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Conversation
Highlights
Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech’s most innovative B2B founders. In today’s episode, we’re speaking with Amit Bhatia, Co-Founder and CEO of Datapeople, a recruiting intelligence platform that has raised $21 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Diverse Background: Amit’s journey from an investment banker and a neural net engineer to a founder in the recruiting tech space highlights a diverse set of experiences leading to his current venture.
- Market Revelation: Amit’s realization about the massive, yet underoptimized recruiting space while working at Morgan Stanley provided the impetus for founding Datapeople.
- Bootstrap Beginnings: The initial four years of bootstrapping and building a job search engine offered Amit a “PhD” in understanding the nuances of job searches and employer postings.
- Problem Identification: Discovering that the issue wasn’t with platforms like LinkedIn or Indeed, but rather the way jobs were presented, led to the development of Datapeople’s unique solution.
- Enterprise Ready Journey: Transitioning from a job search engine to a sophisticated platform for both recruiters and hiring managers marked a significant growth phase for the company.
- Customer Diversification: Amit emphasized the importance of serving a wide range of industries beyond tech to ensure the solution’s applicability and success across the job market.
Actionable
Takeaways
Leverage Diverse Experiences:
Amit's transition from investment banking to tech entrepreneurship underscores the value of diverse experiences. For founders, exploring different sectors can provide unique insights and innovative ideas applicable to your ventures.
Identify Market Gaps through Immersion:
Spending four years building and not monetizing a job search engine allowed Amit to deeply understand the recruiting space. Founders should consider immersing themselves in their target markets to identify pain points and opportunities that aren't immediately obvious.
Bootstrap to Learn, Not Just to Earn:
The early non-monetized phase of Datapeople was crucial for learning about user behavior. Startups might benefit from initially focusing on gathering data and understanding user needs before pushing for monetization.
Focus on Systemic Problems:
Amit identified that the problem wasn't just with the job platforms but with how jobs were presented by hiring managers. Tackling systemic issues within your industry can lead to more impactful solutions and differentiate your offering.
Build for All Stakeholders:
Datapeople's success came from serving not just recruiters but also hiring managers, making the recruiting process more inclusive and efficient. Solutions that address the needs of all stakeholders in a process are likely to be more successful.
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