In this episode, we are debuting “Bright and Early” — an Unusual Ventures interview series with early hires at iconic tech companies. You will often hear successful founders share how crucial their first few hires are. These early employees help define the company's culture. They need to be both doers and leaders who can prioritize ruthlessly. They often have an outsized impact on the company and wear multiple hats as the company grows. Finding them and empowering them to be successful is hard.

In this episode, co-hosted by Chris Marty and Rachel Star from Unusual Ventures, we hear from Naveen Gavini, employee #10 at Pinterest who joined the company 11 years ago as a mobile engineer and went on a career-defining journey to become their head of product.

This conversation covers

(2:06) Why Naveen wanted to join Pinterest and how he got connected to the team

(4:38) What his interview process looked like

(7:07) The key drivers that motivated him to accept the offer

(9:37) Naveen’s first year as an engineer at Pinterest

(12:41) How Naveen brought the team together to build Pinterest’s mobile app

(15:09) How he thought about managing his career path within the company

(18:06) His approach to team-building

(21:04) Pinterest’s interdisciplinary culture of “knitting”

(24:15) Interviewing early hires, specifically for culture fit

To get notified for new interviews in the Bright and Early series, subscribe to our newsletter: https://bit.ly/2VKvTTD

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unusualventures/

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Chris Marty is an Operating Partner at Unusual Ventures and partners with founders to build high-performing early teams. He can be reached at chris@unusual.vc and

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christhomasmarty/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_chrismarty

Rachel Star is Principal at Unusual helping to build and support the firm’s consumer investments. She can be reached at rachel@unusual.vc and

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-star-2948b288/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/rachel_a_star

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to help founders find product-market fit and build iconic software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Launching Bright and Early: Naveen Gavini on growing from first mobile engineer to SVP Products at Pinterest

Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast