Vitoria Lima

What I learned from placing 7 people in early stage this year

And I am not a recruiter

NYC, September 4th 2025

Updated: NYC, October 5th 2025 - 1 person added to the roster since last time :)))

But I'm not a rapper

"Great companies are not sold, they are bought."

"Great talent is not hired, it is hunted."

Somehow this year I became a vibes recruiter for early stage. I found myself saying "I know a guy" or "I know people" so often it became a meme.

Ingredients:

What top talent really wants

this year i placed seven people across 3 early stage startups. and honestly? it feels like being someone's fairy godmother, which might sound cheesy but it genuinely fills my heart with joy.

each one of these people is brilliant - they code, they sell, they design, they can do it all. their resumes are impressive, sure. but what actually connects them isn't the bullet points. it's that they're actually hungry and eager to build something real.

what i've learned is pretty simple: these folks want to build something beautiful. they don't want to go through dry corporate interview loops with boring corporate questions. they don't want to be assessed by some dry ashby algorithm. they want to talk to actual humans - founders, builders, people creating things. they want to know: where is this company actually going in the next 6 months to a year? and they want to know if joining is worth their time and energy.

that's where i came in. i wasn't trying to be a recruiter - i was just someone passing along what i knew about founders and their trajectory. once candidates saw clarity and honesty, they ran with it. all they needed was to feel like someone on the other side actually cared. and that turned out to be rarer - and more valuable - than i expected. caring is scarce. it's gold.

i've also learned this from the other side. founders think they want a resume, but resumes are easy to skim through on a PDF. friendly conversations bring so much more clarity about what people actually want. hesitations written on a resume turn out to be meaningless after a real conversation or a work trial. vibes and chemistry and shared excitement over PDFs, always. and i love reminding people of that.

Why do people want a job?

It sounds obvious, but recruiters chasing quotas often miss it. If you're paid to fill seats, every candidate becomes just another lead. Cast a wide net, hope something sticks. But rarely do you ask: what does this person actually want?

It should work the other way around:

  1. First, understand what makes this person tick.
  2. Then, place them accordingly.

Instead, the industry script usually reads like:

That's not recruiting; that's spamming.

i've been lucky: my only "quota" is making sure my friends and friends-of-friends find good homes. because these aren't just transactions to me - these people will end up being in my life. dropping them into a bad role doesn't just hurt them, it hurts me too. so the only sustainable approach is to refer people to places i'd personally vouch for.

What makes people tick

Every candidate has an optimization function. But you can't optimize for everything at once. Something has to give.

If you're early or mid-career, the "I want it all" list usually looks like:

You can have it all, but not all at once

but here's the reality: at an early-stage startup, you can't get all three. if a recruiter promises you that, run. startups aren't jobs, they're sacrifices. you're not clocking in - you're building from scratch: the product, the business, the culture. you're the person making it all by hand, like being the main character of your own story. You are Nara Smith, baking everything from scratch.

so the tradeoffs usually look like:

fully remote + high base → but serious ownership expected → little to no work-life balance.

in person → perks galore (lunch, dinner, commute benefits).

high base → low work-life balance, but → high ownership expectations → real career growth.

fully remote + low base → but very low ownership → stalled trajectory.

when i talk to people, i try to peel back their "why." do you want to work with a fun founding team? build lifelong friendships? be thrown into the deep end and learn fast? do you want exposure to clients? to ship product impact from scratch?

or maybe: do you want to prove to yourself that you can build something with incredible people, and in the process learn something you'll use later to build something of your own?

different people want different things. the job is to match those wants with what the role and startup truly offer.

It can be a gorgeous dress

people evolve. timing matters.

sometimes i meet candidates who are incredible but just not the right fit for the companies i know right now. that doesn't mean they won't be later. companies raise money, teams shift, new needs appear. a mismatch today can turn into a perfect fit tomorrow.

i've seen great candidates get passed on for reasons that seem silly in hindsight - only for another company to swoop them up and call it destiny. that's the strange poetry of recruiting: luck, timing, and evolution all tangled together.

the truth is, the same dress doesn't fit every person who tries it on. and that's fine. not fitting into someone else's vibe doesn't make you less of a Versace dress. you're still a Versace dress. you'll find your Dua Lipa.

so if you've been told you're "not a fit," don't take it as a verdict on your worth. sometimes it's just timing, sometimes it's just not the right shape for right now. you. are. still. the. Versace. dress.

The invisible hand

as an economist, i can't help but see recruiting through the lens of the invisible hand.

the market right now is in equilibrium: those hungry enough for opportunities are chasing them, and those with opportunities to offer are attracting talent - supercharged by the flood of VC money into AI. demand is high, supply is hungry, and the same talent that once defaulted to Big Tech or consulting is flowing into startups.

at this moment, the invisible hand is doing its job. but whether it stays this way is another story. it will depend on: funding cycles and liquidity, VCs (and LPs) shifting priorities, macro trends that can swing sentiment overnight, and the ultimate macros for any startup/company: ARR, profit margins, runway, revenue etc etc.

because ultimately, it is customers who vote with their dollars. no amount of VC hype can override that.

but for now, the equilibrium is real.

Closing thoughts

look, i believe deeply in work-life balance. but here's the thing about the ai early stage right now: it's a gold rush.

i am not saying we are in a bubble, or that companies are overvalued. but that as a matter of fact, this is not a normal time in history. each of these implementation startups are using the same dozen of foundational models out there, so the only differentiators are: speed of execution, distribution, branding. i do not think that the hours are sustainable for a long period of time, at all. however, right now, if you are looking to be in an early stage ai startup, you are signing up for a gold rush essentially.

that is why i think it's crucial to know why you are doing this. it is something that only you know and you need to remind yourself of that. you need to know your own why.

my motivators are my family, my future, how far i made it from the amazon forest as a first gen from Manaus all the way to NYC. all of this, plus memes with colleagues that ended up becoming life long friends, all of this motivates me. all worth it. late nights debugging over pizza, creating inside jokes, making emojis of each other's quirks - that's what created not just a work experience i never thought i could build so fast, but especially friendships i would have never expected in my life.

but again, you need to know your why, and you need to be passionate about this technology, which is revolutionising society, industries, lives.

because in all honesty, you cannot beat and outwork someone who is having fun.

so if you're an engineer, designer, account executive, or operator and want a hand navigating the space - reach out. i'd love to offer advice, connect you with someone better positioned, help you land your next step, or simply become new friends. shoot me an email at vitoria@vitorialima.com.

you know, i might know a guy.

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