Mollie Claypool is the co-founder and CEO of Automated Architecture (Auar), a startup automating the construction process of timber houses with robots in small production facilities.
Combined with a proprietary operating system, the startup is said to strip back the thousands of production lines usually involved in the building process to just a couple.
Since it was launched in 2019, Auar has seen a lot of growth with notable achievements including their most recent fundraise of £2.6m.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Claypool shares insights on the importance of early hires in shaping a startup’s trajectory, offers advice for first-time founders, and discusses strategies for promoting workplace diversity.
She also reveals her passion for maternal health rights and the ways in which her personal interests intersect with her professional life.
Which role was the most important early hire you made?
When Auar’s headcount was around 10 people we realised we hit an inflection point in terms of how effectively me and my co-founder Gilles Retsin were able to manage the team and Auar’s growth trajectory. We had outgrown our super early stage processes and organisation.
A VC who had gotten to know us pretty well during a fundraise suggested that a COO would be the right next hire. We worked with an incredible recruiter, James Mitra, who helped us find Bridget Hipwell, who originally was hired as Auars VP of Operations and within 6 months was promoted. She is now Auar’s COO. She has been an absolute legend to work with, and the kind of strategic thinker, doer and leader that Auar needed. So much so that we have an inside joke with our investors that ‘everyone needs a Bridget’.
What advice would you give to a first-time founder?
Our values at Auar reflect the advice I’d give a first time founder: partnership, innovation and responsibility. Some of these are in conflict with the common perceptions of what a startup “should be”. Your team and customers are your partners on this journey: put them at the forefront of everything you do. Get a great co-founder you trust, make sure you complement each other, and are fully aligned. Hire and work with people smarter than you.
Prioritise their wellbeing and their personhood. Collaboration is key: no one company can save the world on its own. The venture world loves storytellers, but that is just what it is: a story. Prove by doing, let the story write itself. Be radically curious about what your partners tell you. Be bold and radical, but don’t grow at all costs. Sometimes being bold and radical is being scrappy. Stay true to your values and your team will too.
What’s the best way to promote diversity inthe workplace?
Diversity isn’t a ‘nice to have’. It needs to be built into your values and hiring processes from the very beginning. Your team needs to reflect the world around you. You need to instill in tools to mitigate bias at every stage of recruitment, and then once people are hired, you need to be able to support them as individuals who have personal lives and histories behind them that have made them who they are.
For example, transparent salary bands, mentoring and training opportunities, and offering best in class childcare and parental benefits means you are more likely to get members of underrepresented groups apply for roles you’re hiring for. Once hired, getting team feedback quarterly on benefits packages to make sure that the benefits offered serve every member of the team and truly integrating this feedback into improvements means team members feel listened to and valued for who they are.
What’s a fact about yourself that people might find surprising?
After I had my first child, I trained as a birthworker in2019. I’m obsessed with maternal health rights and activism and believe the transition that a person makes when they have a child is life-altering, yet our contemporary society is not set up to support them. I’ve since attended over 25 births, supported parents during infertility treatments, medical crises, and adoption processes.
I’ve supported many more birthing people through advising teams of birthworkers as a Community Elder for Doulas Without Borders, an organisation that provides free antenatal, birth and postnatal support for the most vulnerable members of society.
Excluding your own, what’s a sector that’s ripe for disruption?
Other ‘legacy industries’ beyond my own are sectors that I see as ripe for disruption: manufacturing, supply chain and logistics in particular. These are the industries that for most people in developed societies are invisible, but are the backbone of how the physical world turns. I’m particularly interested inhow technology can support decentralising these industries, for the purpose of a more sustainable and healthy Earth.
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