Meet Julien Nérée

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Julien Nérée left France for Hong Kong hardware startups, survived Entrepreneur First's pressure cooker, then built Ryder to simplify crypto security. His team of 7 stayed together through months of one-month runways, shipped 1500+ hardware wallets after a successful Kickstarter, and learned that transparency filters better than any test.

Core belief: Founders who hide problems from candidates end up with teams that hide problems from founders. The antidote is radical openness from day one.

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Key Takeaways

Share your survival timeline, don't sugarcoat reality

Most founders dress up their challenges for candidates. Julien does the opposite: first call includes exact runway, cash in bank, and survival milestones.

"I spend the first half of the interview just exposing the problem. We have six months of cash. If we don't launch by November, the company dies."

This brutal honesty creates binary reactions:

• Candidates either deflate ("okay...") and self-select out
• Or they light up ("So exciting! When do I start?") with genuine energy
• Team stayed together through literal one-month runways because they knew what they signed up for
• Wrong hires avoided because reality brought their lack of excitement for the mission

Action for founders:Create a transparency slide with your actual runway and biggest threats. Share it in first interviews. Watch body language shift, excitement means cultural fit, concern means move on.

Problems beat tests, let candidates solve your real challenges

Julien never uses take-homes or coding tests. Instead, he presents Ryder's actual problems with full context: budget, team size, current metrics, everything.

"These are our sales numbers, our marketing situation: how would you tackle this?"

His organic discovery method:

• First 5 candidates establish baseline answers to the problems
• Next rounds dig into contradictions between the solutions suggested by the candidates
• Tests candidate's excitement about challenges vs. concern about constraints
• Reveals the actual working style better than hypothetical scenarios

One candidate might say solution A is best while another swears by solution B. Julien then plays devil's advocate in subsequent interviews, testing how each defends their approach.

Action for founders:Replace your standard interview questions with one real problem your team faces. Give candidates full context. Dig as deeply as possible into their approach to reveal inconsistencies.

Ban "trust me" culture, document decisions or don't make them

After learning that authority-based decisions without logical backing can derail entire departments, Julien literally banned the phrase "trust me" company-wide.

"Now if someone says trust me, we know it's not good. We haven't explained our solution well."

Ryder's decision system emerged from hard experience:

• Irreversible or complex decisions require written memos in Notion
• Problem, solution, team feedback all documented
• "Best ideas win" culture regardless of who proposes them
• New hires can understand historical decisions instantly without asking

The shift happened when they realized verbal commitments and "just trust me" attitudes were creating confusion and preventing proper debate. Now every major decision requires clear documentation that anyone can challenge.

Action for founders:Create a simple memo template for any decision over $10K or hard to reverse. Force the habit early. Your future team will thank you when they can trace every major choice.

Hardware hiring requires survival mindset screening

Software founders chase growth. Hardware founders chase survival. Julien learned to screen for this specific resilience after watching wrong hires crumble under inventory pressure.

"Even with good sales, gross margins require 3x revenue for breakeven. False excitement is dangerous."

Hardware reality checks shared in interviews:

• A single material purchase can cut runway from 2 years to 10 months overnight.
• Break-even requires years, not months, even with strong sales
• Cash flow negative despite revenue exceeding expenses

One team member said he was impressed they stayed calm when a supplier issue almost destroyed their entire batch. That's daily life in hardware—you need people who thrive in controlled chaos.

Action for founders:If you're in hardware, create a "roller coaster slide" showing your cash swings. Use it to test candidate reactions. Excitement about the challenge beats domain expertise with wrong temperament.

Try before you buy, or you'll hire blind

An early hire turned out to be one of the costliest mistakes—a contractor brought on for paid advertising without the founders understanding the work themselves. The lesson: never hire for something you've never attempted yourself.

"We delegated something we never even touched once. We couldn't tell if it was market performance or the person."

The new approach:

• The founding team spent 4 weeks running paid ads themselves
• Built baseline understanding of what works
• Then hired a junior marketer who was operational in 3 days
• Could catch and fix mistakes because they understood the domain

Before: Months of confusion with an "expert" they couldn't evaluate.

After: Rapid onboarding with clear guidance based on firsthand knowledge.

But here's the twist: Sometimes trying it yourself reveals you don't need to hire at all.

When considering hiring someone for video production, the team first spent time learning to shoot and edit themselves. The result? They realized they could produce quality content with a low-effort process and never made that hire. Those skills stayed in-house.

Action for founders: Before posting that job, spend 2-4 weeks trying to do it yourself—even badly. You'll either gain the baseline understanding to hire and manage effectively, or discover you can handle it yourself with a streamlined approach. Either way, you avoid months of mis-hires and miscommunication.

Leadership hires need failure stories, not just successes

A single standout success on a resume can be deceiving, it almost became a costly lesson. When someone has achieved something impressive only once, there's no way to know if it's repeatable or just lucky timing.

"If someone did something specific only once and it was successful, I think it's dangerous. Could be luck, timing, the market."

What to look for instead:

• Multiple attempts at similar problems (even with failures)
• Clear articulation of what went wrong in failed attempts
• Learning narrative across experiences
• Ability to explain variables beyond their control

A founder who failed at launching products twice but can explain exactly what they learned? More valuable than someone with one unexplained success.

Action for founders: For any leadership hire, require examples from at least two similar situations. Dig into failures as much as successes. Pattern recognition beats lucky timing.

Metrics that matter

Interview process:

• Transparency reaction time: Strong candidates want to start within 1 week after hearing challenges
• Problem excitement ratio: 80%+ should show energy (not stress) when discussing real problems

Team health:

• Survival comfort: Team stays calm during crisis (like supplier threatening entire batch)
• Challenge ownership: Employees tackle problems without "trust me" shortcuts
• Historical clarity: New hires understand past decisions without repeated explanations

Hardware-specific:

• Cash reality acceptance: Team understands revenue ≠ cash flow positive
• Inventory pressure tolerance: No false excitement about sales without margin context
• Long-game commitment: People who understand years to profitability, not months

Key takeaways

✅ Transparency is your first filter. Share exact runway and real problems from minute one. Let wrong fits self-select out before wasting anyone's time.

✅ Your worst hires will say "trust me." Ban the phrase. Require written logic for decisions. Best ideas win regardless of source.

✅ Hardware needs survivalists, not optimists. Screen for people excited by daily crisis management. Calm under supplier catastrophe is non-negotiable.

✅ Never hire what you haven't tried. Four weeks of amateur attempts beats hiring blind. You'll guide better and spot problems faster.

✅ One success means nothing. Leaders need multiple attempts at similar problems. Failed Kickstarters who learned beat one-hit wonders.

Pro tips

💡 Your first seven define everything: Ryder's core team survived one-month runways for two years. That shared trauma created unbreakable culture. Hire for resilience over credentials early.

💡 Problems > tests, always: Real challenges reveal real working style. Watch who gets energized by your actual constraints vs. who deflates when fantasy meets reality.

💡 Documentation is delegation: Every written decision memo saves five future conversations. Start the habit before you need it.

💡 Hardware truth: If they can't handle the sentence "revenue is growing but we might die in two months," they can't handle hardware. Say it early, save everyone time.

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