Client Profile:
Brarista is an innovative tech startup that’s reimagining digital collaboration tools for remote teams. With a mission to build products that connect distributed workforces, they understand that diverse perspectives drive innovation.
As a lean startup without a dedicated HR department, their leadership team was directly involved in every hire, creating both opportunity and challenge as they scaled.
Their commitment to rapid development and market responsiveness means talent acquisition must be both fast and consistently high-quality.
The Challenge: Scaling Without Sacrificing Quality or Values
Before partnering with Serand, Brarista faced the classic startup hiring paradox. Their small size meant every hire was critical, yet they lacked the resources for a comprehensive recruitment process. Leadership was caught in an exhausting cycle:
- Subjective Screening: Without standardized evaluation criteria, decisions relied heavily on gut feel and personal impressions, leading to unconscious bias that limited their talent pool
- Leadership Bottleneck: The CEO and founding team spent 15-20 hours per week on recruitment tasks, time desperately needed for product development and business growth
- Competitive Disadvantage: While Brarista deliberated, top candidates accepted offers elsewhere – they were losing the war for talent to faster-moving competitors
- Diversity Goals Unrealized: Despite genuine commitment to building an inclusive team, their traditional hiring methods weren’t delivering the diverse perspectives they knew would strengthen their product
“We were trapped in a vicious cycle,” recalls Bella Ngo, Brarista’s CEO. “The more we grew, the more time hiring consumed, but we couldn’t afford to make bad hires or compromise on our values.”
The Solution: AI-Powered Assessments That Understand Potential
Brarista implemented Serand’s predictive assessment platform to transform their hiring from subjective to scientific. The solution provided:
Intelligent Application Analysis
Serand’s AI analyzes each application beyond keywords, understanding candidates’ problem-solving approaches, communication styles, and alignment with Brarista’s collaborative culture.
Custom Fit Scoring
Each role at Brarista received a tailored scoring model, comparing candidates against specific technical requirements and cultural attributes. The platform generated objective “fit scores” that instantly highlighted top matches.
Bias-Free Initial Screening
By evaluating candidates based on capabilities and potential rather than pedigree, Serand surfaced talented individuals from non-traditional backgrounds who might have been overlooked.
Leadership Time Liberation
Automated screening reduced the leadership team’s hiring workload from 15-20 hours to just 3-5 hours per week, focused only on final-stage interviews with pre-qualified candidates.
The Results: Transformative Impact on Team Building
By implementing Serand’s AI-powered solution, Brarista achieved remarkable improvements across their entire talent acquisition process:
- 80% Increase in Retention: New hires stayed and thrived, with first-year retention jumping from 45% to 81%, saving an estimated £150K in replacement costs
- 50% Reduction in Time-to-Hire: Automated screening cut the average hiring cycle from 38 days to 19 days, helping Brarista secure top talent before competitors
- 45% Increase in Team Diversity: Objective assessments revealed hidden gems – talented candidates from diverse backgrounds who brought fresh perspectives to product development
- 3x Productivity Gain for Leadership: With 15 hours per week reclaimed, the founding team accelerated product launches and closed two major partnership deals
Client Testimonial:
“As the CEO of a small tech startup, it was always a struggle to find top talent for our team. Our existing hiring process had a ton of bias and subjectivity, which meant we missed out on a lot of good candidates. We also had to share hiring tasks between ourselves, which took up time that we wanted to spend on other critical tasks.
I knew there had to be a better way to run the process in a more data-driven and automated way. Since implementing Serand, we’ve been able to build a more diverse and motivated team, which has really contributed to the success of our company. The 80% retention rate speaks for itself – we’re not just hiring faster, we’re hiring better.”
— CEO & Co-Founder, Brarista
Key Takeaways for Startups
For Founders & Leadership Teams:
Reclaim Your Time: Stop spending 20+ hours per week on hiring. Automate screening and focus on what matters – building your product and closing deals
Data Beats Gut Feel: Objective assessments identify high-performers you might miss, reducing costly mis-hires that can derail startup growth
Diversity Drives Innovation: Remove unconscious bias to build the diverse team that will give you a competitive edge
For People Operations:
Competitive Advantage in Talent Wars: Move faster than larger competitors while maintaining quality standards
Scale Without Adding Headcount: Handle 10x the applicant volume without hiring dedicated recruiters
Measurable DEI Progress: Move beyond good intentions with data-driven diversity improvements you can track and report
ROI That Matters to Investors:
- Lower Burn Rate: Reduce recruitment costs by 60% and minimize expensive turnover
- Faster Scaling: Fill critical roles in half the time, accelerating your growth trajectory
- Stronger Team Performance: Higher retention and engagement metrics that impress board members
Ready to Transform Your Startup’s Hiring?
See how Serand can help you build a world-class team without the enterprise-level resources. Join innovative startups like Brarista who are winning the talent war with AI-powered hiring. Book a demo
