Founded in March 2015, Bangalore-based
Geektrust was founded by 3 co-founders - Krishnan Nair (CEO), Sneha Jain (CPO) and Dhanush Gopinath (CTO). It is an online recruitment platform that connects good techies with good companies like:
1. Technologists can find their potential salary and see which company would be interested in hiring them just by answering a few questions. They can then get feedback on their skills by solving a coding challenge.
2. Once they understand their true options, techies can then apply to companies. Geektrust works with stable startups, product companies and niche software consultancies.
3. Techies can also get approached directly by companies based on how well they do in the coding challenges. Solving a challenge significantly boosts their profile and companies come and pitch to them.
4. They also have the option to remain anonymous. Companies can connect with them just based on how well they solved the coding challenge.
5. At this point, the technologists are well engaged with the platform. Companies can engage with this audience and check interest in their company through Greektrust’s online recruiter platform. If there is a match, they can then proceed to interview the candidate.
6. Once the company makes a hire and both candidates and companies are happy with the value they get, Geektrust gets paid a recruitment fee by the company.
In an interaction with BW Disrupt, Krishnan Nair, CEO, Geektrust shared details about his venture Unique Key Features• On the Geektrust platform, a candidate never has to search through thousands of jobs, unlike other traditional recruitment sites.
• Use Geektrust to stay job aware – The platform enables candidates to get feedback on their skills, see what salary they could earn, and which interesting startup would want to hire them at any point.
• Find curated opportunities – Geektrust does not onboard all the companies that apply. The team curates them to make sure that they are valid and interesting opportunities.
• See interesting, never-seen-before coding challenges - Some of the challenges created for the coding community are based on cricket, Bengaluru’s traffic and another one is on inter-galactic space war.
• We run an event called the Geektrust Startup Crawl for curious technologists to meet interesting companies.
Recently, around 30 techies traveled to 3 startups in Bangalore just to hear what they do, what technologies they work on, and meet founders and other folks working there. There was no pressure to change jobs, and there was no pressure to hire. Finally, after the event, around 70% of participants agreed to interview at one or more companies there.
This event was a pilot and was successful, and we are planning to do another one in March and also run it in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai.
• Our hit rate of finding candidates for companies is 10X better than the market.
• The entire team of Geektrust is a technology team with no background in recruiting.
Unlike other job platforms that are just to search for jobs, Geektrust helps professionals stay job aware all throughout their career.
Differentiation FactorsThe Indian IT industry is 100+ billion dollars strong and there are 5 million technologists in India. Even though it’s a big industry, companies still find it very hard to hire good talent. And at the same time, it’s not easy for good techies to find good job opportunities either. This is a paradox that no one has solved. There is no company in the online space that has solved the problem of connecting good talent and good companies.
We are different from the other job searches and job listing platforms as we look at the problem holistically and help candidates just explore the job market. We believe that having a platform that allows you to genuinely explore your options, and staying job aware can make a big difference. You don’t even need a resume to get started on Geektrust.
Funding and Monetization ModelWe are bootstrapped and revenue generating. We’ve raised a small amount in a friend and family round to help us speed up our marketing efforts. Our monetization model is completely from the companies’ side and currently we follow a ‘pay per hire’ model. In the future, we will move to a subscription model.
Traction NumbersWe have 4000+ registered users and 50+ companies on the platform. We are growing at an average of 30% month on month.
Expansion PlansOur first priority is to focus on the biggest market in India - Bangalore and help techies and companies here first. However, we are building a platform that's scalable globally and we currently have a few companies outside Bangalore including one in the EU. We plan to launch in the US and in other metros in India over the next few months.
Market Size & OpportunityGlobally, recruitment is a $600 billion industry. The online job listing business was the leader in the online space but this business is slowing down. New players and paradigms need to emerge. There is a real pain point that needs addressing and the space is ripe for real innovation to happen. We believe someone like us, who is not a me-too player and has already brought lots of innovative tools for candidates, is going to make a big difference.
