Lars Andersson is a practising recruitment consultant at Hiris with more than fifteen years in executive search and technical recruiting. He runs searches himself rather than only advising on them, and has delivered projects for organisations including Microsoft, Samsung and IBM.
His work concentrates on the part of sourcing that does not automate well: turning a vague brief into criteria that can actually be assessed, and separating the requirements that decide an outcome from the preferences that merely shrink the pool. On CoPilotry he writes about founder-level search — how to find co-founders and advisers with the same rigour a good search firm applies to an executive hire.
Every article states its assumptions explicitly, so that the numbers, timelines and conversion rates in it can be re-derived, argued with, or replaced with your own.
A search-firm approach to finding a co-founder: write a testable brief, compare nine sourcing channels, size the funnel, and run a six-week search with a paid trial.
Read the playbookWhy strong engineers decline co-founder offers, what makes a non-technical founder worth joining, where to source technical co-founders, and how to assess ability you cannot read yourself.
Read the playbookHow to vet a co-founder properly: background verification, 24 questions that produce real answers, a 90-day paid trial design, reference calls, and the terms to agree before signing.
Read the playbookA sourcing method for startup advisors: define the decision you need help with, identify the twenty people who have already made it, approach them without asking for a favour, and structure the relationship so it survives month four.
Read the playbookWhat to pay a startup advisor in equity: benchmark ranges by stage and engagement level, how vesting and cliffs work, when to pay cash instead, and the clauses that prevent a dead grant.
Read the playbookBoolean and X-ray search strings that founders can use to source co-founders and advisors, where keyword search breaks down, and how to search for experience that is not a keyword.
Read the playbookThe structure of a founder outreach message that works, eight annotated templates for co-founder and advisor approaches, follow-up sequencing, and the reply rates to expect.
Read the playbook