14. FUNDING
$250,000 to:
Add a lead UX/UI
designer, expand the software
development team, and reach
profitability
Editor's Notes
Companies looking to hire designers waste valuable time and resources to fill positionsUsing service such as Monster or Behance means reviewing thousands of applicantsEven with a custom applicant tracking system, it takes significantly more time to review designers compared to regular employees since there’s more subjectivity depending on styleDesigners want an easy to use method to find jobs without having to review and apply to multiple positions – they’d rather have employers come to them
Dapper matches employers with suitable candidates from a pool ofdesigners, minimizing costs to employersDesigners have an avenue where employers come to them instead of the other way around
On average, it takes 3 months for employers to fill design rolesThis costs businesses lost opportunities, productivity, and stress for current employeesDapper significantly reduces the time spent filling these design roles while ensuring a fitDapper charges companies 10% of a designer’s first year salary as a placement fee20% of this 10% is returned to the designer, as an incentive to report successful placementDapper offers businesses a “return period” of 90 days if a hire doesn’t work out, where the placement fee will be returned in full
Dapper has attracted over:200 design students from across the US and overseas30 companies including: Zappos, Yelp, Behance, Plastiq, StarStreet20 prestigious design schools including: RISD, CMU, SCAD, BU, Illinois School of Design, San DiegoRichard Banfield, CEO of FreshTilledSoil, a top multimillion dollar UX design firm, says that: “Dapper revolutionize how designers are hired!”
Dapper is looking to be Match.com for designersCompetitively, there are 2 companies that are in the industry of placing designers: recruiters and websitesRecruiters have high quality candidates but a limited pool and are incentivized to push their top earner for a job opportunityWebsites such as: Monster, Workopolis, Craigslist, Behance, Dribble, and DeviantArt have a high quantity of candidates but there is a high variability among these candidates where their rating/rank can be from anyone else in the community (painter, photographer, etc.) and where ratings are based on how “cool” something looks
Our team is hungry to make an impact and change a traditional industryWe bring diverse backgrounds:Steve – Sales & Business DevelopmentSebastian – Finance and Operations Michael – Software Development
Our projections are based off manual placements, growth of similar companies such as DeveloperAuction, and expected adaptionDapper has 5 target categories:Junior Designers (Web/Interactive), Designers, Senior Designers, UX Designers, and UI DesignersWe estimate that our placement breakdown will be 50% junior, 5% designers, 5% senior, 20% UX, and 20% UIThe average income for our target of “top designers” is 52k, 65k, 90k, 102k, and 80k; pro-rated based on our placement breakdown, this equates to an average salary of 70kFor this year, we estimate that we can place 3 candidates per month for May and June, 5/month for Q3, 15/month for Q4The jump from Q3 to Q4 is reflects the full automation of Dapper as a servicesFor Y2, we predict candidates placed per month will increase of 10/quarter and that we can increase our charge to employers from 10% to 15%For Y3, we predict candidate placement growth of 15/quarter and that we can increase our charge to employers from 15% to 20%
