Our Investment in Bountiful

How did you find your job?  That was a question Jason Goldberg, then CEO of now-defunct Jobster, would ask when he presented at conferences a decade ago.  He’d go on to ask, “how many people got their job on a job board?”  Maybe 1% of the room would raise their hands.  He would then ask, “how many people got their job from a referral?”  Most of the room would raise their hands.  

Fast forward to today and the challenge of effectively leveraging referral-based hiring still persists.  Over the past few months, I asked many smart people in the recruiting industry why referral-based hiring platforms have failed.  The short answer is that those that have tried and failed focused too much on the incentive for referring friends and haven’t yet leveraged the powerful network effects (and gaming mechanics) of the hiring process itself.

Enter Bountiful.  We are excited to announce our new investment alongside High Alpha.  We have been long admirers of High Alpha’s incubation model and excited to work closely with them to launch the company.  Bountiful is founded by Scott Sinatra and Nick Kirkes.  Scott understands the problem intimately during his time as an executive at Linkedin and Glassdoor.  Founder-market fit….check!  Nick is a seasoned technologist who knows how to build highly scalable enterprise systems from his tenure at Salesforce and Zoom.  In addition to Scott and Nick, we are excited to work closely with Scott Dorsey, one of the best SaaS founders in the last decade (founder/CEO of High Alpha and former CEO of ExactTarget) and Caroline Werner, Chief People Officer at LogicGate (backed by Stepstone Group, Next Play Ventures, and High Alpha. )  

We believe referrals are the holy grail of recruiting. It is the most time efficient and cost effective way for companies to recruit employees.  Candidates that are referred into companies stay longer and are more engaged.  Recruiters (and scouts) save time, energy, and can actually drive revenue.  It's a win-win-win!

Check out today’s launch announcement and apply for early access now.  Learn more about Bountiful at www.bountiful.us.