Dear SimplyHired and Indeed,
Wow, it’s been quite an exciting summer hasn’t it?
I can’t imagine how pumped you both must be. Being the talk of online recruitment circles, getting millions in investment money, and drawing the attention of the big engines like Google and Yahoo! and companies like The New York Times has to be both invigorating and nerve-racking.
I unfortunately don’t have a crystal ball to see the future or have inside information on your business plans, but I am confident that you are both poised for historical relevance in the annals of online job search.
In the year that sees us celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the launch of Netscape and the Internet as we know it, it’s great to see you two stirring the pot as if it were once again 1999. The days when Monster held such radical distinction seems like ancient history, doesn’t it?
Anyway, in the spirit of busted bubbles past, I have a few requests as you move into this, your crossroads to prosperity.
Please do the following:
- Continue to let the market hijack your brand. Having achieved high buzz factors, don’t mess it up.
- Grow gradually and virally. I know your investors probably think that’s crazy talk, but Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will you.
- Create ever-evolving, remarkable and relevant technology. Take a tip from Google and build the best mousetrap. Then keep catching more mice than your competition.
- Utilize search engines to drive traffic. Optimize, optimize, optimize. What’s good for the job boards is good for you too.
- Adopt the mantra, Small is the new big. You don’t need to be ABC or NBC. It’s OK to just be a damn good cable station.
Please don’t do the following:
- Run a Super Bowl ad.
- Get a blimp.
- Design a puppet of any kind.
- Hire Whoopi Goldberg … or any celebrity for that matter.
- Put your name on a sports facility.
- Try to be something you’re not.
That’s it. Take it for what it’s worth. The waters of business are unpredictable. No one knows where you’ll be in a year from now or what other boats might join the journey. But learning from the storms of dot-bombs past, as well as its survivors and staying the course should reap nice rewards, no matter where the vertical job search trip takes us.
Best,
Joel
P.S. Yeah, I’m still very skeptical that you can establish a sustainable revenue model, survive a serious entry from Google, or keep the peace with Monster, CareerBuilder and HotJobs. And I still think you primarily exist to be acquired.
But regardless of what happens, I applaud the fact that you have caught the attention and imagination of the market and are currently the catalyst for paving a better road to employment for job seekers and organizations alike.
Summer blockbusters should be about underdogs and Wedding Crashers. For my money, you two are this year’s runaway hits.
August 22nd, 2005 at 1:48 am
Joel,
Thanks for your kind comments and for giving us your strategy ideas, pro bono to boot! I’d add that the emergence of recruitment blogs like yours is also a powerful new development in the industry and something to be celebrated.
Paul
http://www.indeed.com - one search. all jobs.
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:33 am
Dear Headmaster Cheesman -
we promise to study hard this year, and we’ll do our best not to blow spitballs at those guys from Indeed in the 2nd row… ok, maybe just a few ;)
about that class project: if we don’t manage to blow up the chem lab, we hope to deliver a really sweet volcanic eruption simulation experiment and perhaps also a program for modeling flu epidemics sometime later this year.
oh yeah, one more thing — we were thinking about hiring this out-of-work sock puppet to broadcast the halftime show at the homecoming football game, but our uncle VC said we had to watch our allowance. bummer.
anyway, should be a fun year at school :)
signed,
your favorite students @ Our Lady of Perpetual Innovation High School
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:36 am
One of the funniest things I have seen today. Thanks guys!
August 22nd, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Who would acquire SimplyHired, Indeed, or any of the rest? And what were the VCs thinking with this “model”? Whatever happened to “barriers to competition” criteria???
Do any of these start-ups have anything that Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Microsoft can’t do whenever they want (and are, no doubt, working on now)???
In addition, Yahoo already has HotJobs and MSN has the Career Builder deal for who knows how long.
Once Google pulls the trigger on vertical job search using their own technology (why acquire???) and Monster & Career Builder pull the plug on their jobs, it’s all over for Simply Hired, Indeed, and the rest. Not to mention the millions in investment in a model that didn’t get acquired and can’t succeed without building a brand and selling something other than advertising.
I agree that the era of the job board is ending but the players now will be Google, Yahoo, and MSN where job seekers will immediately have the confidence that the most jobs possible have been found and employers realize there is no need to pay job posting fees.
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:39 pm
RJ:
We should be worried about Google, Yahoo, or MSN entering this space. They’re huge companies with endless resources.
We’re the ants on the sidewalk, they’re the kid with the magnifying glass, and it’s a sunny day.
But…we’ve put on sunscreen, and are doing ok.
Joel’s letter is right-on. What differentiates Indeed, Simply-Hired, WorkZoo, Fetchster, and a host of others is that we’re not Google, Yahoo, MSN, Monster, or CareerBuilder.
Heck…some of use aren’t even Indeed or SimplyHired! (But we are for Minnesota Jobs)
We (the collective Vertical Job Search hive) are the leaders…the rest of ‘em are just congregation. They will take their cues from us - not the other way around.
While it may be inevitable that these gorillas enter the vertical job search market, they aren’t there yet.
Remember - the other search engines are playing catch up.
Yahoo’s HotJobs spider has been hitting Fetchster like crazy the past few weeks….catch up, indeed (no pun intended :) )
August 22nd, 2005 at 4:05 pm
it’s not just about search — that’s just phase I.
as noted before, a successful vertical site will include the following:
1) structured search
2) relevant applications
3) relevant content
4) active community of vertically-focused users
search engines may be good at competing in the first area, however they don’t necessarily win on the other points (though the larger portals may have a big network of users from which to attract vertically-focused users).
in particular, they don’t have a huge advantage on app development… and in some cases, due to bureaucracy and existing business divisions, they may be substantially slower on execution.
for more thoughts on this, see rules #4, 8, 9, 10 slides on “Top 10 Rules for Vertical Revolutionaries” here:
http://blog.simplyhired.com/archives/ppt/top10.ppt
regards,
- dave mcclure
http://www.simplyhired.com
ps - flipping and/or getting acquired are not at all the primary goals of the company. of course it might happen, but that’s not what we’re focused on.
August 24th, 2005 at 1:19 am
Dave – I think you are in marketing mode autopilot and not really thinking things out clearly
“it’s not just about search — that’s just phase I.
as noted before, a successful vertical site will include the following:
1) structured search
2) relevant applications
3) relevant content
4) active community of vertically-focused users
search engines may be good at competing in the first area, however they don’t necessarily win on the other points (though the larger portals may have a big network of users from which to attract vertically-focused users).
in particular, they don’t have a huge advantage on app development… and in some cases, due to bureaucracy and existing business divisions, they may be substantially slower on execution.”
1) Structured Search –
yes of course, that’s search engine 101
2) Relevant applications – well let’s address this when and if you guys build relevant apps on top of your job data (remember we’re talking about gorillas with $$$ R&D vs your start up funding so not sure what advantage you have)
3) Relevant content = primarily relevant jobs in this case, (sure there are other things you could offer but for now jobs are the primary content driver – so same as point 1. Structured search = relevant jobs. Understood. Where is your adv over the gorillas
4) Active Communiy – ok, well I’m one of those guys who does not relate simplyforums / simplyfired = “COMMUNITY” especially when in the context of the capabilities of the established gorillas and the community they can leverage
And Dave I would say they have a HUGE advantage in terms of app development. They can leverage their existing in house development teams and $$$ + brand + challenging project = droves of the best developers selling their goats to join the team.
Dave – you’re doing your marketing job, I give you that, but you’re gonna have to up the ante a bit here mate.
August 24th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Personally, I’m a big fan of Simply Hired (and a judge for Simply Fired.) Call me naive, but I’m not in a position to talk about vertical searches and whether or not they get acquired is irrelevant to me. Right now the field needs more competition out there against the Monsters and the HotJobs money grabbers and I’m looking forward to what they have in the works.
August 25th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
If Gorilla = Success, then All Tech would = Microsoft and IBM.
The “ability” to develop applications does mean that a company is guaranteed success in any and all markets they chose to enter. Just because Yahoo was there first doesn’t mean Google can’t kick their butts.
PeopleSoft looked at the recruitment space and said “Given our gorilla status, our penetration with the real buyers (IT folks), and our installed base, we can own ATS.” To this day they are still a bit player. PeopleSoft (Oracle) has BILLIONS more than Recruitmax (as just one example of a recently successful ATS vendor), but Recruitmax has 40x the installed base in recruitment applications.
If you talk to people at Google, they will be the first to tell you that targeting job posting advertising is small potatoes, that their sales force does not have the requisite skills to sell to customers in the recruitment advertising space, and that given the relative size of the market compared to other online advertising opportunities, it is not a focus of theirs at this time. And frankly, as someone that buys online advertising, I would rather work with a company that gets the specifics of my business and finding talent. Google doesn’t, and it’s not keeping them up at night worrying about it.
Of course if SimplyHired and Indeed and others are wildly successful this will change. But then simple business 101 will tell you that it is a lot easier to use $7B in cash to absorb a success rather than develop to compete with it.
Finally, I would just say that Yahoo’s execution around their entry into this space should be making the vertical’s breathe a sigh of relief. Typical “big company, lots of resources” approach to solving a problem: skimp on the technology and make up for it with lots of press releases.
August 25th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
Of course I meant “DOES NOT” mean that a company is guaranteed success…
Sorry.