Product Automate the operational tax, not the human judgment
Builds systems that make hiring decisions better
Pace does not decide who gets hired; it removes the 40 minutes of note-taking, write-ups, and scorecard wrangling around each interview so the human can focus on judgment. For tools that sit on high-stakes human decisions, that line matters: automate the busywork that surrounds the decision, and leave the decision to the person. Buyers trust a tool that makes them faster far more than one that tries to replace their judgment, and the busywork is where the real time is lost anyway. Find the operational tax around the decision and kill it, but keep your hands off the decision itself.
Related advice
Flavius D. Encode the best practice so the right path is the easy one
Everyone agrees structured interviews work, and almost nobody runs them, because doing it right is inconvenient under pressure. Pace closes that gap by building the framework into the workflow, so the structured interview becomes the path of least resistance instead of a discipline you have to summon. The richest product territory is any practice that experts endorse and operators skip because it is annoying: automated tests, double-entry bookkeeping, security keys, structured interviews. Build the tool that makes the correct thing the easy thing, and the onboarding pitch writes itself.
Flavius D. Finish the first product before chasing the adjacent one
Mid-demo, Flavius floated an exciting second product (automated code assessment) and the room told him to bury it until Pace has paying customers. The adjacent idea always looks more appealing than the one in front of you, because it is unspoiled by the boring work of actually closing customers. That appeal is the trap: every hour on product two is an hour product one does not get, and product one is the one that has to pay the bills. Write the second idea down, then go back to making the first one sell.
Flavius D. Build for a practice everyone agrees is right but nobody does
The richest product territory is the gap between "known best practice" and "what people actually do." Structured interviews are universally accepted as the strongest predictor of job performance, and almost nobody runs them. Double-entry bookkeeping, security key logins, automated tests, pre-commit hooks: same pattern. Look for a practice that experts in your industry agree is correct and operators skip because it is inconvenient, then build the tool that makes the right thing the easy thing. The onboarding pitch writes itself.
Flavius D. Score interview performance and job fit as separate axes
Pace scores every candidate on two independent axes: how they performed in the interview, and how well they fit the role. A strong performer who is a poor fit and a weak performer who is a great fit are different decisions, and averaging them into one number erases exactly the information you need. Whenever you are evaluating something multi-dimensional (a hire, a feature, a deal), resist the single composite score. Keep the axes separate so you can see the trade-off you are actually making instead of hiding it inside an average.