SHRM Labs & Getting Funding for an HRTech Startup - Hadeel Al-Tashi - #187

Thanks to HRBench for powering this episode. To find out more about the company building the future of people intelligence, reach out to book a demo at hrbench.com/directionallycorrect! Check out this episode of the #1 people intelligence podcast with special guest, Hadeel Al-Tashi, Head of SHRM Labs and Future of Work Investor! In this rich conversation host Cole Napper and Hadeel unpack exactly what SHRM Labs is and how it operates as SHRM’s innovation and venture arm. Established five years ago, the Labs exists to scan emerging technologies shaping the future of work, educate SHRM’s more than 340,000 members, and create a bridge between builders and the practitioners who will actually use the tools. Hadeel shares why she left the private-sector and venture-capital world for this role inside a massive membership organization: the unmatched scale of insight SHRM provides into real workplace priorities, adoption barriers, and pain points that pure market investors rarely see with the same clarity. They dig into what truly excites her right now—solutions that solve today’s critical HR and business problems rather than speculative futures ten years out. Impact, proven usage, and alignment with member data are the filters she uses to separate signal from noise. On AI she is candid: HR still lags the broader organization (36 percent adoption versus 52 percent), the gap is expected to widen, and uptake is heavily skewed toward large enterprises and toward lower-risk recruiting tasks. High-stakes decisions around compliance or terminations rightly keep a stronger human in the loop. Last year’s agent hype has cooled because organizations simply are not ready; the real hunger is for tools that deliver immediate workforce insights so leaders can make rapid, data-backed decisions amid ongoing layoffs and uncertainty. Hadeel offers straight talk for anyone dreaming of launching an HR-tech startup. Start with a must-have problem you are passionate about, validate demand cheaply—even as a service—before pouring money into engineering, focus on a narrow ideal customer profile, and learn the language of lean startups, TAM, and product-market fit. Funding can begin with angels, friends, family, or accelerators; institutional capital usually waits for paying customers. Domain expertise and data-driven founders are far more attractive than pure technologists who have never lived the problem. She notes the talent-acquisition space is currently over-funded and sees bigger opportunity in skills validation and combating the rising wave of candidate fraud. The conversation also touches the small, collaborative nature of the HR-tech community, Hadeel’s own path (she once planned to be a doctor until she discovered she cannot stand blood), her dream of visiting Yemen’s otherworldly Socotra island, and why she would choose Mulan as her fictional counterpart. Throughout, the episode balances practical advice, SHRM research highlights, and honest reflection on what it takes to build technology that actually moves the profession forward. If you like this episode, you’d also love exploring prior episodes—visit colenapper.com for the full archive and show links.