Your team is your company.
Build it right.
We embed a complete talent acquisition team inside your startup — a Head of Talent, Recruiters, and a Recruiting Coordinator who have scaled companies from the founding team through IPO. Working exclusively for you, until the job is done.
Startup recruiting is brutal.
No brand recognition. Little to no inbound. Tight budgets, and fierce competition with big tech. Building a strong team is the most important thing a founder will do — and the odds are stacked against you.
Agencies
$30K–$40K per hire, or more. Transactional, contingency-driven, and optimized for their placement fee — not your team. A handful of hires can drain a seed round fast.
Big-tech in-house
Large companies build massive internal recruiting teams — hundreds of recruiters spending millions per quarter to reach ~$12K per hire. It works at scale. But you don’t need hundreds of hires.
The embedded team
Most startups need 5–10 exceptional hires at a sustainable cost. We embed a complete, senior talent team that delivers exactly that at $10K–$15K per hire — the cost of one agency hire brings you three or four high-quality employees.
A fully functioning talent team, embedded in yours.
Not a contingency agency. Not a solo contract recruiter. A complete talent acquisition function, deployed inside your company, carrying your brand, and working only for you.
Head of Talent
Senior leadership that has scaled companies from the founding team through IPO. Works with your key stakeholders to craft a compelling, unified message that attracts the strongest candidates.
Recruiters
Proactive sourcing from day one. We hunt for candidates exclusively for your company across our networks — we don’t wait for them to show up on your website.
Recruiting Coordinator
Owns the machinery: scheduling, candidate communication, ATS setup and optimization, and a candidate experience that closes offers.
We work exclusively with your company until the job is done — then we step away, ready to return when you need to hire again.
Recruiting, backed by the Inception Studio network.
Inception Studio is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community where the most experienced founders build the next generation of AI companies. That community is our unfair advantage in recruiting.
6,000+ founders & engineers
Our database is built on referrals, not scraping. The majority are repeat founders — vetted, interviewed, and known to us.
Curated introductions
No blasts. We know who’s ready for their next thing, and we match them to your company deliberately.
Founder-level screening
Candidates are screened by people who have built, scaled, and sold companies — including technical screens by Inception Studio’s founders.
70+ companies, $270M+ raised
Inception Studio has helped launch more than 70 companies that have collectively raised over $270 million. Recruit with that credibility behind you.
From kickoff to hired.
Discovery & Alignment
An in-depth phase to understand your vision, culture, and specific talent needs.
Integration & Planning
Our team embeds within your organization and develops a comprehensive recruitment plan.
Proactive Sourcing
Active engagement of top-tier candidates through our networks and your employer brand. Pipeline building starts on day one.
Streamlined Selection
We manage the full pipeline — outreach, rigorous screening, interview logistics, feedback, and final selection.
Onboarding & Partnership
Smooth transitions and a long-term roadmap. We step away when the job is done, ready to return.
Most searches see serious candidate interest within the first two to three weeks.
The numbers that matter.
Our team scaled Vitria from 40 to 1,500 people through a successful IPO — and Clover from 50 to 650 at a $3K cost per hire.
Operators, not middlemen.
Led by a 30-year Silicon Valley talent leader, backed by the founders of Inception Studio.
Bryan has spent more than 30 years building teams for Silicon Valley startups. As talent acquisition leader at Vitria Technology, he scaled the company from 40 to 1,500 people in three years and through a successful IPO, and later scaled Clover Network from 50 to 650 through acquisition. He has led talent at Proofpoint, founded three startups (two with multi-million-dollar exits), and personally placed more than 4,000 people. Silicon Valley native; BS from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.
John is a serial entrepreneur — founder of Moka5, UnifyID, and Redcoat AI — and the founder of Inception Studio. Stanford PhD (Arthur Samuel Best Doctoral Thesis Award), B.S. and M.Eng. from MIT, Forbes AI 50, and Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford. John provides founder-level technical screening on Inception Studio Recruiting searches.
Mike is a 28-year Silicon Valley veteran who specializes in building technical teams. One of the first 80 employees at VMware, he helped scale it to 20,000 people pre-IPO, and served as VP Engineering at UnifyID through multiple acquisitions and exits.
Trusted by leaders who’ve scaled the biggest.
“Bryan and I have worked together for over 25 years, and he is an extraordinary talent when it comes to building and scaling recruiting teams.”
“To scale effectively in today’s environment, you need your own team working on your behalf. Not only do they provide this service, they do it at a very competitive rate.”
“In 3 years, Bryan and his team were responsible for scaling Clover from 50 people to 650 people, mostly engineers, at a cost per hire of $3K.”
Your next ten hires start here.
Tell us what you’re building and who you need. We’ll take it from there.