A former boss of mine recommended me to a former colleague of his, the VP who owns product management. Although there wasn't a position open at the time, he tried to create one because I was such a good match for what they would be needing soon. We communicated by email to set up a half-hour phone screen. When we both agreed it was a likely match, he brought me in for an in-person interview and product demo. This went well enough to lead to another round of interviews, with 4 leaders in product management, business development and architecture/development. I found everybody I talked with to be positive, smart, experienced and competent in their domain, and driven to make the company succeed. It's clearly a healthy culture, and these would be great people to work with. Unfortunately, they decided not to budget this new position right now, so the last round of interviews with the CEO and a technical visionary didn't happen. This is a start-up, so I knew it was a long shot for me.