WHAT WE BUILD
About The Search Experience
A specialist team of startup recruiters, The Search Experience partners with venture-backed founders from Seed to Series C to build high-performing GTM, technical, and design teams that accelerate growth.
We build alongside startups hiring and scaling in the US, establishing high-growth US companies as well as international startups entering the US market from India, ANZ, EU, and UK.
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Our founder-first recruitment model means no account managers, no handoffs, and no unnecessary layers. You work directly with experienced startup recruiters who provide honest market advice, challenge assumptions, and lead every search from hiring strategy through to offer acceptance. It's the agency vs in-house hiring tradeoff solved: you get a virtual extension of your leadership team with the accountability of an internal hire, without the overhead of building the function from scratch.
Whether you're building your first go-to-market team, expanding engineering, strengthening product and design, or making key leadership hires, we bring the market insight, network, and execution needed to secure exceptional talent.​​
Startups operate differently from established businesses. Every hire influences product velocity, revenue growth, fundraising, and company culture, making hiring one of the most important decisions a founder makes. Every search is tailored to your stage, hiring priorities, and long-term objectives, ensuring the talent you hire aligns with your growth plans and the realities of your market.
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Our founder-led model means no account managers, no junior handoffs, and no unnecessary layers. You work directly with experienced startup recruiters who provide honest market advice, challenge assumptions, and lead every search from hiring strategy through to offer acceptance. We become an extension of your leadership team, bringing structure, pace, and accountability to every critical hire.
WHERE WE STARTED
From Startup Recruiting To Strategic Search Partner
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WE SAW THE GAP
Before founding The Search Experience, co-founders Natalie Adams and Jeremy MacLeod worked together as venture-backed startup recruiters in San Francisco and kept seeing the same pattern. Venture-backed founders were making critical decisions in their company's journey with recruitment models that weren't designed for the pace, complexity, or demands of early-stage growth.
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We believed founders needed a different kind of recruitment partner. One that understood the business behind the hire, challenged assumptions when needed, and executed searches with the same urgency as the companies they represented. That belief became the foundation of The Search Experience.
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WE BUILT AROUND GTM
Our early work centered on building go-to-market teams for early-stage startups, partnering with founders to hire the sales and marketing talent that transformed product traction into repeatable growth.
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WE GREW WITH OUR CLIENTS
As those companies scaled, the challenge naturally extended into engineering, product, design, and technical leadership. Today, we also partner with international founders expanding into the US, bringing first-hand experience of entering a new market alongside deep startup hiring expertise.
Everything we do is built around one objective: giving founders the confidence to make exceptional hiring decisions at every stage of growth.
OUR ROOTS
Our Background in Startup Hiring
DEEP STARTUP EXPOSURE
Over a decade spent recruiting within the startup ecosystem has given us a practical understanding of how venture-backed companies grow, hire, and evolve.
Natalie Adams
Co-Founder
Jeremy MacLeod
Co-Founder
We've spent our careers immersed in the startup ecosystem, working alongside founders, investors, and senior operators across the US. We've seen how hiring expectations shift with funding, how compensation evolves, where exceptional talent comes from, and how the strongest startup teams are built.​
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We've partnered with companies through Seed, Series A, Series B and Series C growth, supporting everything from first GTM hires and foundational engineering teams to experienced functional leaders. With that, we've developed a deep understanding of how hiring priorities evolve, where capability gaps emerge, and the profiles that consistently succeed in high-growth environments. It's why founders consistently look to us as one of the best recruiters for venture-backed startups.
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That experience informs every search we run - from defining the role and benchmarking through to evaluating candidates against the realities of an early-stage business. It enables us to provide founders with practical market insight, challenge assumptions when needed, and identify the people most likely to create long-term impact.
PATTERN RECOGNITION
Working across hundreds of startup hiring processes has shown us which profiles consistently succeed, where founders mis-hire, and how hiring objectives change as companies scale.
MARKET PERSPECTIVE
Recommendations are informed by experience with founders, investors, and startup operators, alongside real-time insight into compensation, talent availability, and competitive hiring.
STAGE-SPECIFIC EXPERTISE
Building a team at Seed is fundamentally different from hiring at Series B and C. We understand how roles, responsibilities, and organizational structures evolve.
FOUNDER DECISION-MAKING
We've seen the hiring decisions that accelerate growth - and the ones that cost startups months of momentum. That perspective shapes every search we lead.
LONG-TERM NETWORKS
Years spent working within the startup ecosystem have enabled us to build trusted relationships with founders, operators, and high-performing talent long before a search begins.
THE PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE US
Our Mission & Values
Who We Are. How We Show Up.
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We are ambassadors for our industry. Our dedication, knowledge, passion, and drive will evangelize and raise up standards. The Search Experience goes further, exceeds expectations, and excels in customer service.
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Cutting corners isn’t in our DNA! Every member of The Search Experience team is responsible for driving progress across the business, regardless of their personal remit. ​​​​
Caring (empathy and action) is the crux of our competitive advantage. We empower and advocate for our clients and candidates because those partnerships are our lifeline and the heart of our business.
FAQs
What does TSE do?
The Search Experience partners with early-stage, venture-backed founders to build out GTM, technical, and design teams, from first sales leaders and foundational engineering hires through to scaling technical leadership. We work as an extension of your team, bringing the market insight and execution needed to make the right hire at each stage of growth.
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Who does TSE work with?
We work with venture-backed startups from Seed to Series C, typically led by technical or commercial founders scaling into the US market or expanding internationally. Our clients span AI, Cybersecurity, DevTools, and other high-growth technology categories, and we partner with them through multiple hiring cycles as their teams and priorities evolve.
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Where is our team based?
As startup recruiters in San Francisco, we're globally distributed with a strong presence in New York, Sydney, and London. That combination gives us a founder's-eye view of the US startup ecosystem alongside on-the-ground reach across other key hiring markets, so we can support searches across multiple time zones without losing pace or context.
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Why are we considered one of the best recruiters for venture-backed startups?
Our founders built The Search Experience after years recruiting inside venture-backed startups themselves, not from the outside looking in. That experience means we understand the pace, ambiguity, and stakes of early-stage hiring first-hand. Combined with a founder-led model and no account managers or junior handoffs, it's why venture-backed founders consistently choose us as their recruiting partner.
People Also Ask
What does a startup recruitment agency do?
A startup recruitment agency partners with founders to identify, engage, and hire critical early hires across GTM, technical, and design roles, often before they have an internal talent function.
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When is it time to outsource startup hiring?
Founders typically outsource hiring when they hit product-market fit, start raising institutional funding, or need to scale quickly beyond their immediate networks.
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What should I look for in a recruiting partner?
Look for a partner who understands founder realities, operates with speed and precision, and can scale across functions without unnecessary layers or bureaucracy.
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What are the benefits of using a recruiting firm for startups?
A dedicated recruiting partner brings faster access to qualified candidates, deeper market insight, and less risk of a mis-hire, letting founders stay focused on product, fundraising, and growth instead of building a hiring function from scratch.