In our Founder Stories series, we interview founders about their experience of starting and growing their companies.
Meet Richie Wan, Founder of Seeker (previously RefermyJobs), a job board that helps startups attract higher quality candidates. We have asked him some questions about him and his company's journey, reflections on challenges and growth, and what the future might hold.
Could you share a bit about your background, your startup?
I have 14 years’ global recruitment experience and the majority of this time was spent on senior headhunting vacancies. At this level, candidates were harder to come by so getting introduced (referred) to them via a mutual connection was always the best way. I started to tap into a hidden candidate marketplace and realised that a lot of people (whilst not always actively looking for a job) would change for the right opportunity. This is the core of what Seeker does as we are a job board that is driven by referrals. We provide the tools so anyone from the general public can create their “Pinterest” style board and share jobs to their network across social media. You can earn free rewards like coffee, cinema tickets (amongst other things) just by using our platform. The good part is you can earn up to £500 for every hire made through your Pinterest board.
What about the challenges you’ve faced so far in your startup journey?
We always knew our process was slightly different as we are targeting a completely different audience compared to the likes of Indeed. Initially we communicated our B2B features and thought that was our value proposition. It wasn’t until traction from our closed beta testing revealed that our B2C users sharing jobs is the key ingredient. It’s this action that gets the job adverts on Seeker through to a completely hidden candidate marketplace. This is our true value proposition and what makes us different.
What are you hoping to achieve in the future as your business grows?
We have early traction and our next goal is to get more users to further demonstrate this. Our next milestone is to get closer to product market fit then the exciting international scale up step!AI is of course a hot topic at the moment and our AI transcribing MVP is nearing testing. This is a human led process where founders can write tailored job specs, and also get AI support to help select the best candidates based on their interview.
Do you have any specific plans around growth and what comes next?
We want Seeker to be the recruitment partner of choice for Scottish founders. Our process is fair, cost effective and fun. The startup ecosystem here is in its infancy so we’d love to do our part in helping it scale.Next up is our international growth plans as we’ve already started to plant the seed with founders in other ecosystems such as San Francisco.
How has Techscaler membership helped you on your journey so far?
Techscaler has been amazing at making me feel welcome in their community. They have 2 brilliant accelerators that help early stage startups through those initial steps. Something we have little to no understanding of. A bigger benefit is being part of a community with fellow founders and experienced startup mentors. There is so much support available so you are not alone!
Do you have any other reflections on the obstacles and successes you’ve encountered so far?
Whilst friends and family will be supportive, sometimes they just don’t get what you do. Get out there and meet fellow founders, community partners and other ecosystem individuals. These are the people who understand what a startup is like and can help you overcome any obstacle you may be experiencing. If you’re a founder reading this then reach out on LinkedIn. I’d be happy to help and if I can’t then I can signpost you to someone who can!
