Our challenge this year was to identify our product-market fit. The challenge every startup has to solve relying on hints, such as customer’s feedbacks, competitor’s actions, market trends, unit economics.
Employers wanted all-in-one solution.
We entered 2019 with quite limited functionality for employers:
- list of matched candidates
- weight of matching
- test task
- accept/decline buttons
We have been puzzled by the fact that employers highly valued our candidates and the matching results, but they struggled with the recruitment process as the functionality of engagement was quite limited. We had fixed it with sticks and stones at the beginning, providing additional functionality with external solutions, but it was a call-to-action for us to introduce:
- process dashboard
- messaging tools
- calendar
- favorite/save for later/bookmark options
It resulted at much higher retention rate and increased number of staffed positions.
Candidates wanted to include more in their profile.
Having initially put the main focus on the skills of candidates, we aimed to highlight the core – knowledge and experience, and not the background of the person.
However, number of candidates expressed a desire to include also their portfolios, work examples, education certificates and many more data sources. We thought it would not be wise to hesitate expansion of the data entry points and just let it go: we gave candidates an opportunity to upload any information they considered valuable and left couple of fields open.
Employers wanted more flexible pricing plans.
We have received number of requests to customize our process and pricing for a particular needs of the employer. Request about task verification, screen calls or do an interview before a test task – just some examples of the requests we received.
These, and many more other hints from our users made us realize that there was a time for a change – we took couple of months off in spring and in April 2019 a Version 1of PitchMe was born.
It included absolutely new user experience for candidates, employers and online education providers. But most important, we have introduced a new pricing strategy in September 2019.
Did we exit the escape room in the end you might wonder? We did! We have managed to identify our product-market fit and ended 2019 with:
- doubled candidate database
- 200+ employers on board
- 4 education providers subscribed with >17M users in total.
We enter 2020 with exciting new challenges and new KPIs. But most important we enter 2020 with twice more candidates trusting their career to us and twice more employers making their hires with us.
We value your trust and are grateful to each and everyone who provided us their valuable feedback and who expressed their desire to walk with us hand-in-hand in 2020.
Cheers! Happy New Year!