“People Capital never wavered. They understood our unique bar, someone who loved storytelling as much as they loved AI- and kept going until they found our unicorn.”

-James Yu, Co-founder & CEO

Challenge:

• Sudowrite, an AI writing startup, needed to make its first AI engineering hire- a role critical to the company’s future. 
• The founders had an extraordinarily high bar: the ideal candidate not only had to be deeply passionate about creative writing and novels, but also possess the technical expertise to fine-tune LLMs, build RAG pipelines, and scale AI infrastructure. 
• After months of searching, they had yet to find anyone who combined both domains of creativity and technical mastery.

Solution:

• People Capital partnered closely with Sudowrite to lead a highly targeted, patient, and deliberate search. 
• Every candidate was assessed not just for engineering excellence, but also for a genuine love of storytelling and fiction. 
• People Capital continually conducted outreach across niche communities, refining evaluation criteria, and aligning tightly with the founders until the unicorn candidate was found.

Results:

• Vetted 25+ AI engineers with both technical depth and creative writing backgrounds.
• Successfully placed Sudowrite’s first AI Engineer, who combined LLM fine-tuning expertise with a true passion for novels and creative fiction.
• This hire accelerated product development by 50%, enabling the MVP to launch 2 months ahead of schedule.