OnboardIQ CEO Keith Ryu on adapting to Silicon Valley’s Culture

This article is one part of a series of interviews with foreign startup founders in Silicon Valley.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Keith Ryu, CEO of OnboardIQ. OnboardIQ creates software that automates the hiring process for companies that hire hourly workers - primarily in the delivery, retail, and restaurant space. OnboardIQ has been able to grow to process more than 200,000 applications a month and help employers hire more than 17,500 people per month - all across 400 cities in 20 countries.

In this interview, Keith shares his story as a foreign startup founder in silicon valley and the advice he’d give to Korean entrepreneurs looking to make the move to the bay area.

Please briefly tell us about OnBoardIQ. What was the inspiration behind the idea and what problem does it solve in the world?

There is no doubt that the way people work has fundamentally shifted. Fifty years ago, employees would start in one company and work their way up, staying with that employer through their whole career. Today, not only do people switch employers, but they also freely switch professions throughout their careers - something unheard of in prior generations.

At the same time, economic challenges and advent of new technology over the past decade helped create a rise in freelance and second jobs - dubbed the “on-demand economy.” Suddenly, at the press of a button, anyone could go on-the-clock or leave their side gig without any ramifications.

So, from a very high perspective, my cofounder Jeremy and I both saw this shifting landscape. But for some reason, the way companies hired for these flexible, hourly jobs wasn’t catching up. It was manual and very clunky. This meant that hiring a bunch of people at once, like you would have to do to expand to new markets or open new stores, was a very big challenge. At the same time, we noticed there were large retention problems in existing markets, leading to continuous hiring.

As we thought more about this problem, we realized that a lot of these problems could be solved with automation software, one that could walk hundreds or thousands of individuals through the hiring process at the same time. That didn’t exist, so we created it.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve seen foreign founders face, culturally, when coming to silicon valley? Any interesting stories or examples behind that?

Having lived in Korea for 7 years, I consider myself fluent in Korean, but there are many confusing words and business lingo used for the sake of bureaucracy in Korean culture. For instance, a lot of unnecessary Chinese characters are used in proposal documents to a degree where it seems like people are making work for the sake of doing work.

In Silicon Valley, you have to completely throw that out the window - you have to make things dead simple. After you’ve described your company, if a third grader can’t explain your business, then you should rework your pitch. It’s less about making things seem more professional, and more about delivering real value.

There is also an inherent deference to older people and traditions in Asia that is antithetical to Silicon Valley. Many times, young Korean workers don’t start their professions until they are 30 -- because of army services and taking years off to study -- and at that point they are in the bottom rung of a company. The emphasis is very much on padding your resume with big corp names (working at Samsung is considered a dream to many), and climbing the ranks throughout your career.

In Silicon Valley, you have to quickly learn and believe that you can do great things in a shortened period of time with limited resources, regardless of your background.

There are also different sets of words and behaviors you have to show to people that are older in Korea - even if it’s just one year older. But when you are running a startup, where you don’t have time to beat around the bush, you just have to be super direct and make sure everyone is aligned. You have no time for politics. So it’s important to craft an office environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts quickly.

What are some attitudes or phenomena specific to silicon valley that will surprise most foreign founders?

There is a strong “Pay It Forward” culture in Silicon Valley. Practically, that means that people are much more accessible than you might think from the outside.

I experienced this when I first arrived here. Dino Ha, the CEO of Memebox, is a successful Korean entrepreneur and is revered back home. I was connected to him by a mutual friend and was very surprised at how accessible Dino made himself. He had just come out of Y Combinator and was extremely busy, but managed to make time for me and even allowed me to work out of his space for six months.

By working closely with him, I was able to see how startups operate. Dino encouraged us to apply to YC, who accepted our application. These were decisive moments in shaping OnboardIQ during its early days.

However, while Memebox was wildly successful to outsiders, Dino and his team were humbled by their success and knew the company had a long way to go. Just as many people helped them in their early days, Dino was happy to return the favor. The moral of this story is to not be afraid to reach out for help.

One note of caution though - when asking for introductions, favors and advice, be able to quickly show that you are not a waste of their time. Time and reputation are the highest form of currency here. For more on how introductions work in Silicon Valley, this blog post is a must read.

You mentioned that many foreign founders think in quite a stifled or limited manner. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this and your suggestions for them on shifting this attitude?

So I think this is in the context of social and cultural norms. The norm in Silicon Valley is disruption at any costs (sometimes to a fault). In contrast, in Korea, we are much more about deference to tradition. Many Korean startups build great businesses, but primarily ones that are clones of US startups or ones that offer only incremental change to the status quo. In Silicon Valley, incremental changes aren’t going to get you anywhere.

Foreign founders have the intelligence and work ethic to compete with the most successful startup founders anywhere - but they have to believe in themselves and their potential to do something great.

Do you think that being a foreign founder can be turned into an advantage, instead of being an obstacle? If yes, how so?

Most definitely. The obstacles that we have to overcome mostly relate to how we view ourselves, our role in business and the world in general. Those aren’t easy to overcome, but by identifying the right role models and connecting with other foreign founders, views can shift.

In terms of advantages, one is the ability to tap into a network of other foreign founders. People with similar backgrounds have a high tendency to help each other out - whether that common background is a nationality or university.

Second, I think there is a major advantage to having an international view of technology. OnboardIQ is less than two years old, yet we operate across 400 cities and 20 countries. International expansion has been a driving force in our growth.

What is happening in your industry that you are excited about? Any predictions?

Even though 60 percent of the American workforce consists of hourly workers, not a lot of time or attention is being spent improving the process by which employers hire quality hourly workers. That opens up a lot of opportunity.

For instance, what if employers shared labor like we share our apartments (Airbnb) or transportation (Uber)? Could we create an industry-standard profile that can guarantee a level of quality and trust, while also facilitating employer-specific training -- process for locking up the store, training on POS system, etc.?

These are interesting questions that we are looking at with machine learning technology and other tools to see if we can improve lives and provide even more workplace flexibility.