Executive search build · San Francisco & New York
How Coastal launched a VC executive search practice in 60 days
Coastal had already built a strong reputation as an early-stage tech search firm supporting Seed to Series C companies across San Francisco and New York — well known for engineering and GTM recruiting, with deep relationships across founders and venture capital networks.
As demand for executive hiring increased, Coastal saw an opportunity to evolve from a founder-led recruiting business into a true executive search partner for venture-backed companies.
From standing start to a launched executive search practice
Profiles approached across the target market
Shortlisted candidates for the partner-level hire
Before
- Executive searches were mostly handled by the founders alongside the rest of the business.
- There was no dedicated executive search lead or partner-level owner.
- VC partners regularly asked Coastal for executive search support, but there was no formal service offering around it.
- On senior searches, the firm was often up against established executive search firms.
- There was a clear opportunity to turn Coastal's network and IC recruiting reputation into a dedicated retained search business.
After
The new executive search function gave Coastal a more scalable way to support founders and VC partners. Outcomes included:
- A new senior partner joined to lead the executive search practice.
- Coastal began running multiple VP and C-level searches at the same time across premium VC portfolios.
- The firm started winning searches against established players.
- A repeatable search process was created covering sourcing, interviews, stakeholder management and offer construction.
- Executive search became a defined part of the business instead of a founder-led side function.
- Coastal strengthened its position with founders and VCs as a partner that could support both IC and executive hiring.
The process
Building the search function
We worked closely with Coastal to define a new executive search offering focused on VP and C-level hiring for venture-backed startups.
This covered
- Talent pool engagement
- Executive search delivery
- Interview process management
- Offer construction
- Long-term practice growth
The business needed someone who could both run searches and help build the function properly over time.
Talent pool engagement
A targeted search was run across
- Venture-backed tech recruiters
- Executive search firms
- Senior recruiters with executive engineering leadership hiring experience
The process included direct outreach, referrals, back-channel referencing and structured qualification.
The focus was on finding people who could run retained searches, work closely with founders and operate in fast-moving startup environments.
Interview process
Coastal built a more structured interview process for executive hiring.
This included
- Defined interview stages
- Clear scorecards
- Founder calibration sessions
- Fast scheduling and decision-making
Candidates were assessed on
- Executive search experience
- Ability to win and deliver searches
- Stakeholder management
- Hands-on execution
- Fit for a remote, high-output environment
Offer construction
The final part of the process was building a strong partner-level offer.
This included
- Compensation tied to practice growth
- Long-term equity upside
- A clear path to building a team and growing the function
The positioning focused less on titles and base salary and more on ownership, autonomy and the chance to build something meaningful inside a growing business.
The search in numbers
Profiles approached
Responses
Qualified conversations
Shortlisted
The outcome
Coastal launched a dedicated executive search offering without changing what already made the business work.
By putting structure around talent engagement, interviews and offer construction, the team built a repeatable executive search offer that could compete with established firms while still moving at startup speed.
What started as an opportunistic part of the business became a defined service offering, a new growth channel and a stronger long-term partner proposition for founders and investors.