Teresa Murphey is the Founder and CEO of Hire Ventures, a company that provides HR and recruiting consulting services specifically tailored for early-stage tech ventures. Based out of the Atlanta area, Teresa founded Hire Ventures in 2001 to provide businesses with human resource consulting, recruiting, and other talent-related services. She is a member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) Atlanta chapter and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
In this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, John Corcoran is joined by Teresa Murphey, the Founder and CEO of Hire Ventures, to discuss hiring and recruitment strategies. They also talk about the importance of workplace safety, the business development challenges new entrepreneurs face, and how the 9/11 tragedy and the pandemic impacted Teresa’s business.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- [01:36] Teresa Murphey’s background growing up in a military family
- [05:58] How Teresa became an entrepreneur and started Hire Ventures
- [09:42] The challenges new entrepreneurs face in building a client base
- [13:01] What drove Teresa to join the EO Accelerator program?
- [15:38] Tony Pompliano’s influence on Teresa’s business
- [17:39] How the 9/11 tragedy and the pandemic affected Hire Ventures
- [24:31] Teresa talks about the re-hiring strategies companies implemented post-COVID and her fractional HR services
- [33:52] The peers Teresa acknowledges for their support
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
- Hire Ventures
- Teresa Murphey on LinkedIn
- Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO)
- EO Accelerator
- Tony Pompliano on LinkedIn
- Anthony Pompliano on LinkedIn
- The Pomp Podcast
- Greg McGraw on LinkedIn
- Neal Miller on LinkedIn
- Junior Gaspard on LinkedIn
Sponsor: Rise25
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Episode Transcript
John Corcoran 0:00
Today we’re talking about hiring and recruiting, finding and keeping great talent for your company. My guest today is Teresa Murphey. She is the Founder and CEO of Hire Ventures. I’ll tell you more about her in a second. So stay tuned.
Intro 0:14
Welcome to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast where we feature top entrepreneurs, business leaders, and thought leaders and ask them how they built the relationships to get where they are today. Now, let’s get started with the show.
John Corcoran 0:31
Alright, welcome everyone. John Corcoran here. You know, I’m the host of the show. And if you’ve listened before, you know that every week I get to talk to interesting entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs of all kinds of different companies. We’ve had Netflix, Kinkos, Grub Hub, Redfin, YPO, EO, you name it, check out the archives, we’ve got all kinds of great episodes there, which you can check out. And of course, this episode is brought to you by my company, Rise25, where we help B2B businesses get clients, referrals, and strategic partnerships with done-for-you podcasts and content marketing. And you can learn about what we do at Rise25.com or email us at [email protected].
And my guest, of course, Teresa Murphey, such a pleasure to have you here today. You are the Founder and CEO of Hire Ventures, which is a company that provides HR and recruiting consulting services specifically tailored for early-stage tech ventures. She’s based out of the Atlanta area, she founded Hire Ventures back in 2001, pre-9/11. So we’re going to hear what that journey is like for her 22 years, running the same company and providing expert-level HR and recruiting services for growing tech companies. And, Teresa, it’s a pleasure to have you here today. And we were talking beforehand about your background. And one thing that stuck out for me, I’m sure it sticks out for other people as well as you were the youngest of eight kids. Your father was in the US military. So you were an Air Force brat like father was an Air Force brat. And you actually first grew up in England and then moved to Montana, which must have been a crazy cultural shock. What was that like for you and your seven or eight years old? And everything you knew was England. Although imagine you were on a US Air Force Base. And sometimes that can be a very American experience. When you grow up on an Air Force Base. What was that like for you? First, living in England and then and then moving to Montana?
Teresa Murphey 2:13
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you first for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. Excited to talk with you today. Um, so yes, I’m the youngest of eight children, my parents. My dad was in the military. He was in the US Air Force. As you said, my mother is actually Irish. So my dad was stationed in London for the first time when he met my mom, who had emigrated from Ireland over to London. So they met fell in love had kids were stationed a couple of different places before I was born. And then the final assignment was in Lakenheath, England. And my father was fortunate enough to get two tours there before he ended up retiring. So what was really great about that experience is being the youngest of eight. Yes, I grew up on that military air force base. But because my mother’s Irish, I had all of my Irish cousins around so I had two two uncles there in England with their families. So we would spend summers together for a month in Ireland. Summer I actually got to bring my own family back and meet their their cousins for the first time, which was amazing.
John Corcoran 3:33
It’s really cool. I’ve been to Ireland three times, including studying at Trinity during law school. Such an amazing country I love going to especially I will say to people when you go visit Ireland, go to the get outside of Dublin as quickly as you can go to some small town, come to the pub, you know and sit at the at the at the bar and introduce yourself and just have a conversation because that’s the best part of it. Enjoy the crack as they say, the crack. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, great. Because then I say Craig, something like that. And yeah, and then and my grandfather actually was a B 17. pilot for the US Army Air Corps back then, during World War Two did 35 missions over Nazi Germany and flying out of England. I’m curious if Lakenheath was one of the air bases that he was.
Teresa Murphey 4:22
Yeah, so Lakenheath in the Royal Air Force Base had some there was some sort of connection there. I’m not. I’m not exactly sure. But yeah, that’s my father was a mechanic. He worked on a lot of the planes. So I’m sure that’s exactly where he was. So
John Corcoran 4:38
you have seven older siblings. I imagine. There wasn’t a lot of resources. Did you? Did you have a feeling like that? You know, did you have a sense of of money at that at that young age? Or like you know, sometimes I interview people and their lack of money or lack thereof. Yeah. Yeah. You give them their like, you know, so many siblings, we didn’t have that much money and I just wanted to get money. And that drives them into entrepreneurship. What was it like for you?
Teresa Murphey 5:08
Yeah, I think it’s, we are very fortunate in the way that we grew up, we never went without. But my mother was always doing extra things to make a little bit of extra money and things were tight. We we lived on a budget. And so I carried that through, but I was always doing things with my older brothers, we were mowing lawns, and shoveling snow, and collecting cans that could be turned in for a penny. So we were sustainable before. It was cool. Of course, babysitting, so doing all of those things that we could do, so that we knew we had a path to basically go to college and do all of that. So I would say the entrepreneurial bug has hit almost everyone in my family
John Corcoran 5:58
really interest. That’s interesting, because then the other thing about being part of the military, I know, some like my father was in the Air Force, my grandfather’s in the Air Force. When you’re in the military, there’s a stability to it. And oftentimes, entrepreneurship is perceived, although many entrepreneurs will disagree with this, it is perceived as something that is very risky.
Teresa Murphey 6:21
Yeah, I can see that I think that the way that we were raised was very much like to stand on your own two feet. And if there’s something you want, you work for it, and you kind of go for it. So out of everyone in my family, there’s just a couple that chose, I mean, we all kind of chose the educational corporate route to an extent and then branched off into starting our own businesses. So for me, I didn’t expect to be an entrepreneur, I really didn’t know where I would land. I just knew that I had it in me to be hopefully successful. And whatever it was that I chose to do, I fell into HR and employment law, I loved that whole kind of the black and white component of employment law, I thought I would be an employment attorney. And then when I joined my first startup, in 99, it changed everything. For me, I was like this, this startup vibe, the the energy, the ability to grow and implement new things and develop processes. And do all of that was really exciting. So I joined my first consulting firm, right out of my first startup. So the first startup I joined, was in 99. Like I said, I left the week of the IPO, and I joined a firm out of Boston and became a consultant around recruiting so helping other technology startups to really develop their recruiting strategy, how are they going to hire? How are they going to onboard all have the talent? So we at that stage really started working with a number of different technology startups before the.com? bubble burst?
John Corcoran 8:10
Yeah. What was that like? So this is 2000. You’re saying? So?
Teresa Murphey 8:14
Yeah. 2000?
John Corcoran 8:16
What was the tech scene like in Boston? And how quickly did it change after the.com bubble burst very?
Teresa Murphey 8:23
quickly. So the firm I worked for was actually out of the Boston area. I was in Atlanta, so I managed the employment management practice all the way up and down the East Coast. So I would kick off all of the engagements. And I loved it. I just had no idea how fragile was and all of that. So that firm, unfortunately, went under, but I loved what I was doing in it. It was just so exciting and fun. I could see the opportunity. And so I was actually with one of our clients, our largest client that I was managing. And he asked me, you know, the writing was kind of on the wall. We were we were laying off. He asked me if I ever thought about doing it on my own. And I hadn’t until that very, I’ll never forget sitting in his office and having that conversation with him asking me that question. And then I thought, well, I have a business degree. Yeah. Would it be to start a business and so I, I basically started Hire Ventures from my, my little 600 square foot condo sitting at the coffee table, and came up with a name and just kind of came up with everything which was very similar to what I was already providing to the firm. That unfortunately went under and then were
John Corcoran 9:42
said that that can be a good thing and a bad thing. It can be a good thing. If you have one key client that is going to hire you right off the bat because you have clients but the bad thing is then you can become overly dependent on that one client. If you don’t diversify and bring in other clients. Did it take take a while to do that and to bring in other clients and figure out how you’re going to be less dependent on just one client. It
Teresa Murphey 10:06
did, it did. And I, it was a, it was a difficult time, you know, in 2001, companies were no longer hiring, it was all about reduction. So I actually went, while I was looking to develop business went back to the people that I knew, which was my first startup. So I went, I went back to that first startup, and they said, Hey, we’re not hiring anymore. But we need help on this, this HR stuff. And we help with benefits and 401k and managing the stock plan, which was, you know, struggling. And so I ended up going back into that organisation, and really learning and getting my hands into every other component of HR, outside of just pure hiring. And I stayed with that company, once again, went back into that, that environment. And until I was really ready to go out and launch it again on my own.