Learning from Google

What Google’s approach to innovation taught Anna (Mongayt) Counselman (BSBA’03) about starting a business

Hiring isn’t an art, it’s a science: Google uses an algorithm to help predict a candidate’s probability of success within the company. According to Upstart cofounder Anna (Mongayt) Counselman, a former head of Google’s enterprise customer programs, the search giant would “interview 100 engineers” to find the right one. It’s important, she adds, not to give in to temptation in a desperate attempt to fill a seat and get back to work. “It’s worth it to take the short-term pain of continuing to interview until you get that person who’s going to be awesome.”

Iterate, iterate, iterate: Rather than spending days at the conference table figuring out every permutation of a decision, just go for it. According to Counselman—and as shown by Google—it’s infinitely more valuable to get prototypes in front of customers and learn from their responses.

And one thing Counselman had to learn herself:

Feel the fear: At a start-up, says Counselman, you won’t always have perfect information and won’t always know what you’re doing. “But it’s okay to just feel the fear and do it anyway and trust that you’ll figure it out as you go.”

Read about Counselman's experiences of jumping from Google to a Silicon Valley start-up in Think Like a Googler.