Hiring the right people for your startup team - Nicolas Jamal, Dox

Nic, the cofounder and CEO of Dox, answers questions and discusses his experience in Startupbootcamp’s EnergyNext program. In this interview, Nic explains how the Facet5 personality questionnaire helped him and his team better understand each other's strengths, weaknesses, their team’s dynamics, and helped them create a more efficient hiring process based on personality traits.

Dox is a startup company that has a mission to reduce battery risks, accelerate battery R&D, and promote a circular economy. Nic states that Dox’s vision is to “bring AI to every part of the value chain by creating an end-to-end battery intelligence system.” In order to achieve this mission, Dox has created a battery testing platform that ensures battery safety at a lower cost, speeds up the testing process by 70%, and simplifies the process by using automated machine learning tools.

It takes a lot of time and effort to get to know people’s personalities, how to communicate with them effectively, and what tasks they would be best suited to. SBC has a partnership with Facet5, which administers personality tests based on a series of questions that measures people’s strengths and weaknesses.

Facet5 is one of the most advanced measurements of personality out there. This questionnaire evaluates personality in 5 different measures, where most other personality tests only measure 4. The personality traits measured include will, energy, affection, control, and emotionality. This is a great tool that SBC uses in their programs to select teams and help coach startup tech companies to better understand team dynamics and their role in hiring the right people.

In the interview, Nic explains that the Facet5 debrief helped him and his team understand where the gaps were in their team dynamics and what kind of person they should hire in order to fill that gap. The results they received during the Facet5 debrief also helped them realise where the team’s strengths lie. Which, in turn, helped them use those strengths to their advantage. Nic also explained that the team’s results helped them identify in what ways their team dynamics were working and in what ways they needed to be modified in terms of personality traits such as “discipline” or “control.”

As their team grew Nic identified key steps he implements when hiring:

1. Visualising the current org chart and figuring out the skills that you need on your team to help you achieve your long and short term goals.
2. Then translating those to individual job roles and outlining 3-5 clear goals that you want your new employee to achieve in the set determined amount of time
3. Sharing your org chart and job descriptions with your team and mentors for additional input from an external party
4. (as he already mentioned) using a personality tool such as Facet5 to hire more efficiently for the personalities that you need in your team.

Overall, the Dox team’s experience with Startupbootcamp and the questionnaire prompted them to change their entire approach for hiring new members of the team. This helped them identify what personality traits best fit the position they are hiring for. This new approach saves copious amounts of time and energy by eliminating the lengthy interview process and the time it takes to format the right questions for them.

The EnergyNext program helps you demystify all the obstacles and roadblocks you could face as you’re growing your early stage startup. From hiring, to pivoting to understanding your business model and pitching to press. If you’re currently looking for some additional support in a particular area of the startup process, applications for the EnergyNext program are open now: https://www.startupbootcamp.com.au/programs/energynext