Season 9 | Ep19 Avetis Antaplyan on how he spent millions protecting his team (they still left anyway)

Episode notes

In 2022, Avetis Antaplyan was absolutely flying... HIRECLOUT, his global recruiting firm with 30 employees across the US, Colombia, Armenia, and India was breaking record after record. Two-time Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company, his best year ever and he felt everything was working. Then when the market hit hard in 2023-2024 and every other founder was doing layoffs, Avetis refused to cut people. Instead, he took most of his profits out of the business to keep his team employed through the downturn. He genuinely believed loyalty would be returned. That when things turned around, they'd kill it together. It didn't work that way. "Those were the first people who resigned when we put some pressure on," he admits. "All it did was burn my profit." For two and a half years, he broke even. The money was gone. The people left anyway. But that failure taught him something most founders never learn: protecting average people doesn't build loyalty. It destroys capital. Now he's building the opposite. His new obsession: take exceptional people (circa $500-600k billers) and use AI, systems, and tools to turn them into $1m producers.

• Season 9 | Ep35 Oliver Paull: £800K in 3 Years, Solo, From a London Flat59 / 100
• Season 9 | Ep34 Mathew Gollop: 7 to 85 People, a Near Collapse, and the Free Idea That Paid Him Back59 / 100
• Season 9 | Ep33 Greg Fischer: $4.2M Revenue, $1.4M Net - Then He Left With Nothing but a Handshake52 / 100
• Season 9 | Ep32 Paul Strouts: When Growing Headcount Is a Strategy and When It Is Just a Cost
• Season 9 | Ep31 Nathan O'Connell: Building a £1M R2R business on 4 x Retained Clients