Antoine Freysz is a French entrepreneur and investor, co-founder of Kerala Ventures — an early-stage fund renowned for its “founding investor” approach.
Through this model, he has supported iconic scale-ups such as Doctolib and Malt from their earliest days, and contributed to major successes like TheFork.
Antoine advises founders on key structuring topics — recruitment, organization, and governance — from the very first stages of growth. Over the past ten years, he has been involved in more than a hundred executive recruitments within the French tech ecosystem, with a rare ability to spot what separates a good leader from a transformative one.
Antoine is also the author of “La méthode pour recruter les meilleurs” (“The Method to Hire the Best”), which has become a reference in the French entrepreneurial ecosystem.
In this episode of CEO Confidences, he offers a pragmatic perspective on the importance of hiring, and shares his best insights on mastering this essential challenge of leadership.
Human capital is the number one lever of success
“The three companies I joined at their very beginning — Malt, Ouihelp, and Doctolib — which have since become great successes, all share one thing in common: they made hires that changed everything.”
Human capital sits at the heart of performance. Sustainable success rarely comes from product alone — it comes from transformative hires, the people who change a company’s trajectory.
Antoine reminds us that a CEO should devote 15 to 25% of their time to recruitment. It’s not a task that can be delegated: the connection between founder and candidate is foundational to culture and performance.
Key takeaways:
- Treat recruitment as a strategic priority, not an operational emergency.
- Keep meeting people, even when you’re not hiring — great talent often comes from chance encounters.
- Be personally involved in key hires: a successful recruitment is a bet only the CEO can make.
- Broaden the funnel — interview 15 to 20 people, not just 3 or 4, to maximize your chances of finding a gem.
- Focus on impact hires, the ones that can truly shift the company’s trajectory.
Hiring is a strategic, structuring act — and it follows a few rules
“You need to start by hiring the management team. Take the time to focus on building leadership first, then hire with them — not before. Otherwise, you end up with an army with no general.”
Hiring isn’t about stacking profiles; it’s about building an organization that lasts.
Antoine insists that a company’s foundations rest on the quality of its leadership. Too many founders hire too fast, too early, or without clarifying the real need. Recruitment must be seen as an act of structuring, not of filling roles.
Key takeaways:
- Start with management roles: hire leaders before executors.
- Train managers to hire — give them the tools and mindset to make good choices.
- Avoid the volume trap: growth comes from the right hires, not from many hires.
- Take time to define the need before opening a role (missions, outcomes, expected impact).
- Be transparent about expectations, constraints, and company culture from the start.
- Hire with a 2–3 year horizon in mind, not just to fill today’s gap.
- See each hire as a building block of the organization, not a simple resource.
The human qualities to look for: assess like an investor
“When you evaluate a founder or a candidate, you look for the same things.”
Antoine draws a direct parallel between recruiting and investing: in both cases, the goal is to identify people capable of executing a vision, enduring tough times, and inspiring others.
Human qualities matter more than résumé lines — they reveal a person’s capacity to create long-term value.
The three key traits according to Antoine:
- Resilience: the ability to take a hit and bounce back.
- Passion and commitment: why will this person excel on this topic more than others?
- Exceptional past achievements: a strong predictor of future potential.
Key takeaways:
- Assess candidates like you would an investment — on trajectory, energy, and execution ability.
- Look for character signals, not just technical skills.
- Identify what truly sets this person apart — what they’ve already overcome or achieved.
- Favor interviews that reveal deep motivation and responses to adversity.
Bridging the worlds of Private Equity and Venture Capital
“The recent focus on profitability in startups has pushed a kind of reconciliation. There’s now real porosity between these two worlds — and that’s a good thing.”
Startups, facing pressure to reach profitability faster, are adopting management and financial discipline practices inspired by Private Equity.
Meanwhile, PE-backed SMEs and mid-caps are embracing digitalization and innovation. This cross-pollination creates a more balanced ecosystem — where rigor meets creativity, and each world has something to learn from the other.