One of the trickiest problems in the startup world is how to properly compensate your employees. It’s a delicate balance between providing competitive offers, retaining employees, and being wise with your funding. Our guest today is looking to help founders navigate these decisions, Thanh Nguyen, CEO and Co-Founder of OpenComp is building a platform that allows companies to evaluate how their organization's compensation data stacks up against the market and build fair offers, and qualify compensation requests from potential candidates directly against real market data.
About Thanh Nguyen:
Thanh is a leading expert in his field with more than two decades of experience in compensation and HR strategies. He has worked with thousands of technology companies, including Airbnb, A16z, Chan Zuckerburg Initiative, Figma, LiveNation, Lyft, Uber, and many others
Prior to OpenComp, Thanh was most recently a partner of Connery Consulting, overseeing operations, a team of management and delivery consultants, and business development. Thanh also worked as the first member of the Rewards team at Salesforce.com where he remained for nearly a decade, spanning various domestic and international HR leadership roles.
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In this episode we discuss:
02:50 Thanh’s journey into a career in compensation
08:46 Lessons he learned on how to grow a startup from his time at Salesforce
12:30 Why Thanh saw the need to start OpenComp
14:24 How OpenComp works and where its data comes from
18:11 The volume of data OpenComp tracks and how their freemium model works
19:22 How OpenComp weaves user data into a broader picture of the market
21:44 Mistakes early founders make when building a compensation plan
23:30 Why growth rounds can pressure founders to hire the wrong people
24:57 Advice to founders that are struggling to compete for talent
26:55 How to think about equity when building compensation plans
29:48 Pros and cons of salary transparency at OpenComp and in the market in general
32:38 How pay transparency can help guide companies that may only be salary-focused
34:48 What Thanh advises companies to think about compensation with a hybrid work environment
37:40 How OpenComp is helping to fight the great resignation and ensure employee retention
39:30 How data from OpenComp is helping companies the importance of DEI
42:52 Plans for OpenComp’s recent $20M Series A led by K5 Global, Time Ventures, 8VC, Mantis VC, and J.P. Morgan
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Solving the Complicated Compensation Issue for Startups with OpenComp CEO Thanh Nguyen