How Hired.com solved a big pain point and used focus and urgency to get initial traction with their two-sided careers marketplace. For more information see http://www.mattcollins.net/2016/04/how-hired-com-started-a-fast-growing-careers-marketplace

1. HOW HIRED.COM STARTED A
FAST-GROWING CAREERS
MARKETPLACE

2. PHASE 1: IDEA AND MVP

3. 1.1 IDENTIFIED A BIG PAIN POINT
• Their entrepreneur friends were very frustrated: “can’t find good people to hire!”
• Spending a lot ($$$) on existing solutions (e.g. recruiters, attending events)
• Yet not happy with results 
• => Opportunity!

4. 1.2 BUILT AN MVP
• Matt created wireframes, landing pages, ad copy, emails
• CTO friend built simple first version
• DeveloperAuction.com

5. PHASE 2: GOT FIRST USERS

6. 2.1 FOCUSED TIGHTLY EARLY ON
• Supply-side:
• Developers only
• Candidates from 5-6 companies only (Google, Facebook, Twitter, …)
• Demand-side:
• VC-backed Silicon Valley companies only
• Focus => Easier to get liquidity with small amount of supply & demand

7. 2.2 USED EMAIL TO GET
INITIAL CANDIDATES
• Emailed engineers with tempting (and novel) offer:
• “find out how much you are worth”
• “have companies trying to hire you with transparency up-front”

8. 2.3 USED EMAIL TO GET INITIAL
HIRING COMPANIES
• 1. Emailed potential hiring companies directly
• Poor response rate – didn’t work 
• 2. Got investor friends to email companies in their portfolios
• This worked! 

9. PHASE 3: GROWTH

10. 3.1 DEVELOPED AN INNOVATIVE,
DIFFERENTIATED SOLUTION
• Provided upfront transparency to candidates about the compensation they could
receive if hired.

11. 3.2 BOOSTED LIQUIDITY BY
INTRODUCING URGENCY
• Started presenting batches of candidates to hiring companies for limited two week
periods:
• gave prospective employers a reason to take action
• meant that strong candidates could end up with multiple offers on the table at the same
time, allowing them to compare offers better

12. 3.3 INVESTED IN BRAND
• Spent $10k to $20k on a branding/naming consultancy
• Spent around $125,000 on domain name Hired.com

13. 3.4 FOCUSED ON SUPPLY-SIDE
• For first 3 years…
• Focused almost all their resources on attracting and improving the experience for
candidates
• (knowing that with the right candidates, prospective employers would follow)

14. 3.5 USED FEEDBACK, EXPERIMENTATION
AND DATA TO IMPROVE PROCESS
• Talk to lots of customers and run user research feedback sessions
• Test new approaches (some which work, some which don’t)
• Very data-driven (data team, make data available to entire company)

15. CONCLUSIONS

16. CONCLUSIONS
• Identified a big pain point.
• Focused tightly to get initial liquidity
• Achieved growth by building one side of the marketplace -- attracted the other side
for free

17. THANKS!
• Find out more: http://www.mattcollins.net/