are useless, but startup reference checks are everything

Where to find Juan Luiz Betancourt

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/juanluisbetancourt

Website: https://humantelligence.com

Company: Humantelligence (AI coaching for Slack, MS Teams, Outlook, Zoom)

Where to find Luiz Cent:Website: https://latamcent.com/Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/

In this episode covers:

00:00 Introduction: From Fortune 500 recruiter to startup founder

04:30 The hunger problem: why successful candidates stop performing

06:00 Phase-based hiring: why 0-to-1M requires different talent than 1M-to-10M

07:30 The remote work trap: how to reference check for self-motivation

09:15 Using psychometric assessments in the interview process

14:30 The hardest hire: why sales roles are nearly impossible to interview for

19:30 How AI is changing team productivity without replacing headcount

25:00 Why zero turnover in five years starts with complete freedom

28:00 Killing Fortune 500 processes that stifle startup growth

30:00 The AI coaching category explosion and why timing matters

37:00 Cross-cultural leadership: why US management fails in France

42:00 The Colombia advantage: best country for hiring software engineers

44:00 Final tips: references, equity vesting cliffs, and industry-specific hires

Mor Assouline quit his first cold calling job within one hour, then avoided sales for three years. Today, as a 3X VP of Sales and founder of FDTC, he trains B2B SaaS reps to hit 50%+ demo close rates month over month. In this episode, Mor reveals how he identifies "born sellers" in interviews, why he scores coachability on a 1-3 scale, and the counterintuitive hiring approach that lets him poach his best AE hires directly from his own coaching community.

What You'll Learn:- The 4 traits Mor screens for in every sales interview: self-awareness, curiosity, critical thinking, and conviction (and how to test for each without asking theoretical questions)

- Why watching if candidates ask questions back is more predictive than their actual answers

- The "Day in the Life" trial method: how to give candidates mouse control on Zoom and test real-time learning before making offers

- Mor's 1-3 coachability scoring system: open to feedback, applies feedback, and proactively seeks feedback (why "threes" are the only ones worth hiring)

- The polarizing belief that some people are "born for sales" and the specific charisma signals that can't be trained

- Why Mor's first hire was an SDR, not an AE, and why his future AEs will only come from reps he's already coached

- The bottom-up approach to quota setting: why running sales yourself for 3-6 months before hiring beats arbitrary top-down targets

- How to use Claude AI to build a project with your playbook and share it with new hires as an always-available training assistant

Where to find Mor Assouline:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/morassouline

Twitter: twitter.com/mistamor

Website: demotoclose.com

Podcast: SaaS Talks: From Lead to Close

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: https://latamcent.com/Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/

In this episode, we cover:

00:00 Introduction: Who is Mor Assouline

01:30 The four traits that predict sales success: self-aware, curious, critical thinking, conviction

06:30 Why hiring people smarter than you felt threatening, and when that changed

08:00 The biggest mistake VPs make: asking theoretical questions instead of testing real skills

12:00 How to test coachability live: coach them, have them self-assess, then course correct

16:30 The polarizing take: some people are born for sales, and the charisma you can't train

24:00 Future-proofing your sales career: ask AI how it will take your job

29:00 The AI call auditor Mor built to do 85% of his coaching work

32:00 Frameworks for coaching sales reps: the "thinking day" and six-week sprint approach

38:00 Bottom-up vs. top-down quota setting: running sales yourself for 3-6 months first

43:00 Where to find Mor and final thoughts

Travis Mariea built Flxpoint into a powerhouse automation platform serving 300+ e-commerce businesses but the real unlock wasn't the tech. In this episode, he reveals how he slashed onboarding time from 90 days to 14 days using AI, why he starts every hire in Latin America first, and the "AI Sentiment Alert" system that catches at-risk customers before they churn. This is a masterclass in building high-performance remote teams without burning out your senior talent.

What You'll Learn

• The "Milestone-Based Onboarding" framework that replaced arbitrary 90-day ramp periods with measurable knowledge checkpoints (and cut onboarding to 14 days)

• Why Travis hires Latin America first for almost every role including developers and the timezone advantage most founders overlook
• The "Vibe Check" philosophy that trumps scorecards when evaluating culture fit
• How a support hire from Chile became their "AI Operations Czar" by joining an internal AI Slack channel (and how you can replicate this career path system)
• The AI Sentiment Alert system that reads every support email, flags frustrated customers, and auto-creates tickets for account managers
• Why the SDR role is dead at Flxpoint and what "full-stack AEs" look like in 2026
• The "Luxury Role" test for deciding when a position is truly necessary versus when AI + existing team can cover it

Where to find Travis Mariea:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travismariea/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flxpoint/

Website: https://flxpoint.com/

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: https://latamcent.com/Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/

In this episode, we cover:

00:00: Trailer Episode 4: How This CEO Cut New Hire Ramp Time From 90 Days to 14 Using AI with Travis Mariea

06:39: Why strong culture makes remote onboarding seamless, or pushes bad fits out fast

12:31: Will AI eliminate roles? Travis's take on SDRs and the "full-stack AE"

16:29: Building an internal AI Pod: Slack channels, Notion boards, and cowboy coding

23:27: How to decide: Latin America, India, or US-based hires?

26:25: From founder doing all sales to knowing when to hire

33:45: Where to find Travis and how to get through his LinkedIn inbox

#WhoWeHire #EcommerceLeadership #StartupCulture #HiringStrategy #AIinBusiness #RemoteTeams #SaaSFounders #LatAmTalent

Alina Vandenberghe sold her house with her husband to bootstrap Chili Piper in 2016 and built a culture so magnetic that recruiters offering double the salary can't poach her people. In this episode, the co-founder and co-CEO of the billion-dollar B2B meeting automation platform reveals how she identifies intrinsic motivation in interviews, why she reads body language over words, and the radical transparency policies that make employees want to stay forever.

What You'll Learn

1. Why words in interviews are useless, and the specific body language cues Alina watches for to detect genuine passion versus rehearsed answers
2. The "soul-sucking task" Slack channel that turns automation requests into promotion opportunities, and keeps your best people engaged
3. How to hire for curiosity and self-sufficiency: the two traits that haven't changed from employee #1 to employee #150
4. The counterintuitive approach to retention: why Alina's goal isn't keeping people, it's creating environments where they find the most growth
5. Why her best recruiting channel is in-person events (even for a fully remote company), and how she identifies top talent without a target list
6. The transparency policies that make employees immune to poaching: market-based salary adjustments, decision visibility, and zero monitoring
7. How to introduce automation expectations during hiring so employees become participants in AI adoption, not resistors

Where to find Alina Vandenberghe:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinav/

Website: https://www.chilipiper.com/

Company: Chili Piper (Demand Conversion Platform for B2B revenue teams)

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: https://latamcent.com/Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/

In this episode, we cover

00:00: Trailer Episode 3 Who We Hire - Alina Vandenberghe

05:00: Reading body language: looking for "light in the eyes" and fire in the belly

09:30: How AI changed the workload equation, and why it's more overwhelming than expected

14:00: The "help" value: screening for people who get joy from helping others

19:00: How to recruit without a target list: meeting smart people and building long-term relationships

25:30: Why employees aren't threatened by automation: they're participants, not victims

30:00 Final thoughts: building a culture that belongs to everyone, not just founders

#RemoteWorkCulture #IntrinsicMotivation #EmployeeRetention #TransparentLeadership #AIAutomation

Rand Fishkin built Moz into a $30M revenue company with 130 employees, then walked away after 17 years of board conflicts and a battle with depression. Today, as co-founder of SparkToro, he runs a profitable company with just three people, has already repaid his investors, and is building a video game studio on the side. In this episode, Rand reveals why he prioritizes liking his coworkers over hiring "A players," the specific questions he and his co-founder answered before starting SparkToro, and his controversial belief that the entire VC model is fundamentally broken.

What You'll Learn

1. Why Rand prioritizes personal connection over skills and experience when hiring, and how Google's Project Aristotle research backs this up
2. The unconventional funding model Rand created for SparkToro and Snackbar Studio that he open-sourced for other founders to use
3. Why Rand believes there are no A players or B players, only A fit, B fit, and C fit, and how former "underperformers" became rock stars at other companies
4. The specific pre-founding questions Rand and his co-founder answered before starting SparkToro, including "what happens if one of us gets hit by a bus?"
5. Why Rand's number one advice for first-time founders is to go to therapy, and how emotional maturity shapes company culture
6. The case against return-to-office: how Rand spends $20,000 every six months to bring his team to Italy and still saves money compared to a co-working space
7. Why the games industry is extremely anti-AI and how using AI art can tank your game sales
8. How Rand recruited Snackbar Studio's lead game designer over four years of following, engaging, and eventually flying him to Italy

Where to find Rand Fishkin:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randfishkin

Website: https://sparktoro.com/

Book: Lost and Founder

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: https://latamcent.com/Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/

In this episode, we cover:

00:00: Trailer Episode 2 Who We Hire - Rand Fishkin

05:00: Working with really smart people is not as fun as working with people you enjoy

11:00: When does the VC model actually make sense? Pharma, clean tech, and AI infrastructure

18:00: The TinySeed model: 130% returns in five years by avoiding moonshot bets

24:00: The four-year recruiting process: how Rand convinced an Assassin's Creed designer to co-found Snackbar Studio

30:00: Google's Project Aristotle: psychological safety as the number one predictor of team performance

36:00: There are no A players, only A fit: why former underperformers become rock stars elsewhere

42:00: Architecting companies differently: why Snackbar has more structure than SparkToro

48:00: Rand's number one advice for founders: go to therapy

#SmallBusinessGrowth #FounderMindset #RemoteWorkCulture #BootstrappedStartup #PsychologicalSafety

Ryan Farley scaled LawnStarter to over 3,000 cities, but his biggest challenge wasn't operations, it was talent. In this episode, Ryan reveals the "Who" methodology and Top grading frameworks that allowed him to hire senior executives with decades more experience than himself and build a high-performance culture.

What You'll Learn:

1. The "TORC" Interview Question: Why asking candidates to name their last 5 bosses (and predict their ratings) scares away B-players immediately.
2. The "Back Then" Hack: A psychological trick to get candidates to honestly reveal their past weaknesses without feeling defensive.
3. The "Fight For Them" Rule: The simple litmus test Ryan uses when the data looks good but the team isn't 100% sold.
4. Executive vs. Junior Hiring: Why senior hires need to deliver from Day 1, while junior hires are an investment in potential.
5. The "Most Impressive Accomplishment" Filter: One specific question Ryan uses to knock out unqualified candidates in the first 10 minutes.
6. The Danger of Compromise: Why you must let the "fire burn" rather than lowering your standards to fill a seat quickly.

Where to find Ryan Farley:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanfarley/

Website: https://www.lawnstarter.com

Who The Book: https://whothebook.com/

Where to find Luiz Cent:

Website: https://latamcent.com/Who We Hire: https://whowehire.org/In this episode, we cover:

00:00 Trailer Episode 1 Who We Hire - Ryan Farley

01:36 How a young founder hires executives with 30+ years of experience

02:46 The book that became LawnStarter’s "Hiring Bible"

05:00 Breaking down the "Who" and Topgrading methodologies

05:49 The "Last 5 Bosses" question that filters out bad fits

07:05 Using the "Back Then" framing to uncover real weaknesses

09:04 The critical difference between hiring executives and managers

12:45 The "Gut Check": Would you fight to keep this person?

15:40 Scaling talent globally and going remote

19:47 The #1 mistake founders make: Lack of process

22:03 The "Most Impressive Accomplishment" screening question

24:47 Why founders sometimes have to be dictators about process

#WhoWeHire #StartupHiring #HiringStrategy #TopGrading #GrowthLeadership #TechStartups #FounderInsights #RecruitingTips