Building Cartwheel's Founding Team: A Collaborative Success with MVP and Big Bang Talent

Introduction

Imagine transforming text into stunning animations with just a few clicks. This is the revolutionary vision of Cartwheel, an innovative startup that recently assembled its powerhouse founding team through a strategic collaboration with MVP’s Cecilia Ng and Big Bang Talent. Here’s how they did it.

Cartwheel's Challenge and Vision

With a groundbreaking product and a clear vision, Cartwheel's founders, Andrew and Jonathan, faced the pivotal challenge of hiring their founding team. In a highly competitive market, attracting top-tier AI talent was crucial for Cartwheel’s rapid growth. They needed to find and engage candidates who shared their vision and could drive the company forward.

Recognizing the Need for Support

Andrew and Jonathan understood that expert assistance was essential to navigate the competitive talent landscape. This led them to partner with Cecilia Ng from MVP, leveraging her strategic recruiting insights during their formative stages.

Strategic Partnership with Cecilia Ng

Cecilia’s expertise laid the foundation for Cartwheel's recruiting strategy. She also emphasized the importance of non-contingent sourcing support, which is increasingly beneficial in today’s startup ecosystem where a lot of VCs offer recruiting support. With Cecilia’s strategic guidance, Cartwheel was ready to scale its hiring efforts.

Enter Big Bang Talent

Big Bang Talent, founded by Joeri Leemans in 2021, operates on two core beliefs: 1) founders are the best advocates for their company and should take the first recruiting call, and 2) successful hiring requires engaging with a high volume of high-quality talent. Recognizing that founders often lack the time to source talent themselves, BBT focused on engaging high-signal candidates for the founders and taking care of everything up until that first phone call.

Collaborative Execution

• Cartwheel Founders: Andrew and Jonathan took the initial calls to sell the vision to potential candidates, building strong relationships throughout the hiring process.

• Cecilia Ng/MVP: Provided strategic talent functions, crucial during Cartwheel’s formative stages, and continued to support throughout the hiring funnel.

• Big Bang Talent: Leveraged targeted sourcing, extensive networks, and rigorous vetting to ensure only the best candidates were engaged, enhancing Cartwheel’s hiring efficiency.

Achievements and Results

The collaboration between Cartwheel, Cecilia Ng (MVP), and Big Bang Talent resulted in:

• Hires Made: 3 (Two Lead Animation Engineers, One Lead Machine Learning Engineer)

• Average Time to Hire: 2 months

• Total Cost Savings Compared to Contingency Agency: Over $75,000

Quotes and Testimonials

"Working with Big Bang Talent was a game-changer for us. Their ability to source top-tier candidates quickly was instrumental in building our founding team," says Andrew, Cartwheel’s co-founder.

"The favorite part of my job is partnering with founders like Andrew and Jonathan. Their dedication and energy toward recruiting have been key to their rapid success. Having Cecilia involved is invaluable; she ensures that the recruiting process runs smoothly and efficiently, able to handle the large influx of high-quality candidates without any hiccups," says Joeri Leemans, founder of Big Bang Talent.