Skip to content
Lenny's PodcastLenny's Podcast

Lessons from one of the world’s top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, GC)

Lauren Ipsen is one of the most well-known and respected executive recruiters in the industry, having placed over 90 senior product leaders at companies including Twitter, Reddit, Opendoor, Postmates, Nextdoor, and many others. She is currently the Director of Executive Talent at General Catalyst, and prior to that was a senior leader at Daversa Partners. In today’s podcast, Lauren shares advice for founders on hiring senior product leaders, tips for product leaders on finding better opportunities, and the most common mistakes recruiters make. She talks about how to play the long game of networking to find the best talent and about recruiting best practices, and we also dive deep on market mapping, LinkedIn, and how to approach reference checks. Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-one-of-the-worlds-top — Where to find Lauren Ipsen: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-ipsen-6a5a84113/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible: • Retool: https://retool.com/lenny • Miro: https://miro.com/lenny • Vanta: https://vanta.com/lenny — Referenced: • Gokul Rajaram on Lenny’s podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product-development-process-when-and-how-to-hire-your-first-pm-a-playbook-for-hiring-leaders-getting-ahead-in-you-career-how-to-get-started-angel-investing-more/ • The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808 • You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment: https://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Here-Discovering-Present/dp/1590308387/ • Your Own Backyard podcast: https://www.yourownbackyardpodcast.com/ • Top Gun: https://www.amazon.com/Top-Gun-Tom-Cruise/dp/B001K3K5MO • BeReal: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bereal-your-friends-for-real/id1459645446 • Strava: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/strava-run-ride-hike/id426826309 • Spotify: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spotify-music-and-podcasts/id324684580 • Joe Suliman at Daversa Partners: https://www.daversapartners.com/team/joe-suliman/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Lauren’s background (07:52) Why the best recruiters seem to be migrating to VC funds (09:44) Mistakes founders make in searching for their first senior product leader (13:26) Questions for founders to ask when thinking about who to hire (16:07) The three main types of PMs (18:27) What do job titles mean, and why are they more susceptible to change in a startup environment? (21:50) What should product leaders do ahead of hiring senior product leaders? (23:14) How to network with great talent (27:37) Why the timetable for recruiting is variable (29:02) How to be productive with your time by tapping your network (30:27) Why recruiting via LinkedIn might not be the best use of your time (33:17) Lauren’s favorite placement of all time (37:30) The importance of diversifying your experience (40:16) The art and science of staying long enough to have a meaningful impact (43:23) The importance of creating real impact as a leader (47:57) Good questions to ask references and how to dig deeper (49:35) Resume red flags and the importance of honesty (53:39) Interview tips for product managers  (57:29) Common mistakes recruiters make (1:00:57) Advice for founders looking for a recruiter (1:04:24) Lightning round — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Lauren IpsenguestLenny Rachitskyhost
Nov 2, 20221h 8mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Top recruiter reveals how to hire and become elite PM talent

  1. Executive recruiter Lauren Ipsen shares hard‑won lessons from placing 80+ senior leaders, focusing on how founders, product leaders, and recruiters can all get much better at hiring and career-building.
  2. For founders, she stresses defining the real mandate of a product role, avoiding over-hiring for brand-name executives, and constantly nurturing relationships with top talent long before there’s an open headcount.
  3. For PMs and product leaders, she emphasizes building breadth of experience, creating clear, referenceable impact, and always keeping a pulse on the market rather than job-hunting reactively.
  4. She also critiques common recruiter mistakes, arguing that long-term, relationship-first recruiting grounded in genuine listening and trust outperforms transactional tactics for everyone involved.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Hire for the stage and mandate, not for the biggest logo.

Founders often chase CPOs from giant companies, but those leaders may be far from the work and mismatched for an early-stage environment; focus instead on someone close to execution who can both PM and lead, and who fits what your company needs right now.

Define success and the role sharply before you start hiring.

Clarify what this person must accomplish in the first 90 days, 12 months, and beyond, including whether they’ll be hands-on, vision-led, design-leaning, growth-focused, etc.—otherwise the search is effectively “doomed from inception.”

Continuously keep a pulse on the market and build relationships early.

Both founders and PMs should always know which companies and individuals are thriving, proactively meet “what good looks like,” and nurture those connections through advising, informal chats, and lightweight collaboration long before there’s a job on the table.

Use product leadership archetypes and org design to avoid unicorn roles.

Rather than hiring one ‘head of product’ to do everything, decide whether you need platform/infrastructure, core/consumer, or specialist (e.g., growth/monetization), and build an org plan that sequences these hires instead of bundling them into a fantasy profile.

For PM careers, breadth plus clear impact beats logo-collecting.

To maximize future opportunities, PMs should work across different product domains and company stages, stay long enough to leave measurable, referenceable impact, and avoid hopping just for titles or brand names that don’t reflect real outcomes.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

You never want to put yourself in a position where you have no idea what good looks like.

— Lauren Ipsen

The general advice is: who is going to be best for this specific role at this specific time, not who is the best talent in the world.

— Lauren Ipsen

If you are in an actual search, then you should devote all of your time to it.

— Lauren Ipsen

Logo collecting is never something that you want to be known for.

— Lauren Ipsen

People aren’t just a commodity. You have to play the long game.

— Lauren Ipsen

How founders should think about hiring their first senior product leaderDefining role mandates, archetypes, and titles for product leadership hiresLong-term relationship building and market awareness for both founders and PMsCareer strategy for product leaders: breadth of experience and measurable impactReference checks, resume red flags, and how great recruiters really evaluate talentWhat distinguishes high-quality recruiters from transactional onesWhen and how startups should engage recruiters or search firms

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome