How We Support Founders
Three core offerings proven to help startups build world-class teams and establish strong talent foundations.
Executive & Early Team Search
End-to-end retained search for the leaders and critical early hires who will define your company. Deep expertise hiring across all core startup functions—from executive leadership to founding roles in product, engineering, revenue, design, people, and ops.
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Role assessment and candidate profile alignment
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Interview process design and team calibration
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Compensation benchmarking and offer strategy
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Full-cycle recruiting: sourcing, evaluation, closing
Founder Advisement & Coaching
A trusted partner for general people advice and navigating recruiting challenges. Empowering founders with data to make the right call so they can build with confidence.
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Manage complex hiring decisions and negotiations
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Address team dynamics and organizational challenges
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Develop talent strategy as you scale
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Ongoing counsel across all people and culture areas
Fractional Talent Leadership
Embedded support to establish recruiting systems, processes, and capabilities. Build the foundation for sustainable hiring excellence before you're ready for a full-time talent leader.
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Recruiting infrastructure and process design
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Hiring playbooks and interview frameworks
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Compensation architecture and benchmarking
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Employer brand development
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Junior recruiter mentorship and training
Are hiring their employee first employees, early leaders, and executive team
Who We Work With
Scout is built for Angel, Seed, and Series A founders who:
Want to build recruiting knowledge and infrastructure on top of making great hires
Need to move fast without sacrificing quality
Value culture and candidate experience as much as close rates
Who We Work With
Scout is built for Angel, Seed, and Series A founders who:
Are hiring their first employees, early leaders, and executive team
Want to build recruiting knowledge on top of making great hires
Need to move fast without sacrificing quality
Value culture and candidate experience as much as close rates
By The Numbers
15+
Years Experience
Split between in-house talent leadership and boutique agency; focused on building scaling startups from Seed through Series A.
3x
First Talent Leader
Including Second Measure (scaled from 6 to 70+, acquired by Bloomberg) and Turnstile (first employee, First Round-backed).
150+
Startup Hires
Across executive leadership, product, engineering, revenue, people, marketing, finance, legal, design, and ops.
9x
Awards
Proud to have worked on teams that have been recognized with 8× Built In Best Places to Work awards + a Forbes Best Startup Employer.
Select Hires Completed
Testimonials
"Matt is a top-notch recruiter. Since 2014, I've worked with him as a candidate, colleague, and client.
I've worked with many recruiters and actively sought Matt out after starting my company. The reason is simple and something I know first-hand: candidate experience. He helps companies craft hiring process that is not only effective, but a great experience for their candidates. I would not hesitate to recommend him to other founders or hiring managers."
Mike Babineau
Co-Founder & CEO
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"Matt is the epitome of a perfect executive recruiter. Extremely warm, human-centered, but impeccably organized and process-driven. He went deep on our company in order to accurately represent the team, company, mission, and role to top tier candidates. Even post-engagement, Matt has helped me out so many times... Thank you, Matt! You were a major part of the Spring Health founding story."
April Koh
CEO & Co-Founder
"Matt is the best Talent person that I have ever worked with. His thoughtful approach to candidate outreach, interviewing, and hiring is a large part of what built Second Measure's culture. Over the years, he helped me scale my team to meet the demands of our company's growth and provided me with his honest feedback whenever I overlooked anything. Interviewing is tough for candidates but Matt makes people feel like it's worth the effort. Hire him asap if you are looking for a world class person and teammate."
Jeffrey Sefa-Boakye
Head of Customer Success
About
Over the past 15+ years, I've focused exclusively on helping founders build early-stage tech companies - from Seed/Angel through Series A. I've been the first talent leader at three startups, including Second Measure (acq by Bloomberg) and Turnstile (First Round-backed). After interviewing over 5,000 candidates, I've seen a lot, learned a thing or two, and hired some incredible people along the way.
I bring a combination of in-house talent leadership and retained search experience. That perspective means I understand both the reality of building teams as an operator inside a growing company and the art of executive search.
I don't believe in simply filling seats. I help founders hire foundational leaders and build teams people genuinely want to be part of. Across my last two in-house roles, we earned multiple awards for culture and workplace excellence.
I'm passionate about helping founders not just make quality hires, but understand the nuances of recruiting (and keeping) great people. My approach is straightforward: be a trusted partner in scaling teams and processes, and help build recruiting muscles founders can rely on long after we've worked together.
In my spare time, you'll find me cooking, catching a live show in NYC, cheering on Arsenal, or playing fetch with my rescue pup, Darby.
Matt Harris
Founder | Principal
