Elevator Pitch is a regular feature on Lifehacker where we profile startups and new companies and pick their brains for entrepreneurial advice. This week, we’re talking with Tony Wu, head of growth at on-demand staff provider Weploy.
In 128 words or less, explain your business idea
It’s 8:30am on a Monday morning and your receptionist calls in sick. What do you do?
You could go down the traditional route of calling multiple agencies, or within 30 seconds and a couple clicks of a button you could have that position filled. With a mission to change the way the world looks at employment, we built Weploy- a simple digital platform that connects employers to a community of pre-vetted and readily available staff.
By disrupting the traditional recruitment agency model, we’re the fastest and easiest on-demand staffing solution.
What strategies are you using to grow and finance your idea?
Having first hand experience in all 3 sides of the market across a number of countries, (job seeker, employer and recruiter) we knew that short-term recruitment isn’t just a local problem, but an opportunity to solve a global problem.
With that in mind, we’ve been able to build an incredible team of proven entrepreneurs with specialised skills, and have secured funding to ensure we can do this properly the first time round.
We’ve also got an exceptional board of advisors with amazing experience to help accelerate our growth.
How do you differentiate your business from your competitors?
Given our prior experience in the industry, we’ve been able to really understand the user experience requirements and have been able to develop a platform that is completely new to the market, disrupting the agency model, as well as existing recruitment platforms. Weploy’s biggest differentiator is that we’re not an agency. Our offering is embedded in smart tech allowing us to cut out the middle man and scale much faster than the traditional agency model or online platform. Our most unique points lie in focus, speed, tech and pay.
Focus: Instead of trying to be good at everything across recruitment, Weploy focuses on being the best at providing temporary support level staff.
Speed: We’re the fastest offering on the market, regardless of whether you’re a tech-savvy millennial or a non-tech literate retiree . Similar platforms take approximately 25 minutes to hire a candidate, compared to our clunky MVP which took around 2 minutes and 26 seconds. We still felt that took too long so we refined it down to about 30 seconds.
Tech: Weploy’s biggest enabler is intelligent tech. Our smart algorithms match suitable employees and employers in seconds. With insight taken from traditional vetting models, we developed a unique automated vetting system which is easier to use and consistently generates a higher tier of candidate whilst being scalable than the traditional model.
Pay: Weploy provides the best deal for both sides of the market. Our rates ensure a win-win situation where employers pay less than the market average and candidates are paid 10% above the industry award rates.
What’s the biggest challenge facing your business?
Our biggest challenge right now is maintaining our community ratio in line with our growth rate. We’re currently working through our second pilot phase and a key factor is getting the balance right between supply and demand to keep up with the growth in users. To ensure we’re continuing to provide both employers and candidates with the best service, it’s paramount that we get the formula right between how many Weployers (companies) and Weployees (candidates) we require.
What one phone, tablet or PC application could you not live without?
Trello – It’s allowed us to really understand where each other is at, and prioritise tasks accordingly across all of our devices.
Aside from that, it would actually have to be Weploy! We’re the biggest power users of our own app and are constantly hiring Weployees to come in to provide support to drive our growth.
What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?
Be absolutely passionate about what you do. Money and success are irrelevant if you’re not passionate about what you do.
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