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In this special episode of ‪What Worked, roles are reversed as JD Beebe, Co-Founder of ThankView & Board Member at EverTrue, interviews Mike Wu, Hireframe's Co-Founder and CEO. As one of Hireframe's first customers back in 2019, JD brings unique insights as he uncovers Mike's journey from investment banking and consulting to international staffing.

Mike shares candid insights about:

• His unexpected path from corporate career to entrepreneurship
• How Hireframe started as a favor
• Practical frameworks for evaluating which roles to consider international talent for (and which roles you should NOT)

We'd love for you to connect with us on LinkedIn:

• ‍Mike Wu‍
• Tyler Rachal‍
• JD Beebe

Check out Episode 8 where Mike and Tyler interview JD.

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Transcript edited for clarity:

Mike Wu

What is going on? Welcome to another episode of What Worked, the podcast that my co-founder Tyler and I started, just about one year ago. So this is a special, call it end of year episode, very unique opportunity to have a guest host JD Beebe. Many of you might recognize him from an earlier episode in our season. And we're going to do something cool here, JD is going to interview me. And so we're kind of turning the tables here. And why I think this is such a cool opportunity is because it's one of the unique, awesome experiences that I get to have starting Hireframe is meeting cool people and building relationships with them. JD, when we first started working with his company, ThankView back in 2019, was just a customer. And over the years we've become good friends. And so I trust him to interview me, ask me some good questions and not hold back. So with that being said, JD, welcome to the pod and thank you for doing this.

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JD Beebe

Well, thank you, Mike. And this is an esteemed honor. I come to realize that this is your first time being interviewed one-on-one, so I take the responsibility very seriously. 

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Mike Wu

That's right.

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JD Beebe

I will do my damnedest to make this a fantastic episode. But of course, it's going to be great because it's going to be all about you. And I was inspired. I was relistening to some episodes and thought that both you and Tyler Rachal, your co-founder, you guys are just such fantastic interviewers and also just fantastic partners to have in business. 

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So, It got me thinking, you know, I don't think I know the Hireframe story. I don't know the Hireframe story and therefore I really don't know the Mike Wu story. And knowing that you're the more reserved, quiet, buttoned up guy, I said, all right, let's unpack this guy. I know there's an interesting story to tell. So from episode eight, which was so great to be a part of as the guest, I said, let me flip the table on you and let's talk about you. So Mike, get ready. Are you ready to be interviewed? 

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Mike Wu

Let's go. Let's do this.

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JD Beebe

All right, so we're obviously going to talk about Hireframe, which, congratulations, happy anniversary on your fifth year. 

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Mike Wu

That's right, thank you.

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JD Beebe

Most companies do not make it this far. So just a few little feathers in the cap for you and Tyler and the Hireframe team. Five years old, again, ThankView, one of their first clients, continues to be a client through the merger and the EverTrue team now. Happy and very satisfied with the work that we do with Hireframe. And the team, you have hired hundreds of Hireframers, so hundreds of people that work across countless other organizations. And internally, your team is nearly 20 people there. So you continue to grow, continue to improve. 

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We're gonna get to all of that, but I want to know who is the man, what made the man. So bring me back, Mike. Bring me back to a young Mike in South Florida. Tell me where it all started.

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Mike Wu

Yeah, let me take you back there. Thank you, JD, for that awesome intro. A lot of people know me as a Los Angeles guy, because I've lived here in LA, I live here with my wife and my son. And I've lived here for a long time. But I actually grew up in South Florida. That throws people off a little bit, because I don't think a lot of people might know someone who was born and raised in South Florida, but I was. Grew up there. My parents raised me there, along with my three siblings, I’m the youngest of three.

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And prior to that my parents moved from Taiwan to the States in the 70s. And so, child of immigrants, moved to South Florida. South Florida like in the late 80s, early 90s was uncharted territory. It was still very largely like swamps, the Everglades National Park, and there was just a ton of development happening, like residential development, like homes going up, new housing developments, apartment developments, that sort of thing. Just to paint the picture of what that was like. It was a great upbringing. I had a great time. It was fun being the youngest of four. I got catered to and helped all the time. 

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JD Beebe

I was going to say, the little prince.

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Mike Wu

Exactly. And yeah, I guess looking back as a kid, I think maybe a question that I get a lot is like, hey, did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? Did you go into business? And to be honest, I don't think so. My brother, my older brother was actually the natural entrepreneur in the family. I never set up the lemonade stand or any of that stuff. My story around entrepreneurship starts much later down the road, but my brother was the guy that was flipping things on eBay, going to the swap meets and trading Pokemon cards and picking up nickels and dimes here and there. So he's actually the natural-born entrepreneur. I think I'm the one that developed, I'm a late bloomer, so I developed late maybe. 

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So that was kinda my background. And I guess I always thought when I was a kid that I wanted to be a lawyer. And the reason was, and this is one of my earliest memories as a kid, I remember I was in the car with my mom, which was where I spent a lot of time. My mom, picking up my brother and my sisters from all their activities, and I was the youngest just following along. And I remember we were driving by this one apartment complex that was being put up in our neighborhood in our town across the street from the Burger King. I was around six. I was like, Mom, I wanna be a construction worker when I grow up. I loved playing with my trucks. I loved being in the dirt outside. And she looked at me, she goes, Michael, you want to be a lawyer. At that moment in time, I was like, I wanna be a lawyer. You're just a kid, so I was heavily influenced by what my parents wanted.

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JD Beebe

Yeah, and I think that's certainly true of a lot of kids and again, you being second generation coming through, there must have been a lot of pressure or expectation put on your shoulders. Did you even know what a lawyer was at that age?

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Mike Wu

No, of course not. Of course not. I remember maybe there's some TV shows where I saw a lawyer and it maybe looked prestigious because you had to wear a suit and go to court and people listen to what you had to say. 

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JD Beebe

Yeah, you have a briefcase.

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Mike Wu

But no, I didn't know. But obviously, yeah, my parents, they moved here hoping to give us more opportunities, which they've fully succeeded in. A big part of that, how they defined that was having good jobs. And so they thought doctor, lawyer. And look, they were successful. One of my sisters is a doctor, another one them is a lawyer. So the plan worked out. For me and my brother, things kind of went a little bit haywire, but things worked out too. But that was their idea and that was their vision. And so they were trying to do the best thing they could for us and put us into these careers, into these roles that they imagine would set us up for a great life.

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JD Beebe

Now I just have to ask, is your brother still selling Pokemon cards or what is he doing?

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Mike Wu

No, my brother is an auto mechanic. yeah, he, yeah, 

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JD Beebe

Oh, okay.

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He's super handy and so different. We are total opposites, like I am someone who does email for a living. He is building engines, right? So like, he's always been good at that. I can't even hang frames on my own wall without messing up.

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JD Beebe

Hey, listen, those who can't go into software. So I think that's why we're here. 

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Mike Wu

Exactly.

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JD Beebe

So, from that, it sounds like there was that expectation. From what I take, you were a good student. It also sounds like you learned a lot through sports. Tell me kind of like what brought you through and kind of how you approached life. Through Florida, going to school, how did you kind of approach your career in the early days?

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Mike Wu

I always gravitated towards sports. My mom gravitated towards violin, so I did both. So I played violin for like 12 years, from like six to 18 years old all the way through high school. But honestly, if you didn't see me, if I wasn't eyesight, then you knew where I was. I was outside somewhere. I was outside playing basketball, playing hockey on the street, playing football. That's what I love to do. And it was through sports that I learned, like many other people I think, just how fun it is to work in teams, play, compete in teams. And it's where I got a lot of my confidence. What  I learned at a young age is if you work at something long enough, like a certain basketball move or like a left-handed layup was my thing. I worked on my left-handed layup so much that my left hand became my dominant hand.

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But I learned at a young age through sports that, and through violin honestly, that if you do something enough that you can get really pretty good at it. And so that's something that I've taken with me throughout my whole life. And very early on, there was a clear distinction between things that I liked and things that I did because I had to. My parents kind of put those onto me. Like violin was a thing that I had to do, but I still realized that if you put enough work you can still get good at those things.

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But with things that you liked, you put in a lot of work, you can be great at them. And so that's something that I thought a lot about as a kid and also now looking back. And that kind of came together. I left South Florida and moved to LA for college. So I went to USC and I went as a PoliSci major because I thought I was going to be a lawyer. But took one semester… 

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JD Beebe

Thanks mom!

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Mike Wu

Thank you, mom. I took one semester of classes and I was like, I don't really like this. So what am I doing? I'm drawn to the business school for some reason, the undergraduate business program at USC, which is fantastic. And so I took a couple of classes there and I was like, okay, this feels like violin, this feels like basketball, let me go to the basketball, which is the business school. So I ended up going to business school, getting an undergraduate business degree. And then after USC, I went the traditional path. I still kind of had this idea of like, let's get a good job, right? I had student loans to pay. I wanted to make my parents proud. I wanted to do what I thought was right. So I went the…

JD Beebe

Right. You're meandering a little bit off the path, but not really. You say, mom, I'm still heading toward success, but it's (points upwards).

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Mike Wu

Yeah, not too far. Look, I'm not an adrenaline junkie. I'm not taking big risks out there. My whole life, I'm like tiptoeing. I'm kind of exploring things, taking a little bit of risk here, seeing what it tastes like, and then making a decision. So yeah, I did the business school thing, went to Merrill Lynch, worked in investment banking for a few years, had a great experience. And then did some M&A work and then I went graduate business school at Harvard Business School, got my MBA and then into consulting for a couple years. And that's kinda like my career leading up to taking the leap into entrepreneurship and trying to start a business. And one thing that now I look back at is just how ridiculous my pre-Hireframe resume is in the sense that I did management consulting and investment banking. 

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JD Beebe

It’s a lot

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Mike Wu

It is a lot. I don't know how many people have done both, but to me it just screams of you don't know what you want to do guy. If you meet another person that has both investment making and management consulting on their resume, and that's not what they're doing long-term, that's someone who's searching, who's trying to figure out what they actually want to do. And so I didn't realize that though until much later, 

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JD Beebe

The high achieving journeyman. You know you can succeed, but you don't know, you haven't found your North Star yet.

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Mike Wu

Exactly, I was like, I was chasing what I want to succeed in. So, yeah, had a little bit of confidence, but got a ton of great experience and exposure to great people working at these companies. And so, you know, wouldn't change my history for anything.

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JD Beebe

Well, obviously the path you take is the path that got you here and presumably here is a great place to be. I like to think of this in the hero's journey part where the big choice is made, right? Because you could continue on, we could not be having this conversation. You could still be at a Boston Consulting Group. You could be somewhere else. You could be doing something else. But something called to you and said, Mike, Mike, come work for yourself.

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So tell me what that was and was it something innate inside of you that made you scratch that itch? Was it someone else? Was it a combination? Tell me, because again, people are going to be listening to this podcast because either they've done it and they like to hear other stories or they are on that path and saying, how the heck do I get off the hamster wheel? How do I do something for myself? So what, what was happening in your life that made you think, geez, now's the time to do it for myself?

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Mike Wu

Yeah, I got an itch for entrepreneurship while I was in business school. So this was pre-BCG. I was at HBS in Boston taking classes and there was kind of like two different types of experiences that I had that gave me the itch to try to start my own business. The first one was at HBS, a lot of the classes, they just bring in speakers. They bring in people who've started businesses, people who've run businesses. And they come in and talk, they answer all your questions. It's an amazing once in lifetime opportunity to get access to people like this. And I was like, this is interesting. These people also just seem just like me and all of my classmates sitting in this room. They don't seem that different. And that was surprising to me because I've always held entrepreneurs on this pedestal and thought, man, that's something might be too hard to achieve. But it brought it down to earth and you get to know them and they're cool people and they're smart and they're very humble too. They also made it known to me that they don't have all the answers. And that was really interesting. That was a very influential experience for me.

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JD Beebe

Is that something that had been the experience up to that point? Because I do feel like in starting a business, it is kind of nice because you just start to realize no one really knows everything. But up to that point, you were high achieving. And it's kind like, if you don't know the answer, then that's bad, right? You don't want to show any sort of weakness.

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Mike Wu

Yes, yeah, it's very astute. I would say leading up to that, working in finance, you have to know the answer and there is an answer. There is a distinct answer, right? And so that was a totally different way to think about work. Wow, like going into a line of work where there is ambiguity, there isn't necessarily a definitive wrong or right answer. You have to kind of figure that out and navigate that. Yeah, that was like a totally new way of thinking that I guess was introduced to me through these speaker series. I didn't even realize that, JD, so thank you for bringing that to light. Working in finance, your managers, your supervisors, your managing director, they actually know everything. Everything they say is correct. That's kind of how it works. And then as an analyst, more at the bottom of that totem pole, all of your numbers, all of your analysis has to be 100 % correct for the culture of that line of work, but also I think for legal purposes, right? Every number needs to be buttoned up to the decimal, because it's gonna be in a review. So yeah, that is a very interesting transition that you highlight there. 

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So I did these speaker series at MBA. It brought to life what entrepreneurship could look like. It brought me a little bit closer to that. And then I think that probably the most influential experience was in a lot of MBA programs, but at HBS, they have an opportunity to do independent study. Essentially, it's an open class that you can take. You need to get a professor to kind of sign up as your sponsor and give them your idea. And so I wanted to try starting a business. And I just thought very much from a practical standpoint, hey, I'm in business school, I should try to start a business. That's the way I thought I was like, I got to find a way to do this.

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JD Beebe 

But funny how many people don't think that way, I'd imagine, at business school. Because they go, I'm going to go in consulting. I'm not going to build my own business. So, you know, again, somewhat novel.

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Mike Wu

Yeah, business school is like a choose your own adventure. You can come in, people are hyper focused on pivoting to a specific career or advancing in their current career in private equity, or pivoting from the public sector to the private sector, or from the military to the private sector, or something like that. But for me, I was like, I'm just gonna use this time to explore and dabble. That's what I wanted to do. And then I just felt wherever I end up, it'll probably be in a good place, I just kind of had this like faith. That was one of my check the box life things I wanted to do, I wanted to try starting a business. And it's kind of a safe place to do it, it's low stakes because everyone in business school is trying things and no one takes it too seriously. You can even call it a project. I got to do it under the guise of a class so no one had to know about it. So if this thing burns and it's an epic failure, no one's going to know, my ego is protected, and I can carry on and go work in consulting. 

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So I did this class and the business that I ended up starting was a meal prep delivery business. This was like 2015. And so at that time there was actually a couple of meal prep things popping up. It was kind of a hot space and me, being a lifelong fitness person and always enjoying working out, I was into meal prep and that sort of thing. I would do this myself and people kind of knew me for that. So I was like, let me try to start a business around this. A problem that I identified that I wanted to tackle was every meal prep service that I used at that time, I would eat their meals and be hungry afterwards still. 

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JD Beebe

Yep, not big enough.

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Mike Wu

They just weren't hearty enough. So I was like, how can I do more but keep costs down and all this stuff and have a great brand and still deliver fresh food that was better for you. So all the things, right? During that semester, I did this with a classmate of mine, we created a brand, created a website, we sourced food, we sourced a chef, we prepared the food, and we had to market and sell. So I remember I had to skip class. It was the spring semester, so January, February of 2015. That winter in Boston was one of the epic Boston winters where there was like five feet of snow on the ground. You couldn't tell if there was a car there or not because it was buried in the snow.

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JD Beebe

I think I had a client up in Boston that winter and it was like eight feet in every direction. You were just like, I hope I'm going the right way.

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Mike Wu

It was wild. Yeah. And coming from South Florida and Los Angeles, this was my first winter by the way. So I didn't even have proper winter clothes. But I remember taking the T and just going to downtown Boston and I would stand in and outside of the station handing out flyers for like, Hey, does anyone want meal prep delivered straight to your office right before lunch, 11 AM. So that's fresh, all this stuff and hand out a bunch of flyers. I was so cold. I just remember. And look, we got emails, people were interested. So they emailed us back, they signed up, they picked what they wanted to eat.

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JD Beebe

Do you remember your first client, by the way? Do you remember the first person or one of the first?

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Mike Wu

I don't remember the name, but I remember the interaction because when I delivered the food, because they were like, hey, aren't you the same guy that handed me the flyer? And I was like, oh no, it must have been someone else. Yeah, but I remember the feeling. So I don't remember the name of the person, but I remember the feeling of actually handing over the bag of food to the person in the lobby of their office building in Boston. And that's the feeling I think that changed everything for me. I was like, this feels different, this feels interesting, this feels good. And I think it's equivalent, a lot of people say like, hey, like, go get your first sale on the internet. And these are these like moments. For me, it was like handing over this plate of chicken to this person, to this random person. So it's just the idea of, you can set something up, create demand for it, you'll create the product and then deliver it. It was my first time doing that and that changed everything for me. I was like, okay, I gotta try this.

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JD Beebe

It's an intoxicating feeling. I think for those who do it, then it remains a lifetime rush after that. You're not selling chicken anymore. You're selling expanding your teams through staffing services. 

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Mike Wu

Staffing services, yeah.

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JD Beebe

But it's the same thing. It's the same exact rush. That's so cool. So you set this business up. Presumably, you're not still doing this too.

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Mike Wu

No, we're not still doing this. We shut it down at the end of the semester. Look, it was a good experience, but we were just clearly, my co-founder, my classmate who we started the business with, he was gonna go work at Google or something like that, and he was focused on that. And I was like, this was a great experience. I'm gonna take this with me and figure out what to do next, but that wasn't the thing I think I wanted to do long-term. But I was like, that was the exact experience that I needed to inform what direction I want to go next.

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JD Beebe

So that's great. Now business school ends, you end up going into consulting. But at a certain point you have this idea, something happens, but you also meet someone really pivotal. And I'm not talking about your wife, who I'm sure she's a lovely woman, shout out to your wife. But I'm talking about your business partner, Tyler. Can you kind of talk about what happened, how you guys came together and the genesis of Hireframe?

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Mike Wu

Yeah, yeah, so Tyler Rachal is my co-founder here at Hireframe and, this is funny, it's like the meet cute, like how did you meet each other? He probably has a slightly different memory of how things went down. But it was around the same timeframe. So was after business school for me, I was back in LA working at BCG as a consultant and during that time. Again, look, BCG was a great, awesome place, world-class organization. I take so much, I'm so inspired by BCG. It informs a lot of the things that we do here at Hireframe. But while I was there, I also k realized that it wasn't gonna be my long-term place, my long-term home. And that's the case for 99% of people at BCG, that walk through those doors. 

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And so, on the weekends, what was great about it, I was back from Boston, back in LA, just reconnecting with friends. I initially met Tyler because he was the roommate of one of my friends in LA, Nick, who was a friend from USC, from undergrad. And Nick was working at a company called TaskUs, which is an outsourcing company that builds large teams all around the world for primarily technology companies. And Tyler was one of the early employees there. And so he was one of Nick's roommates in this apartment in Brentwood in West LA. One of those four bedroom starter apartments for you just graduated in college, you're sharing an apartment with four guys and making it happen. And so that's how I initially met Tyler. And then as the years and kind of the months came through, Tyler and I got to know each other, got acquainted through different social events, birthday parties, going out in LA, that sort of thing. And I was immediately drawn to Tyler because he's so funny and outgoing, he's like just naturally that guy. And then as I got to know him, I think what we started to connect on more and more was like business. I'm clearly like a business nerd. I have not one, I have two business degrees. And that's just what I like to talk about, unfortunately. 

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So Tyler and I would always find ourselves just quickly pivoting from whatever, singing happy birthday, to hey, did you see this thing in the news, or what's this company doing? So that's how our relationship began. And then it wasn't until later when I was like, okay, I was at BCG, and I was like, I gotta figure out what I wanna do next, and I know it's gonna be something entrepreneurial. I'm not exactly sure what it is yet. And Tyler actually coincidentally found himself in the same spot. He had been working at TaskUs for I think seven years. And they had a great exit and he was like in this transition period, trying to figure out what he wanted to do next. He also wanted to do something entrepreneurial, that was his hunch. We didn't immediately say we're gonna work together, but we're just like, hey, that's cool. And so we started meeting up on the weekends and sharing ideas like, hey, I think this is something I might wanna do. And I'll present to him an idea that I have and we'd give each other feedback, ask each other questions just to kick the cans a little bit. 

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JD Beebe

Mm-hmm.

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Mike Wu

And we did that for a long time and then ultimately, we realized, hey, we not only get along socially and as friends, but we have a lot of values. I really admire Tyler's experience at TaskUs and what he was able to do building something from zero to one. I really looked up to his ability to sell big deals and that sort of thing. And then I just really gained an appreciation for where he came from, his history, his backstory. There's a lot of similarities in terms of our values and what we want long term. 

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And so we actually came together and it just kind of happened naturally, I think. We're kind of like dating, if you will, but unintentionally. It's kind of like maybe when two friends unintentionally become romantic partners. But that's kind of how it happened. It was kind of a slow roll. It wasn't fast or anything like that and almost accidental. But it was pretty obvious when we started talking about it. Oh yeah, this makes a lot of sense.

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JD Beebe

So what comes of this, after however much time, is (drumroll) Hireframe. So I thought about this, I don't even know if we've introduced what Hireframe does yet. So why don’t you tell me what it was at its inception, and has that really changed that much since you had first founded it?

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Mike Wu

Yeah, so Hireframe's an overseas staffing firm. We hire, train, and staff professionals based out of the Philippines and other places in the world at companies here in the US, primarily technology companies. That's our company. We just are celebrating, it's mid-December, we're celebrating five years in business, so it's a big milestone for us, for every one of the company, but it's especially me and Tyler who started this thing from scratch five years ago. And JD here, this is no coincidence, but ThankView was one of our first customers back in 2019. I remember this time, December 2019, we rushed, we flew out to New York and made that trip and got to know your team and got to know some of the challenges you guys were facing. And we built a lot of the services that we have today around your needs, which were ultimately very similar to other companies, just like ThankView and EverTrue. So you're a big part of that origin story. 

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But, this was not the original idea. For anyone who's started and run a business, I think this is not a surprise, but maybe if you're exploring entrepreneurship, I'd say prepare yourself. Your first idea is probably not gonna be the idea. So Tyler and I did a few things before Hireframe, but we ultimately landed on Hireframe. So we are working on a different project, different venture, if you will. And along the way, we had a friend who was running a venture backed fintech and we were just having coffee, like we normally just hangin' out and he's like, yeah, I've got this problem. I can't find the right person for this role. And I was just like, hey, have you ever thought about hiring in the Philippines or like another country? I've heard of this thing before, I've never done it myself, but I heard it can be really powerful. And he's like, yeah, I've heard of it too. I think Tim Ferriss really popularized this thing back in early 2000s. And he's like, yeah, but I just don't know how to do it. And I was like, hey, I don't have a job right now. I'm working on this project trying to turn it into something, but I have time. So let me try to figure this thing out for you. 

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So I created a Skype account, posted a job on Indeed for him. I think it was an HR manager he was looking for. And posted the job and made the city Manila. Many resumes came in. I did a bunch of interviews over Skype. We hired one person for the role. And luckily that person really worked out. It was a fantastic hire. A lot of luck went into that because we had no idea what we doing when it came to interviewing in the Philippines. But we got really lucky with his first hire. 

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And then just as founders do, he told a couple other founders that had similar investors about what he was doing. And so another founder hit us up and was like, hey, we heard you did this thing for your friend Mike, can you do this for us? And all the while, Tyler and I were working on this other business idea, and this is just something that came up on the side, and we just like to be helpful. So we're like, yeah, let's do it. It was kind of fun too. When we did this work, we're like, when this works, it feels good. The customer's really like this. The Hireframer, the person being hired loves the job they're getting, this is awesome, and this feels really good. We did this for a while, worked with like five or six different companies, and Tyler and I were like, maybe this is the business, maybe this is actually the business. And so we made that decision, we came to that realization and we haven't looked back.

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JD Beebe

Obviously there was success happening there and it was just maybe an ease of fighting against the flow of success. Was the other idea, was it just not turning over or was it overly complicated? Had you not found the product market fit? Your story is just so classic where it's like, you're focusing on this little gizmo over here and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Just run this thing in the background. And then that ends up being the payday.

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Mike Wu

We're working on so many different business ideas. We're like, you know, we've got to know each other. We have this iPhone list of ideas, right? Some good, some horrible, right? Tyler and I worked on two bigger ideas prior to Hireframe, but in between there were so many like small things and call them pivots, call them projects, to land on Hireframe. But I think that the big thing, like the more significant business idea we're working on, prior to Hireframe was actually related to Hireframe. So we were essentially an outsourcing consulting firm trying to help companies determine the readiness for outsourcing, but also connect them with vendors. So serving as an intermediary, connecting with vendors that would be a good fit for them. And we were talking about BPO. BPOs, oftentimes they're staffing teams of at a minimum dozens of people, but oftentimes hundreds of people. Think of a large call center that's doing customer support for Chase Bank when you call Chase and have a question about your credit card or something like that. And so we had a couple of customers, paying customers, and it was okay, but one of the insights from that experience was that there are so many companies and this long tail of companies that their needs for team members overseas did not meet the minimums of a lot of these BPOs. They needed three or four people. And BPO's won't touch that because that's not their business model. And at the time, the only other solution was Upwork or Fiverr, I think was around back then. And that experience was always like, it was always hit or miss. And that's the birth of Hireframe, something in between that could help companies that needed one or five or 10 or 20 people and for specific individual roles where the people would be directly staffed at their companies and work with the team like no other employee. And so that was one of the insights we saw. So we're like, hey, let's just be the service provider. Let's not be the middleman. Let's be the service provider. And so there were so many things that informed Hireframe over the years, but that was the big picture high level step right before Hireframe.

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JD Beebe

No, that's great. And as you said, I kind of had a front seat to the entire experience. So in my ways, I wasn't always managing all of the folks that we had through Hireframe. But certainly I got to know those people. I consider them as much a teammate as anyone else that was on my team. They did the same amount of work. They were in the same meetings and I really appreciate the team continues to perform at such a high level. But I think what's interesting is, you have evolved and I think one of the things that I saw directly from you and Tyler was, it was never this assumptive, this person, maybe it's you who screwed up or your process is broken. You're always there to kind of try to figure out, to turn the question over, why did this happen? Who's the right person for you? Because again, this openness to constantly question your own process and looking to constantly improve it, were the things from your past that informed that process? How's that informed your process moving forward? How do you evolve the business? Because I will say I've seen you continue to evolve and we grew from what we had, I think one or two folks in the beginning. And certainly at the height of working with you, we had over a dozen folks easily. 

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So the need was there and those, and the folks continue to get, I'd say better and better with time, each knew hire, I felt more confident that yes, they're going to be the person that's going to hit the ground, and we're not going to have this weird will they/ won't they be the right person. Which quite honestly, I think we have a better stay rate with Hireframers often than a brand new person right out of college domestically, because we just don't know that they're going to have the right education, they're going to have the right attitude, the work ethic as the folks that you've been able to place with us.

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Mike Wu

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. And look, ThankView played a huge role in how we shaped our services and how we serve customers. And a big part is you were open to us showing up at your office, sitting with the team, hearing them out, understanding the friction in the process potentially working with Hireframers. And then we were able to create solutions to address those things. I don't know exactly where that approach to always trying to improve things comes from. I mean, both Tyler and I come from professional services background. I came from investment banking and management consulting. We are providing services to the largest companies in the world and excellence is required. And to get to that point, you need to iterate a lot. Like as an example, a deck, you'll get to v204 before it's vFinal, right? That's normal. Or like a financial model, same thing. Tyler's coming more directly from the outsourcing space, same thing. They have to work so hard every day to improve CSAT scores, to improve metrics in the call center. So I think that's just a nature of like where we started our careers. 

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And so it was almost like second nature when we came to Hireframe. But you guys were super pivotal in showing us what was possible with Hireframe. And then we had a lot of customers that were busy and they weren't looking for Hireframe to work that closely with them to understand what's the best way to work with a remote team. What's the best way to work with a remote team member in the Philippines. They weren't as interested in that. And what we saw clearly in the data as we collected data is that companies that were more similar to ThankView in their approach to working with Hireframe, we had great retention, we were able to attract awesome talent because people would tell other people about their jobs at ThankView, for example. And that's great for our business as well. And companies who, let's call it just like we're a little bit more transactional, like hey, we just wanna button the seat, we didn't see as great results. 

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And so that pieced two things together for us and we're like, okay, how can we work with more companies like ThankView and get more involved, and a lot of that is on us. It's not on finding the right companies always, it's like, hey, how can we demonstrate that this matters and that this has a direct impact on results? And so that's something we have worked on over the years, and a lot of times what we experience with those two scenarios is that when a Hireframer doesn't work out, or when a new hire doesn't work out for us, it's not that often is it a talent gap, it's usually a context gap. And so, especially when you're hiring someone in a different country that may have never worked at a scaling startup before, like a tech startup, totally different context. Maybe they come from a more corporate context, maybe they're coming from a culture where it's more hierarchal, maybe they're coming from a culture that has really buttoned up SOPs and your company doesn't.

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And so just understanding that was huge. And so what we've done over time is like we've built out ways to add context to the picture that helps both Hireframers, and our customers. And I'll pause there. can tell you kind of where that comes from though. Again, you're really making me think about where did that idea come from, the context adding.

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JD Beebe

Yeah.

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Mike Wu

So we take so many things from BCG. So from the way we interview Hireframers, we employ the case methodology. Another insight, I can circle back on this, the number one thing our customers were looking for is like problem solvers, and that's who BCG recruits and hires. 

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JD Beebe

That's what I think has been really interesting is because, first, your guys' approach just shows more respect to not only the Hireframers, the people that you're employing, but I think it just shows more respect to the business. And if they're just taking this un-seriously, going in there and saying why they should be taking this more seriously, that's gonna breed a better result. It's gonna result in better outcomes, tighter teams, that’ll be able to take on more responsibility over time. Again, the folks on our team, Xyrene, I see there's so many people that are on our teams that they'd start, okay, you're gonna help us with the support channel, and then suddenly they're running a whole team. Months later, you're like, oh my God, wow, this is great. Does she have any sisters, any brothers? Is there anyone else that we could hire here? It's so great, but.

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Mike Wu

Exactly.

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JD Beebe

It's so great, but I do think the fact that you've basically taken what is an Ivy League educated consulting firm framework and you've applied it to outsourcing, I'd say that is a bit of your guys’ secret sauce.

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Mike Wu

Yeah, totally. I think it's really what's helped us dial in our recruiting processes. We're only as good as our people. And so we have to attract great talent and then have to vet them. And then third, we have to train them. And so yeah, it was just as simple as like, that's what I knew, I pieced one and two together. I was like, hey, our customers are saying we need more problem solving skills. We need more analytical skills. We need better communication. And so when I heard those words, I got a PTSD flashback, that is like what a BCG performance review scorecard looks like. It's literally those things. And I was like, okay, how do you vet for that? Okay, well how does BCG vet talent? Oh wow, I've been trained on how to interview for and interview candidates with the case methodology through BCG. I spent hours and hours doing this because when I was at BCG, I wanted to be involved with recruiting, so I was the recruiting liaison for Harvard. I was involved in those rooms where we're making decisions and talking about hiring and that sort of thing. So, we trained our team, our recruiters in the Philippines, to adapt a lot of what we did at BCG to the local market in the Philippines. And that really catapulted our ability to find the right talent and the right people for our customers. So that was the interview process. 

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JD Beebe

I was going to say, you were kind of like a sleeper cell. You woke up and were like BCG - Recruiting - Available.

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Mike Wu

Exactly. There's another thing that we copied from BCG and it's called a PTO. It's not paid time off. At BCG, PTO stands for predictability, teaming and open communication. And so this is a third party entity within BCG that floats around that checks in on all the consultants and the consulting teams to get 360 feedback on how different engagements are working. So taking a step back, for just anyone who's listening, BCG, Bain, and McKinsey, these consulting firms, what happens is at any week they'll say, hey, you 15 people, you are now on ABC Construction. That's your new client. Please fly to Indiana. Here's your flight. You will now work together for the next eight weeks and try to solve revenue problems.

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So what that implies is like a lot of times you're working with people that you've never worked with before and you're definitely working with a customer you never worked with before. And and so they BCG created this thing called PTO which is a third party that checks in with the consultants, it checks in with leadership, and collects feedback, synthesizes it, anonymizes it, and then shares it with the team in a very skillful way so that the team can be more effective. 

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And so what does this look like practically? It means when you join a new project, the PTO point person might ask you, hey Mike, what's your working style? Are you a morning person? Are you an evening person? What are you trying to work on? What are you trying to up level like in terms of your skillset? Where are you coming from? What are your strengths? And like, let's kind of put you in a position to succeed. And then they check in with you on a weekly basis and they'll do things like bubble up to the leadership, like hey, leadership, the consulting team, they really desire more time from you for direction and feedback. They're spinning their wheels here. Or they might hear from, the leadership might bubble through PTO, like hey, the consulting team, they need to step up their game and get in front of more clients to collect more information and build those relationships.

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And so there's a way to collect feedback, anonymize it, and really all for the betterment of the team. And so this is called PTO at BCG. I think to me it was one of the coolest things I ever experienced. People actually care, and it worked, it was effective. It drove better results for our customers. And so I was thinking that we had the same issue. So going back to that idea context, it was a context gap that we were trying to solve for. And so we created an organization within Hireframe just called Coaches. And so there were Coaches that every Hireframer has and has access to. So you're assigned a coach when you join Hireframe, and they are in a position where they're not evaluating your performance, they're only there to help guide you. They're almost like a river guide to help you navigate. Okay, next week you're gonna work at ThankView. ThankView's a bootstrapped software company. They've grown from here to here in the past couple years. This is what it's like, this is what the culture is like, this is what the communication expectations are, because we have a team there already. Here's how you can get off to a really good start. And then they check in with them throughout the weeks. 

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And then as you probably know, we also collect feedback from our customers and we circle that back to the coaches. And the coaches are able to continuously

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work with Hireframers to make sure that they're improving. And our Hireframeers love that because they love that opportunity for learning and development. So it's just another example of an aspect of BCG that I find so valuable and that I respect and admire so much that I try to replicate it here at Hireframe as much as I possibly could.

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JD Beebe

We talked even in preparation for this interview, you told me this stuff. But even as I think about it now, it's like, geez, yeah, Hireframe is a mini consulting firm at the end of the day. We bring people in, they try to help you with your business, and it works in the same sort of way, as a conduit to get more done. So I think that coach's mentality, I would be surprised at how many other staffing firms are taking that approach and just more or less, again, the churn and burn, smile and dial sort of thing. 

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Mike Wu

Yeah, put a body in the seat kind of thing.

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JD Beebe

But again, where I think it comes down, where you see the results is when you have teammates that have been with you for years. Even going on, we're half a decade in, but there are people who have been with the ThankView team for almost the extent of that entire time. That's no small feat.

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Mike Wu

Yeah, I appreciate that. And over the years, our customers as they learn about these things, cause it's not always at the forefront of what we do, sometimes it’s behind the scenes, they're like, that's amazing. And I've come to the realization that there's so many things that we do actually adapt from BCG because I have so much admiration for the company, but also it's made me realize that these companies, BCG, Bain McKinsey, these strategy consulting firms, these management consulting firms are actually, if you peel one layer back, they're staffing firms. And the recruiting and staffing firms just like Hireframe. And that's why I think it makes sense for us to replicate so much of what they've done. 

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JD Beebe

Right.

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Mike Wu

If you think about it, these firms, and I'll speak to BCG because that's where my personal experience comes from, they invest so many resources into recruiting because they're only as good as the quality of talent they can bring in. So they invest a ton in their employer branding, in their employer experience. They are boots on the ground at so many campuses around the country, both undergrad and graduate. They spend so much time and they have huge recruiting teams because they're a recruiting company. That makes them a recruiting company. And then their business is staffing. They literally would take a consultant like I was, they'll pay me a great salary, and then they will charge a customer a little bit more, and then that's their profit margin. It's literally a staffing model. And so when I was in it, I didn't realize it, but now looking back and I was like, that's why it makes so much sense to me now. And that's why I'm seeing all these opportunities to replicate and be inspired by a world-class organization like BCG.

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JD Beebe

Love it. So talking tactical on what Hireframe does or the sorts of companies it works with and then I want to get into a little bit more of the mushy, gushy, the why of it all. 

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Mike Wu

Oh no.

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JD Beebe

I know this is the part I saved the best for last, but what are the sorts of jobs that are best to be outsourced or staffed up with Hireframe? And what sort of organizations do you think end up working the best with your staffing?

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Mike Wu

I guess just looking back on the past five years being in business, I think a lot of the companies that we met in 2019 and 2020, they had a fully US-based employee base. Today, I think it's a little bit different. We had a lot of changes in the world, a pandemic, a work from home movement that really changed a lot of the ways we work. It changed the way org structures look like. It changed how global teams are. So it's becoming more and more common. So I really think today, given that the infrastructure for remote work is available, that every company should be thinking beyond their local border, their local communities, whether it's a city or state or country, for talent. If you think about it just analytically, it's probably irrational to think that the highest quality person for this role lives near your office. And so when you think about it that way, you're like, my gosh, I should actually be working outside. 

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Look, I'm partial, because obviously we do international recruiting and sourcing for talent, but I do think about that a lot of the time, and I think a lot of companies are feeling the same way. And working with a company like ours, especially if you don't have experience with it, we're here to kind of help shepherd you into this new way of building teams. I think it's like a hybrid model where you have a US team working alongside overseas teams. I think we're just becoming more global in that sense. 

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When it comes to what are good jobs to outsource per se, I think about this a lot. And from my experience, there's kind of like four things to think about. If a professional can show a body of work to you, I think that's a good role that you can potentially outsource. So think about a creative person, they have a portfolio of work. You can see that work and you can determine if that's a good fit for what you're looking for. It's objective in that sense. So if there's a way to show exactly what someone's work looks like, I think that's one area. 

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The second one is if there's a common language, right? Oftentimes like international hiring sounds daunting. The first question we always receive is like, hey, am I gonna be able to communicate effectively with this person? And look, there's some roles where, for example, English proficiency, which is important for American companies, means more than others. But languages are beyond the spoken language. Languages also include things like coding. So software engineering or numbers, financials, accounting. So when you think about can you speak the language, I would expand that to what language is most critical to the role. Is it JavaScript? Is it GAP accounting? So obviously I think those are two kinds of lines of outsourcing that have been around for a long time that people have been very successful with because of a common language. So that's the second one. 

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I think the third one is like a deep history of outsourcing. So to say it plainly, just something that we've been outsourcing for a long time. Think customer support, right? That's probably the first thing people think about as a consumer, that's how we experience outsourcing the most. Again, you have a complaint about something or you have a question about a questionable charge on your credit card, you're calling customer support. Why does that matter? It's because those parts of the world, or those talent markets, they've been developing that talent for decades now. And any time you focus on something for a long duration of time, you're gonna be pretty good at it. So there's certain regions of the world where they've been really focusing on customer support. They've been really focusing on software development. And so they have the talent development teams. It's kind of like a minor league farm system. Some major league baseball teams are known for their minor league teams because they invest a lot in the development of their triple A, their double A, their single A, that sort of thing. Same thing in outsourcing. Places where they can invest a lot, customer service is the one that comes to mind. 

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And then along those lines it's training. So like if you're willing to train someone, if you're a company that you're like, we're great for talent development at ThankView, which you guys were, you're like, I can take someone who's talented, who's ambitious and hardworking, and I can turn them into a customer success manager, which is a real example. And so give me a year with this person and see what I can do. If you have that attitude, you can really take outsourcing very far. And so there are some roles at Hireframe that we actually provide training for, like our junior SDR roles, is one that we do a lot of. If you, Hireframe, or someone who's willing to put in the training and you're looking for just someone who's really ambitious, hungry, hardworking, and smart, the world is your oyster when it comes to working with team members outside of the United States.

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JD Beebe

Well, there you go. And again, if I can just shamelessly plug Hireframe, do Hireframe, there you will find great team members at just about every area of your company. There really isn't an area that can't be touched and improved by Hireframers. So to wrap this up, Mike, let's talk a little bit about you. And as you come to this momentous chapter, a milestone at five years, but of course, who knows how far this journey will go, hopefully very far beyond this. Not a lot of people have it inside them or take the steps to go out and do something for one day, let alone five years. So I'm always very interested to understand what did you know about yourself that made you confident that you could do this, but also what were some things you were afraid of that might actually hold you back? I find people that are 100 % confident in everything. They might be just psychopaths. That's a crazy way to go about your life. But there's gotta be some innate confidence and yet some, you know, some uncertainty. What would you say those two things were as you started the journey?

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Mike Wu

I appreciate that, JD. I'm thinking back, it feels like so long ago, five years, but I think initially when taking the leap, there was somewhat of an analytical approach to it. Just thinking about, hey, I have been extremely risk averse when it comes to my career thus far. I could probably use a dabble of risk here or there. Let me do that. And that definitely helped nudge me in the direction. A big part of it too was just the feeling of I want this life experience. I want to collect some life experiences. Starting a business is one of them that I've always thought about. Let me just give it a shot. Those were the types of things that got me over the hump. 

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And then also, I didn't start any kind of business. I started a specific kind of business. I decided to double down in Hireframe five years ago after some initial signs of success because it was a business that I thought fit me personally. I think I mentioned it earlier, but I am a big believer in the long game. And just if you work at something long enough, and you're working on something that you can improve, let's call it 0.1% a day for a decade, and then you can look back at that decade and be very, very happy and proud of what you've built. That's the kind of game I wanted to play. And so that's a lot of entrepreneurship, but that's not all businesses. Not all businesses are like that. Some businesses have shorter time horizons, it's more binary in nature. This business was one that I felt like and that I wanted to work on and chip away at every single day. Because a business like ours, it's always improving how we serve our customers, always improving the Hireframe or experience and building that brand reputation.

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I sound like a broken record, but I was inspired by companies like McKinsey and BCG. They built up these like extremely strong brands, but no one knew about them when they were five years old. It took decades for them to build up this brand reputation. And I wanted to be in a role and in a game where I could do the same thing. Because that fit my personality, that fit what I knew how to do going into it. Just working away, I think back to my left-handed layup. How many left-handed layups can I practice today to make that a strength of mine on the basketball court while it was a weakness in the beginning? That's kind of how I think about taking that initial leap.

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JD Beebe

And what have you done or what have you learned in these five years that has surprised you that you didn't think was part of my personality or that that wasn't obviously me, but something that has bloomed forth from you in the last five years that is, you know, interesting?

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Mike Wu

So many things. I'm trying to pick one that's good and maybe not so embarrassing. I think that one of the things for me that I've kind of been surprised by is the process of culture building. I was always someone who was like, let me solve this problem. Let me figure out what a problem is, let me solve it, and let's move on to the next one and keep building. But what I've come to really love, and I think it's just by nature of the people who we've been able to have join our company and who we get to work with every day, is how important culture is and how much more enjoyable building a company is when you're building a great culture. Actually, yeah, I take a lot of inspiration from walking to your office in 2019 and just feeling, it just resonated, your culture that you were building at ThankView. It was weird, it was quirky, it was productive, it was collaborative. I don't know if those words resonate with you, but that's how I felt when I was visiting your office and your team. 

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JD Beebe

Quirky and weird, certainly. Yeah, the other one's too, but yes, very strange.

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Mike Wu

I guess that's something that I had never even thought about, culture and building culture. I was just all about the work. It's all about the work. But looking back, we were just in Manila last week celebrating the end of the year, celebrating five years. And I felt that same sort of energy that I felt actually in your office five years ago in ours, the people, the passion, and just the values that we all shared, it was like unspoken. It was so cool to see and it's because it's something that I've really come to love working on.

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JD Beebe

And I'll save this last gushy one, and you can make it as gushy as you want or not. But you've done a lot here. You've proved a lot in a short amount of time. The short life that is Mike Wu so far and much to go beyond here. But why? Why is this the path you've chosen? I don't think it's by mistake that you work at a place that brings job opportunities to people around the world, certainly from the team that you've always employed with us, usually majority female women that are exceedingly capable. Why is this important to you?

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Mike Wu

Yeah, I thought about this a lot because over the course of five years, it's not always butterflies and roses. You hit plateaus, you fall in a rut, you get burnt out at times. But the thing I think, looking back, that I'm still excited about after five years is it's really the individual stories, the power of one job. And so when I think about my background, my parents, they defined success and opportunity through a job or through a career. And that's just kind of how I was brought up, for better or for worse. I think as Americans, that's a big part of our culture, for better or for worse. 

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But for me personally, my experience is different jobs along the way, even before my LinkedIn resume, the jobs I had growing up, they've all had a significant impact on me. Whether it's giving me some financial independence and financial mobility, allowing me to meet really great people, and then thinking further down the line in my career, allowing me to explore and learn more about myself and give myself confidence. And so those things have had such a powerful impact on me. It's always been like one individual job. And so like over the years, you can imagine we've collected so many stories of what a job has meant to a Hireframer. And so yeah, it's great when you think about big numbers and growth and that sort of thing. But for me, it's still the individual stories. And like you mentioned, a lot of Hireframers are women and I've had women in my life where a job meant financial stability, it meant being able to claw their way out of maybe a sticky situation. And so we hear about these things all the time. And it's nice just to have the opportunity to every day have the potential of having that kind of impact on someone. Whether it's something like that, more personal, or just like catapulting their career into something they didn't think was possible, like many people have done at ThankView through Hireframe. That's what gets me up every day. And we've had Hireframers that have been part of the team for like, ThankView for coming up on like five years, I think. So it's amazing to see their growth, how they've grown professionally, personally, I have to thank them for the work that they put in and the growth mindset that they embody every single day, which we encourage and companies like ThankView and EverTrue for being open to working with Hireframers.

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JD Beebe

I thank our Hireframers and the other Hireframers out there, but Mike, I want to thank you on your first successful, I think this was quite a success, your first interview here. I think it's great to be able to get to know you, get to know the Hireframe story, get to understand a little bit more about you and Tyler's repartee, but really to understand what makes you tick and why Hireframe is not only a company that you should choose, but is a company that has heart. So any last words, any last nuggets of wisdom you want to leave this audience with today.

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Mike Wu

If anyone ever wants to talk about, obviously, Hireframe, recruiting, staffing, international talent markets, making a little leap from a good corporate career to entrepreneurship or anything else, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm active on LinkedIn, I'll get your DM, and if I don't respond to you, send me another one and I'll respond to you. So yeah, feel free to reach out, I love meeting new people. It can maybe lead to what JD and I have developed over the past few years, so please reach out.

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JD Beebe

There we go. And I know this is the Hireframe podcast, but where can they find Hireframe?

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Mike Wu

Hireframe.com, check us out, reach out, and just reach out to me directly. If anyone's interested, I would love to chat.

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JD Beebe

Excellent. Well, thanks, Mike. This has been really fun. Thanks for letting the world get to know you a little bit better.

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Mike Wu

Thank you for doing this. What a cool opportunity. Thanks.

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JD Beebe

Yeah. All right. Well, until next time.

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