Renato Ricci is the Founder and COO of nok, a marketplace where you can try out high-end products from home for free, backed by Greycroft, Village Global and Moonshots. The tryouts are 100% free, meaning no money down and returns are a breeze thanks to pre-printed return labels.
Before moving to the US earlier this year, Renato started the company in Germany after having worked as a senior strategy consultant in the Middle East. He is fluent in 4 languages, has lived in 7 countries, and loves giving practicable advice on the hardest entrepreneurial topic: hiring!
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Renato’s background and how the idea for nok was born
- Renato talks about his co-founder, Bobby Wann, and working in a family business
- Why nok moved its headquarters from Germany to the US and its team distribution
- Renato talks about building a team and his best strategies when hiring for an early stage company
- How Renato managed his team during the transition, how he handles expectations, and how big his company has grown
- Why having well-defined OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is important for startups
- Renato’s advice to other companies on pivoting during a crisis and keeping advisor relationships strong
- The importance of having transparent conversations with your team and other stakeholders
- What Renato wishes he knew about working with recruitment firms when he first moved to the US
- The importance of doing reference checks and how Renato gets backdoor references when recruiting
- Why Greg has a love-hate relationship with candidate-provided references
- Where to learn more about Renato Ricci and nok
In this episode…
A lot of things have changed for companies because of the current COVID-19 health crisis, affecting people and businesses all over the world. Many of them have been forced to pivot and come up with new ways of doing business, and in turn, the decisions being made have affected employees directly.
Before COVID-19 and during, Renato Ricci has always believed in having honest and transparent conversations with his team, advisors, and other colleagues. His move from Germany to the US coincided with the ongoing health crisis, forcing him to part ways with some of his team members in the process. He also faced challenges when hiring in a new country, but took it as a lesson to help him grow both personally and professionally.
In this episode, Renato Ricci, Founder and COO of nok, joins Greg Toroosian to talk about his experience starting up nok, growing the business, and moving to the US amid the global health pandemic. He also talks about his international team-building experience, the importance of having well-defined OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), and why being honest and transparent is necessary for an early-stage company. Stick around for more on what Renato has to say!
Resources mentioned in this episode
- nok
- Renato Ricci on LinkedIn
- Bobby Wann, Co-founder of nok
- Startupbootcamp
- Greycroft
- Moonshots
- Village Global
- Asana
- Sweetgreen
- Hackathon
- Mondo
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Elevate Hire, a talent acquisition firm which provides leadership and senior level recruiting services for early-stage companies. Elevate Hire also offers advisory and consultancy services for select clients.
Elevate Hire was founded by Greg Toroosian after more than a decade in the Talent Acquisition space, working with startups, globally recognized brands and recruiting agencies, because I found that too many early-stage companies were struggling to recruit and retain top talent during crucial times of growth.
Because recruitment and talent retainment are keys to having a successful company in today’s fast-paced economy, Elevate Hire is committed to helping you recruit the right top tier talent, at the right time, can differentiate the most successful companies from the rest of their field.
If your company needs assistance with talent search, hiring process improvements, choosing and implementing recruiting tools, team training, or if you’re in need of an advisor, get in touch with us today to find out how we can make this work so that you can start building the company of your dreams.
Click this link to learn more about us and the services that we can provide for you and your company.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Elevate Hire podcast where CEOs, founders and executives of early stage companies talk through their experiences and building teams.
Greg Toroosian 0:16
Greg Toroosian here, Founder of Elevate Hire and host of the Elevate Hire podcast where I talk with CEOs, founders and executives about the challenges and successes they’ve had while recruiting for their teams. This episode is brought to you by Elevate Hire, a talent acquisition advisory consultancy an execution firm who recruit leadership and senior level team members for early stage companies and rapidly growing companies as well. So we believe that recruiting and retaining talent is key to having a successful company in today’s fast moving and uncertain economy. Frankly, being able to recruit the right top talent at the right time can differentiate the most successful companies from the rest of their field. If your company’s assistance is recruiting key team members, improving your hiring processes, choosing an implementing recruiting tools structure And training your team or if you need an advisor we can help. For more details visit elevatehire.com
In this episode, we have Renato Ricci, Founder and COO of nok, a marketplace for trying products for free all from your home. Welcome to the show, Renato.
Renato Ricci 1:16
Thank you so much, Greg. Thanks for having me.
Greg Toroosian 1:18
Yeah, no, I appreciate I appreciate you being part of it. So Renato recently moved his HQ of the company to Los Angeles and has been growing like crazy. I’m excited to jump in here and talk about his international team building experience, how his background in consulting has helped shape his perspective on things and what it’s been like founding a company from scratch. So firstly, I’d like to throw things over to our guests to just give a brief overview of yourself a little bit more detail and how you really got to this point.
Renato Ricci 1:46
Yeah. Cool. Thanks, Greg. So I have a consulting background. As you mentioned, I did move around a lot in my life. So I started in the UK or you’re from number two, moved over to Singapore to finish my master’s. And started my career, as you mentioned in consulting in Dubai. And then, you know, I’m permitted originally after Dubai came back home straight to structure my, you know, my family business, you know, in a better way try to scale it. Unfortunately, Thailand, you know, but it’s not. It’s not super high, especially where I’m from in Monaco. And as a result, you know, was looking around for experiences, so that there was a Hackathon organized in Berlin in Germany, and convinced a friend to come with me and participate there. So we went there, and we won Hackathon. And as a result, the sponsors of our Hackathon offered me a job. My job was to essentially work for an accelerator called startup bootcamp for three months in Berlin, to help some of the companies in which we invest scale. And on the accelerator, I met my co-founder, Bobby from the US, he sort of had this idea of Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to you know, try products for free from home before you buy them without you know having to go to a store or without having to buy first online to try and return I was immediately sold the idea. And you know, fast for two and a half years later, we went from being, you know, a German company to being an American company raised just over $4 million, and moved the quarter from Berlin to New York and then from New York to Los Angeles to sustain the growth on both coasts.
Greg Toroosian 3:18
Amazing, amazing. That’s a really cool story. And I think frankly, unique, you know, you see a lot of European startups that either they’re, you know, headquartered in London, or Amsterdam, or wherever it may be, and then try and branch into the US or they just stay very, very local.
Renato Ricci 3:34
Yeah, I’m always thinking that you know, as a founder, it’s really hard enough to launch your own business so you might as well just do it in a vehicle system that is the easiest in which to scale. Yeah, and that’s, you know, you know, without a doubt his view is right from a funding perspective, time perspective, sales potential.
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