Rishab Jain | Bare Anatomy

Rishab Jain currently works at Bare Anatomy (www.bareanatomy.in) since Jan20. Prior to joining Bare Anatomy, Rishab was at EY from 2018 to 2020, based in Kolkata. Rishab is a Chartered Accountant and a B.Com Graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Rishab will be sharing his experience from his stint at Bare Anatomy focusing on sharing insights about the startups in India.

Interview

How did you recruit for this role? What would your advice be for potential candidates aspiring to get here? (recruiting strategy, cycle, process etc.)

I was searching for Strategy / Chief of Staff roles at startups and had applied for a few on job portals / reached out to a couple of founders on LinkedIn. I had found Bare Anatomy’s job posting quite unique and had applied for it on one of the portals after researching about the industry. 

One of the co-founders called me one day and we had a long chat about the industry, my past experiences and what the company is trying to do. I had 4 rounds with the founders and one with the HR which were mostly around deep dive on my past experiences (hygiene check), some case study questions (mindset check), expectation setting (culture check) and final negotiation (pay check). 

Recruitment process:

• Before diving into the recruitment process, do understand that this is not a typical profile that all startups hire for. However, I’ve recently started seeing a lot of funded startups having one such opening.
• Generally, recruitment for such roles happens through either referral, LinkedIn, normal job portals or headhunters as is the case with any other job opening. 
• Once you’ve an interview set, you’ll generally go through the checks mentioned earlier. The number of interviews could depend on what stage the startup is in or how have they set up the process.
• Common advice is to be specific in your job search. 3 things matter the most – Industry (should be high growth), Founder (should be credible) and Runway (should be 12-24 months before they run out of cash)

What are the key skills that are required for this role? 

After working in this role and having done hiring for a similar role, I’ve come to understand that 3 skills matter the most:

1/ Be a 10 – I’ve a favorite quote from Steve Schwarzman’s book, What It Takes: Lessons In The Pursuit Of Excellence, he says “Eights just do the stuff you tell them. Nines are great at executing and developing good strategies. You can build a winning firm with 9s. But people who are 10s sense problems, design solutions, and take the business in new directions without being told to do so. Tens always make it rain.”. Be a 10.

2/ Have one strong hard skill – Normally, startups at early stage hire generalists who can come onboard and take care of as many things as they can. However, it helps if you have one major skill that you can completely own. Like for me, it was finance. After joining, I immediately took charge of their accounting, finance, investor decks and cost reduction. For you, it could be digital marketing or programming or operations or people management.

3/ Be curious – This is a life skill which I think is helpful in all cases. If you’re curious enough to figure out why or how does x thing work, I think you can learn almost everything. And at startups, all things are linked. If you’re able to optimize one thing (say ad spend/marketing), you would solve many problems (say for finance/ hiring). So, your problems could be solved by someone else, but you’ve to first understand how does the other thing work.

What is the typical feeder profile (typical previous work experience) for this industry in general and for your firm in particular?

Usually, having one great education institution in your resume helps. Be it undergrad or postgrad. Apart from that, you should have experience of working in either a high growth startup or a consulting firm for a couple of years.

Is there an education path that is preferred for getting a role in this industry?

Mature startups generally hire MBAs. Early stage startups hire whatever best they can get (if low on funding)

What is a typical day at work for you?

A typical day would be:

1. catching up with various internal teams and checking progress/setting directions on projects
2. shortlisting and interviewing candidates for various roles (typical for a startup)
3. talking to various other stakeholders like investors/ agencies (marketing/recruitment)/ alliance partners 
4. working on tasks like researching new products/tools, preparing MIS, investors deck/Bplan etc, evaluating new business opportunities.
5. brainstorming with other team heads and co-founders on past or upcoming projects

What is the typical exit that people get from this role?

I’ve seen people join other bigger startups at a similar role or start their own ventures. Some also join VC firms which are more operational in nature.  A few folks also do their MBA / post grad studies if they hadn’t completed that before joining. Some stay around and become C-suite executive and handle one or two operational areas completely.

What are the pros and cons about this role?

Pros

• Learning is huge
• Access to wide range of professionals
• Equity can make you rich (very rare)

Cons

• Your startup could go bust
• You may not like the culture if you’ve come from a consulting / mature set up

What are your typical work hours in a week (including weekends)?

60-65 hours work week. Can eat up your weekends sometimes too.

How do the responsibilities evolve as one grows in this industry into senior roles?

You can take full responsibility of one or two departments and become a C-suite exec faster 

What would be your advice for people aspiring for a similar role?

1. Study in a city where there are many early stage startups and intern with as many as you can
2. Build a network / audience online (like these guys are doing here with TNM)
3. Do prior due diligence on the founders / founding team and the industry that you want to join. Generally, second time founders with a good track record in a high growth industry are better.
4. Be lucky