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Comment by paskster | Hacker News Reader

We are creating an online marketplace for short term work in Germany (https://www.instaff.jobs). Businesses can publish their jobs on our platform, jobbers apply with their profile and then these businesses can book the jobbers online. We take care of quality management and employment overhead (working contracting, payroll accounting, etc.).

We made close to 3 Mill. EUR revenue in 2016. We acquire 90 % of our customers via SEO and about 10 % via Google Adwords. We don't do any direct sales.

Our #1 growth strategy was creating well designed and highly targeted landingpages for all relevant keywords. For example if potential customers search for certain type of jobbers in certain German cities, these are some of our landingpages:

https://en.instaff.jobs/fair-hostesses-agency/frankfurt

https://en.instaff.jobs/fair-hostesses-agency/berlin

https://www.instaff.jobs/promotion-agentur/stuttgart

https://www.instaff.jobs/catering-personal-agentur/hamburg

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So include glamour shots of young attractive women on your landing pages when possible. Got it! :)

I can't remember what Madison Avenue Ad man (aka Mad Men) is responsible for the quote "in tits we trust". Ogilvy ? It's a tasteless quote, but I can think of many companies, like GoDaddy, that use this strategy shamelessly at first. The links above are by no means that extreme, but I suspect it did help your marketing success.

Thinking of my own marketing, I don't even have a photo of a human being using our product. I'll work on that.

edit: added Mad Men reference.

We are mainly targeting short term jobs for exhibition, events and promotion right now. 80 % of the time, customers book young females for these jobs. So your are right, that we show "young attractive women" on a lot of landing pages, but this is more a result of our business model. The comparison to GoDaddy is not fair, since it has no relation to their business model, that they show young females.

And we make sure that our jobbers not only upload high quality pictures but also write their personal experience in a targeted and concise format. For example we now started other verticals such as temporary chefs and on these pages you see mostly middle aged men with cooking experience:

https://www.instaff.jobs/koeche-mieten/frankfurt

edit: same content but better english

I am experimenting with an idea to target experienced workers and will try your landing page strategy. Basically a recruitment platform to find experienced workers a gig / job. thank you for sharing. Have a look: http://tryoldster.com/ email me , i'd love to set it up in germany / partner with you. wink , wink ;-)

We don't do cooperation with other companies, since we want to be focused 100 % on our business model. But I wish you all the best with your platform and I can recommend you to also create highly targeted landingpages. For example (just out of the blue) you could have a page on the url:

http://tryoldster.com/new-york/experienced-marketing-consult...

And on this landingpage you show some of our "oldsters" who are based in New Work and who have marketing experience. And in addition you show your platforms USP on this page and create Call-to-action button on how to get in contact with an "oldster". You obviously have to check yourself what kind of businesses are in your target group, what keywords they would search and what kind of landingpage could attract them.

edit: same content, but reworded my english

I thank you so much. ;-)

Can you comment more on the Call-to-action button. Does the button at the bottom of the page get the most clicks? Thank you for sharing your strategy.

There is a lot of content on the internet about proper call-to-action buttons (short: CTA). But I will try to give you my experience:

1.) The first CTA should be above-the-fold, visible to users right away without scrolling.

2.) If it is a longer page, the the page should contain multiple CTAs, so the user does not need to "scroll back" up.

3.) The CTAs should be visible and standing out from the rest of the content

The label of the CTA is very important. We use "Unverbindliche Buchungsanfrage" which can be roughly translated to "Non-binding booking request". We try to convey, that clicking on the button is risk-free and free-of-charge.

The first CTA on the page gets the most clicks, since a lot of customers do not scroll down.

I notice that you have made EUR 3 million in 2016 using a scalable hands-off model where you can turn adwords directly into cash without needing to own or touch any inventory, meet anyone, or have any infrastructure beyond a website, which you have built. You have also solved the chicken and egg problem, since high-quality companies will only take the time to craft thoughtful and serious searches if you have a pool of qualified candidates, and qualified candidates will only post thoughtful and serious listings if the are likely to reach serious companies they want to work for. Further, knowledge workers - the kind you connect with companies, as opposed to manual labor, comprise roughly $3 trillion in value and are among the most sophisticated job seekers and very likely to try your platform: even absent large economies of scale and network effects you have proven your ability to convert them and monetize them by offering both themselves and companies that seek them, value in an innovative and sustainable way.

As a European VC, this is not the kind of opportunity we are looking for. Please don't contact me again.

- Edit: see replies below.

The replies I mentioned have been (rightfully) detached from this thread.

I am adding this reply to make crystal-clear that the above is SATIRE about how hard it is for European companies to raise money from European investors. (I'm not a European VC.) You guys are killing it. I hope investors believe in you too.

Thanks ;)

As for my guess - is it true raising money is way harder than it should be, given your numbers? (And huge market.)

Or did you not have too much trouble and got fair valuations, terms, could close quickly etc?

(If you don't mind sharing.)

We tried raising money for 5 months last year and we talked to partners from about 20 European VC, but we were not successful. We got no or low-balling offers at best. I guess we were missing what people call "social proof".

This was our pitch deck by the way (not meant for marketing but for context): http://www.instaff.jobs/download/InStaff_Pitch_Deck.pdf

We don't need money, because we have been cashflow positive and growing for a while. And since fundraising was hyper time consuming we will not get back to fundraising again.

But I don't want to "rage" against the VC scene here. To each his own and I wish everybody who raises money successfully to grow his business all the best.

Thank you - I knew it. :)

You don't have to follow up, but if you do: what valuation were you seeking and what's the highest low-ball offer you received?

For me the lowest valuation given your numbers and model would be $10m - but I am certain you were seeking a much lower valuation, and did not even get that. So what were you seeking and what offer did you get?

(By the way, the way I analyze your story it's not a social proof question: it's that you weren't in silicon valley.)

If you don't want to reply here you can email me at the address in my profile. Thanks.

Can you clarify how you are making money? I assume every connection is paid somehow but don't speak German.

https://en.instaff.jobs/costs-and-benefits

> And if you book staff, you only pay the gross salary of the employee plus the InStaff service fee which ranges between 21 %(for Professionals) to 43 % (other Staff) - there are no additional costs.

We charge a markup (between 21 % to 43 %) on top of the employees wage.

Example: You book a promoter for 3 days. The promoters works 7 hours per day and earns 10 EUR per hour. Then his total gross wage is 210 EUR and our markup is 90,30 EUR (43 %) on top. So you as customer pay a total of 300,30 EUR to us.

We compete with traditional employment agencies who usually charge a markup of 50% to 200%.

Thank you for your answer and explanation.

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