Beamery me up, Scotty and get that Delorean to 88 MPH!
This show is heavy, and not because there's something wrong with the earth's gravitational pull in the future. No, it's because we have an acquisition of some company called Flux and an update on the HiQ / LinkedIn legal drama. Plus, Predictive Hire is changing its name and the boys play a little Buy-or-Sell with Crafty, Beatrust and Vivian (sounds like a party we attended back in '94). Anyway, it's another can't-miss weekly episode of HR's most dangerous podcast.
You're welcome.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel (21s):
Oh yeah. Fast food restaurant Jack in the box is launching a pilot program that will test flippy two and sippy robots in a San Diego restaurant. Nothing says, stay classy like a Jimbo Jack cheeseburger. Hey boys and girls you're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel "ultimate jack" Cheeseman.
Chad (41s):
And this is Chad "he's not buying Twitter" Sowash.
Joel (45s):
On this week's show Beamery powers up to one point 21 gigawatts, HighQ scrapes by with another win and Predictive Hire has an identity crisis. Let's do this one.
Chad (60s):
Oh dude. So interesting sitting here in Budapest in still the biggest news other than Ukraine, obviously, cause I'm much closer to it, but it's still fucking Elon Musk buying Twitter. Do you think this is going to happen?
Joel (1m 13s):
It's going to happen? It's going to happen.
Chad (1m 15s):
It doesn't make any sense.
Joel (1m 16s):
He's got an out at a billion dollars. I'm telling you, I gave you my theory, conspiracy theory, but still a theory on the European show. He's going to buy Twitter. He's going to be a darling of the GOP. Fox news has already given him, you know, a hundred million dollars in free PR with the news, right? He's going to get Trump reelected or another Trumpian type candidate. Once they're in the White House, he's going to get a windfall of funds for EVs, deregulation, government contracts. He's going to make so much money off the government because of this, that he's definitely going to buy Twitter.
Chad (1m 57s):
So the hard part though, is shares a Tesla plummeted after investors began to worry about Elon Musk, having to perspectively sell shares in the car company. Right? So I mean, this could perspectively be a house of cards for some of his real businesses. I mean, shit that actually is going, Twitter's not going to change the world. Okay. Tesla could change the world. And in some of his other business, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It's weird.
Joel (2m 21s):
Definitely has a Waterloo feel to it. Like he may be, the hubris might be such that he's biting off way more than he can chew. And this is going to be a bad ending for Elon Musk, but the dude's got the Midas touch, everything he does seems to turn to gold. So I guess we'll see, it'll be fun to talk about. He's got a billion dollar out. So I fully would not be surprised if he's like, you know what? Fuck all y'all. I'm out. Like here's a check for a billion dollars suck it.
Chad (2m 51s):
Yeah. Well, here's the thing though. You know that, like I remember the first time I actually heard Eddie Vedder speak. I mean, I love the guy. I love Pearl Jam. Loved it. As soon as he got like so much attention that you started to learn kind of like who he was, especially back in the nineties, right? You're like, oh my God, is this really the guy? You know what I mean? I think that's what we're seeing at Elon. He is, he's a genius, no question, but he's also a fucking idiot in some areas. And I mean, we see that, but I mean, it's just it, I think we're just learning more about him and more, more obviously is going to come out.
Joel (3m 26s):
I was wondering where you going to go with that Eddie Vetter thing? That was full circle for you. I like that. Yeah. And Elon's a great dancer. I don't know if you've seen him like get busy, get jiggy with it at a corporate event. But yeah, he know he can dance.
Chad (3m 42s):
No. Oh my God. How about shout outs?
Joel (3m 44s):
Shall we get to shout outs? Yeah, I think Elon's getting enough free press as it is. He doesn't need more from us. I'm going to give a shout out to Miso Robotics.
sfx (3m 53s):
Shall we play a game?
Joel (3m 55s):
Don't call on me so horny robotics, Chad, we talk about all the time, but these bots are crushing it. I mentioned Jack in the Box using Flippy 2 for burgers and Sippy to pour the drinks, but these cats have signed deals with Chipotle, Panera, White Castle and BW Threes to cook the food we Americans apparently don't want to touch. And we don't talk about this company enough. They're making robots that will change your world. They are ahead of everyone else doing bots and kitchens by a mile Miso Robotics is making wings right now as I speak, shout out to Miso horny Robotics.
Chad (4m 32s):
Yeah. We don't want to touch it as it goes into the fryer, but we do when we, right before we put it into our mouths
Joel (4m 38s):
In my belly.
Chad (4m 39s):
Start to take a look at like, you know, spending much more time over here in Europe versus the US it is apparent that part of the issue that we have with wages and really monopolies to be quite Frank is around fast foods. You know, we have three McDonald's in a small town of like 20,000 people or some shit like that. It's just like, it's interesting, this is a huge problem. That the question is, will it stop? I, I don't think it will in the US.
Joel (5m 9s):
Well, the good news Chad. I don't know if you heard this news, Eli Lilly, a great Indianapolis company as a new obesity drug, that's crushing it. So obese people might be a thing of the past. Thanks to Eli Lilly. Stay tuned for that one.
Chad (5m 21s):
Yeah but you're still going to die from cholesterol though.
Joel (5m 24s):
They got drugs for that too. I'm on three of them. I should know.
Chad (5m 29s):
Force feed that shit to me. Shout out to remote work kids. That's right. Recent research published by ADP you might know, those guys shows that 65% that's right. 65% of the more than three, or I'm sorry. 30,000 people surveyed said, they'd consider leaving if they were forced back into the office. People still want their autonomy and there's no reason they shouldn't have it in when numbers are, are like that. Boiling the frogs going to continue to, as we've talked about on this show before, but we know what the sentiment is, right?
Joel (6m 7s):
The boy DJ Sol's not going to like that one. He's not going to like that.
Chad (6m 10s):
He doesn't care.
Joel (6m 11s):
Jamie Diamond is not happy reading that one.
Chad (6m 14s):
He doesn't care either. Yeah. Old rich white dudes don't care.
Joel (6m 17s):
Yeah. Speaking of reading fun things, let's move on from Miso horny Robotics to my LinkedIn poll, Chad. A few weeks before we talked about one of my polls. So many, many listeners will know CNN plus closed down in the first month of its existence. So I wanted to know which was the bigger failure CNN Plus, or Quimbee the short form mobile video company that went under, I think last year. Who do you think got the most votes for the biggest failure? Chad,
Chad (6m 46s):
I don't know who did, but I voted for Quimbee just because they didn't fail as fast as CNN Plus and as we've always heard, and we've learned if you are doing anything startup wise fail fast. And I don't know what has failed faster than CNN Plus?
Joel (7m 3s):
Ah, well, my network thought it was CNN by a 62% to whatever 62 minus a hundred is of the 145 votes. CNN is the bigger surprise to me because it's a brand name with like a lot of gravitas Quimbee was starting from nothing. But I agree with your commentary about fail fast. They certainly did. And there were some moving parts there with their new owner Discovery, I think, and saying like, we're the new sheriff in town? We're shutting this shit down cause they still have to pay the talent. Apparently, they had annual contracts with all of them. I think. So. Anyway, it's fucked up. It's over. We're moving on. Shout out to my LinkedIn.
Chad (7m 45s):
Shout out once again to HR Manifesto kids.
Joel (7m 49s):
On fire!
Chad (7m 49s):
That's right. Our interview with Leigh AKA HR Manifesto made Talentroo I didn't know, Talentroo even existed, but thanks. Talentroo made their podcast recommendation of the week. So if you haven't listened to HR Manifesto, go to Chadcheese.com, check it out. It should be right there on the homepage or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Joel (8m 12s):
And shout out to the cease and desist letter that Towel Ru probably sent to talent this week in light of their new light of their new, whatever content marketing way to go kids way to go. Shout out to Chi-town. Chad also known as Chicago and these parts of the parts of the country
Chad (8m 31s):
And very romantic.
Joel (8m 32s):
My Canadian in-laws were in town last week. So wifey and I escaped on a kid free weekend to the windy city. And it was just a great time at in a great town. Great food. Great cocktails. My man, Kevin from behind the bar served up a mean Old Fashioned. Wrigley field. Mostly nice weather. Can you tell I need to get out of the house by the way? Shout out to
Chad (8m 54s):
Glad you did it.
Joel (8m 54s):
Chicago and I'm coming for you Europe. I hope you're ready.
Chad (8m 57s):
That's next week, baby. We'll talk about that in a minute. Shout out to Appcast's, new Recruitonomics, I think that's how you say it, recruiting insights hub. We're seeing an amping up of great information and data with the launch of Recruitonomics from Appcast. And I believe last week, we also talked about Recruitex, launching recruitmentmarketing.com. So tons of great content coming from big names in the industry. Shout out to Recruitonomics and recruitmentmarketing.com. Good stuff. Go check them out.
Joel (9m 34s):
Is that like a Google analytics offering?
Chad (9m 36s):
No, it's an it's more of an economics, kind of like, labor market insights hub. So remember Andrew who we had on the show, he's kind of leading that effort.
Joel (9m 46s):
Okay. Gotcha. Quick shout out to my dad. A little personal note here, Chad.
Chad (9m 51s):
Oh Pops.
Joel (9m 52s):
We as a family, driven by my dad have done the mini marathon in Louisville, Kentucky for the last 15 or 16 years.
Chad (9m 59s):
Wow.
Joel (9m 59s):
It's been kind of a family affair. We all get together. We know every time at this year, we're going to connect unfortunately at 82, his age, his health, and sort of where he is physically. He's not able to do it. My sister and I will continue to carry the flame in the mini this weekend. So if you're in Louisville, hit me up. We'll go get some bourbon, but a shout out to my dad. I know it's killing him, that he can't be here. He doesn't listen to the show, but little personal note. It's good for me. Good for my health. Shout out to my dad. I hope I hope he's all right. This weekend,
Chad (10m 33s):
It's cathartic. It's cathartic. That's right. Shout out to Occupop that's right, Occupop. An article by Orla Doyle, which lists the Chad and Cheese as one of the top recruitment and HR podcasts, you should listen to in 2022, obviously you're already hearing this. So you're listening, but you know what? Your friends are probably not listening. Your family should listen to because they probably have no clue what you do. Let them go to Chadcheese.com or wherever they listen to podcasts and subscribe.
Joel (11m 1s):
Oh, I like that. And while they're subscribing Chad, they should sign up for some free shit.
Chad (11m 6s):
Oh good call.
Joel (11m 8s):
They can get t-shirts from Emissary, beer from Pillar and whiskey from our new friends Textkernel, who we're hopefully gonna see next week in Europe as well. If you haven't signed up for that, just head out to Chadcheese.com, click the free button and navigation, sign up and enter a chance to win all that shit.
Chad (11m 26s):
Yes.
Joel (11m 26s):
Maybe even more. Who knows we're coming up with new stuff all the time.
Chad (11m 30s):
You never know. Sponsors want to give shit away. They love it. They love giving away free shit and to your front door. That's the cool part.
Joel (11m 39s):
They have budgets for this stuff, Chad. Budgets, big budgets for free shit.
Chad (11m 44s):
So we also dropped two podcasts earlier this week. You definitely need to check out Firing Squad this week with Bryq's CEO and that's brick B R Y Q
Joel (11m 56s):
Y? Because they gotta.
Chad (11m 58s):
To their CEO, Markellos, that's right. And also a great interview that's entitled Recipe for Acquisition with newly acquired Adam Gordon over at CandidateID and M and A bad boy Mike Wilczak from iCIMS. You can find 800 plus episodes, Chadandcheese.com. Wherever you listen to podcasts, go check them out.
Joel (12m 17s):
By the way, the only guy I'm more jealous of than you, is Adam Gordon. That guy is living his best life right now.
Chad (12m 22s):
He should.
Joel (12m 23s):
God good. I don't even know, if he's our biggest fan. I don't know if he's listening anymore. I think he totally checked out in Bora Bora or Fiji or wherever the hell he is.
Chad (12m 31s):
Yeah. Actually messaged me this morning. He was like, I haven't gotten to our interview to listen to it yet, but I will. And I'm like, dude, just relax. You deserve it.
Joel (12m 41s):
Exactly. Nice. Nice. Well, speaking of deserving it.
Chad (12m 44s):
Yes.
Joel (12m 44s):
Let's get to some birthdays. Shall we?
Chad (12m 46s):
Go ahead.
Joel (12m 48s):
So I, boy D Woke at Adzuna celebrates a birthday. Lars Schmidt, Charlotte Adams, Joe <inaudible>, D. Mar Corning. I always like people that had the initial before their name. Glen Hill, Shawna Bertold, Keegan, our friend from Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Also our travel sponsor, which is kicking into high gear now, Stefan Jon, think I signed that correctly is my French accent.
Chad (13m 17s):
Sounds right.
Joel (13m 17s):
Gia Johnston all celebrate birthdays, Happy Birthday from Chad and Cheese.
Chad (13m 20s):
That's right. And if you're in Belgium kids next week, if, I mean, if you're in Europe, of course you're going to be in Belgium next week because it's the E-recruitment Congress has been talking about it forever. If you listen to the Europe show. We're going to be in Belgium and Ostend, Belgium right on the shores. Can't wait. We're going to be up in the balcony with a bar. I don't know that this could be any better. I'm excited. I'm excited to get there. Obviously I know you're excited to get the hell out in the US, it's been a while.
Joel (13m 52s):
It's a Muppet state of mind that I'm in for this conference, the old guys and the Muppets in the balcony.
Chad (14m 4s):
Then we're going to Unleash in late May kids. So Unleash, at least they're there a good amount of their people are here in Budapest. And just by chance, they had a staff all hands. So I was invited to drinks and dinner with Mark and the Unleash gang here in Budapest earlier this week.
Joel (14m 24s):
Oh nice.
Chad (14m 24s):
And do they are invigorated. They cannot wait to go to Vegas. And it was interesting because Mark said, raise your hand. If you've never been to the U S and there were more than half because I had never been to the US I'm like Mark, you're taking them to Vegas the very first time they go to America, it's just not right, man. That's not right.
Joel (14m 52s):
It sounds like you're saying Unleash is about to be unleashed.
Chad (14m 57s):
Yes. Topics!
Joel (14m 58s):
Beamery me up Scotty. Beamery, the talent engagement platform based in London announced this week that it has acquired US-based Flux. Flux describes itself as "an internal mobility platform that connects open development and work opportunities with best-fit internal talent, prioritizing employee growth and performance while propelling businesses forward." Financial details were not disclosed. Last year, Beamery raised $138 million with plans to use the funding, to continue building out more technology, as well as growing its business with, you know, like acquisitions and stuff. Chad, is this Flux deal ready to hit 88 miles per hour? Or is it out of time?
Chad (15m 40s):
Yeah, I don't think it's going to hit 1.21 jigawatts. Yep. I think Flux was a fire sale that will now allow Beamery to claim a new sector of business, internal mobility, right? Which increases their total addressable market. But my opinion is that this is an optics play. It's not as much of a tech play, of course it is a tech play, but it wasn't, it's not a company that we all knew. It's not a Gloat. It's not Fuel50. Yes. It might've been an up and comer, but I think this is a fire sale and it's about optics. It's brilliant. I think it's a brilliant move, but I don't see Beamery becoming an internal mobility hub anytime in the near future.
Joel (16m 21s):
Terms of the deal we're not disclosed Chad, which is usually a good sign of saying it could have been a fire sale. It could've been a fire sale also, possibly. In Burson's article he's quick to note that you might not have heard of Flux, but they're brilliant or whatever he said. So even he knows that he can't get away with saying that they're a big deal. I'm on board with what you're saying. Look, it's hard to find new customers in our space, like really hard. So companies with resources are doing everything they can to have you, the customer from cradle to grave if they can get away with it, that's why deals like this happen and will continue to happen. We're going to get you at the top of the funnel and we're going to get you when they come out of the funnel, for more money and more, more, more a percentage of your pocket book.
Joel (17m 5s):
Seek Out in our interview with them, talked about moving into internal and into the internal mobility business. Paradox once more of the enterprise pie, but where Seek Out, wants to build, Beamery I think is looking to buy and if they got a deal on this one, then, then so be it. There are unique challenges with acquisitions, but I think you have to endorse this strategy of keeping and getting as much out of a client as possible, as much of their wallet as possible. Owning the whole employee life cycle is the new black Chad, we're going to be talking a lot more about companies that are either buying or building to have more of the wallet share of the people who are actually just customers. There was an old adage when I worked in politics for a short period and that was, it's a lot easier to get money from someone who's already given you money, than getting money out of someone who's never given you money.
Joel (17m 55s):
So this strategy works everywhere. If somebody is already writing you a check, they might write you a bigger check. And that tends to be a better sales strategy than just getting new clients or getting clients away from their current vendor and choosing you as a new vendor.
Chad (18m 10s):
I do agree. I just, I'm not sure that they have a portfolio, being Flux to be able to extend it into portfolio, number one. And number two, I don't think that they are at the point of a Gloat or a Fuel50, right? So that they can actually say that they can take care of internal ability and internal mobility is not an easy answer. Right? So Beamery's still gonna have some work to do. And like I said, if they're increasing their TAM, they can go ask for more. Right. They can go ask for more money and they can perspectively start to try to build that out. But again, I don't see them, especially right now in the same ecosystem as Fuel50, as Gloat and definitely not Eightfold.
Chad (18m 51s):
That to me, I mean, what Burson is doing is kind of like when that new startup comes out and they say, we're going to take on LinkedIn. You know, they're trying to put themselves in the same orbit. It's just, it's not there.
Joel (19m 4s):
Yeah. There's a keeping up with the Jones's element to some of this. And when you see Candidate ID get acquired by iCIMs, it's like, we need to get a bigger boat or at least, put two rowboats together so it looks like a bigger boat. And I think this might be the case. They're certainly excited about it. If you go on LinkedIn and look at anyone, I think now that works at Beamery, it's like Beamery plus Flux, like they're really marketing this whole thing. So they at least want you to think it's a big deal.
Chad (19m 34s):
I think it's smart. Yeah. I think it's smart.
Joel (19m 38s):
Yeah.
Chad (19m 38s):
And if their CEO's not out there, like, you know, beating, I am, you know, Bible he's not doing his job. Yeah.
Joel (19m 47s):
Yeah. Well, moving on from, Beamery beating up, let's talk about LinkedIn beating up on a HighQ or maybe the opposite is true. This is a story that's five years old, Chad, by the way, LinkedIn is lost. LinkedIn has lost the latest round in the five-year-old data scraping case with a US appellate court affirming its decision to stop LinkedIn from cutting off access to its database by tech startup HighQ labs. This has been a long, hard fought fight for HighQ, but it's not over in a statement, LinkedIn spokesperson, Greg Snapper, great last name said, quote, "this is a preliminary ruling and the case is far from over.
Joel (20m 29s):
We will continue to fight to protect our members' ability" yeah, it's all about the members, "to control the information they make available on LinkedIn" end quote. Chad, this case is like my case of the VONC back in college, it just won't clear up. Your thoughts.
Chad (20m 47s):
You need a shot that's what it is. The question is did HighQ access data without authorization. According to the court, a computer hosting publicly available webpages quote "has erected no gates to lift or lower in the first place". So therefore the data's out there to be able to say that that your data is it's not even an argument because it's there for everyone. So to me, this is less about tech and more about who your data belongs to. The ruling to me says, since I made my data public it's fair game, and now everyone's data is fair game.
Chad (21m 27s):
So that, to me, that is kind of unnerving to some point, you know, because now what do we do? Our information is out there for the world to see. It always has been, it's nothing new, but people can use it. And we've seen companies come in, scrape LinkedIn for, you know, for bad reasons.
Joel (21m 47s):
Darkweb
Chad (21m 47s):
For phishing, for, yeah, for a bunch of different reasons. So, you know, we just have to get our arms around this.
Joel (21m 55s):
So in researching this story, it was all about how LinkedIn lost and they're gonna, you know, they're going to have to allow scraping. And then it talked about like the company, the other companies that are going to feel the pain of this Craigslist was mentioned, who's been, we don't talk about much, but they, they block all spiders or at least hope to do so. But no one ever to me talked about the main story, to me, look, I don't care what the headlines say. LinkedIn has won this legal battle and I'll tell you why they've kept HighQ in court for five years and HighQ is now a shadow of its former self. Their website is a ghost town. The date on their footer appropriately is 2018, right around when this case started.
Joel (22m 39s):
LinkedIn has sent a clear message, clear signal to startups that they're bigger than you they're richer than you and they will outlast you. The irony is online profiles are becoming more and more commoditized making this whole exercise kind of just sad and unnecessary. I'm not sure where things go from here, but I do know LinkedIn is a lot more valuable today than when this process started. And I can't say the same for HighQ, the apparent quote unquote "winner" in this case, that to me is the ultimate cause we know the HighQ folks and it's sad that this is sort of the state of the world, that a bigger company can just fuck you in court and kill you.
Joel (23m 20s):
Whether they win or lose.
Chad (23m 23s):
That's the state of business in America. As we talk about entrepreneurs and how we want to, you know, double down on small business and it's all bullshit, man, you take a look at it. Facebook is buying whoever they want. They're , there are no issues around that. They haven't made them them divest in anything. I mean, it's just, again, it's all pandering for political reasons. And yeah, that sucks. It really sucks because an organization like a HighQ or, or thousands like HighQ who want to be able to leverage public data, which is exactly what the courts say, this is, they want to leverage public data, so that somebody can actually buy into a product.
Chad (24m 6s):
It's I don't know if this ruling will give all those new companies an opportunity to be able to charge forward and then, you know, HighQ just dies on their sword.
Joel (24m 17s):
I think anyone who's thinking about crawling LinkedIn data is in, for a legal fight that they probably don't want any piece of, I don't think.
Chad (24m 25s):
They have all these rulings.
Joel (24m 26s):
LinkedIn has said, if you come, you better be ready for the smoke. Cause it's coming.
Chad (24m 31s):
These rulings are already out there. That's the thing. And they can just, they can just go ahead and align with the rulings from ninth circuit.
Joel (24m 36s):
And good luck with that. LinkedIn's going to continue to fight this case. We'll probably be talking about this a year from now. They'll still be in court, fighting this case.
Chad (24m 48s):
More than likely.
Joel (24m 48s):
Feel for the HighQ folks.
Chad (24m 51s):
I know.
Joel (24m 52s):
Unfortunate. Let's take a quick break, pay some bills and play a little buy or sell. Hell yeah. Buy or sell. We need some buyers sell sound bites, maybe some Kramer, like buy, buy, buy sell, sell, sell. All the time. Anyway, you know how the game works, kids, you know how the game works. We have three startups, all have gotten money recently and Chad and I buy or sell them based on a little summary about what they do. Let's start with Crafty. She's crafty, she gets around.
Chad (25m 25s):
She's crying
Joel (25m 26s):
Pasty boy moment. Crafty as a centralized platform for workplaces to manage food, beverage and supplies for employees, yes, that could include beer. This week announced its $10 million Series A. Since its launch in 2015, Crafty has expanded to 27 markets across the globe and manages over 260 customer offices and serves over 300,000 employees per month, both in office and most importantly, maybe remote. Snacks in the break room and at your front door. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Crafty?
Chad (25m 59s):
Okay. So this is a little outside of recruitment and more on the fringes of employee engagement.
Joel (26m 7s):
Engagement, retention.
Chad (26m 8s):
Yeah. Unless a company uses the service to send snack boxes to candidates, of course, right? The remote work angle, you know, work from home pitch. I'm not saying. I don't see this as a deliver meals to employees kind of like quote unquote "home service". Rather I find this as a way for companies to once again, entice people back into the office, which unless you're a young entry-level employee who thrives on an office interaction and free food, right. It won't matter to the rest of us. So I believe the timing is good. Bring your people back to work. Narrative is perfect for Crafty. And I think companies who are onboarding new employees will find that, you know, the Crafty box model, snack in a box or whatever it is, is pretty easy and smart.
Chad (27m 0s):
So send a box that's tailored of snacks to new hires. And instead of trying to maintain single user B to C relationships with a higher churn rate, like companies like Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, this is a B2B model that has a much bigger side, right? So for me, it's a buy. I like it. I think the timing's right and I think they're going after the right whales.
Joel (27m 23s):
Interesting. I thought you were going the other way on that one. That's interesting. Yeah. Admittedly, you, and I know very little about this business. We kind of, we're kind of flipping this into like recruiting and retention and which, which it is, right. Like people love their snacks, people love their food. And I think that the work from home phenomenon has made companies think, well, gee, that whole Diet Coke, like in the fridge thing was nice for internal, like people that came to work, but what do we do for the folks that are at home? How do we make them feel special? How do we make them feel connected to the culture based on, you know, whatever the hell, make them feel like they're in the kitchen at the headquarters.
Joel (28m 5s):
And I think the timing was just right. This is a company that's been around for seven years and just getting their Series A now. So it's clear. I think to the investors in the business that the time to strike is now. My assumption is traditionally to fill the fridge it was like, send the intern down to Costco to buy some pop and some chips and like throw them in the kitchen. And you can't do that with a work from home workforce. So Crafty is positioned in the right place at the right time to deliver food to people, give them the experience, build that culture. So for me, yeah, this is a buy Crafty.
Joel (28m 48s):
Crafty gets a double buy rating. Let's go, she's crafty. Let's go to Beatrust. It's either Beatrust or beat rust. It's spelled B E A T R U S T. It's a Tokyo based company that has raised $6.3 million in a Series A funding round for major Japanese and foreign angel investors. Founded by two ex Googlers in March of 2020, where have we heard that before? Beatrust's mission is to visualize people's experiences and strengths and to create an environment where people can freely connect, collaborate and co-create, think of it as an internal LinkedIn.
Joel (29m 32s):
In addition to doing the usual Series A things, build outside sales and hire a developers, the company has an eye to growing overseas markets. Do I hear coming to America in the background Chad, in this company, do you Beatrust or is it a sell?
Chad (29m 52s):
So there's a total of 1.1 billion Japanese yen on this one for funding, AKA 8.4 million USD. You're right. That the founders have great resumes, but neither one of them have social media ties. I mean, they're both mainly BizDev sales and okay. So, you know, quote "a platform which visualizes people's information and accelerates autonomous collaboration and co-creation among diverse teams and talent members" end quote, that is a bunch of gobbly goop that is nothing but shit. I mean, you got to dig down deep, as you had said to see that this is just an internal LinkedIn and to be able to get your employees to fill all of this information out or hope that the AI actually fills it out, right for them, I think is a stretch.
Chad (30m 40s):
So, you know, there's really no need for anything like this. The timing isn't right. I don't think the vision or idea is right when we have open gates like LinkedIn now. So this is an easy sell for me.
sfx (30m 55s):
Oh, hell no.
Joel (30m 56s):
Sell from Chad, all right. I'll remind our listeners that AllyO was founded by two ex-Googlers. I think not that that's any relevancy to this conversation, but I think that to answer this question as a buy or sell, you kind of have to go to our first new story, which was Beamery buying Flux. In other words, companies with fat pot, deep pockets are looking to own the entire enterprise life cycle, right? So they're going to recruit you. They're going to onboard you and they're going to internally, you know, mobilize you and educate you and everything else. So I see much bigger companies with deeper pockets funding, this whole sort of like internal LinkedIn, how to find people, how to connect you with people and mentors and like-minded coworkers that maybe you didn't even know existed.
Joel (31m 49s):
And the data set of those companies is going to be far more than anything that Beatrust can muster. I will add a caveat that it's nice that they are in Recruit Holdings backyard in Japan. And we don't talk a lot about Japanese startups. So they are at least in the right neighborhood to get someone's attention that has a lot of money that might be able to buy them up. But for me, yeah, it just doesn't feel right. So I'm gonna to sell Beatrust in this one. All right. Let's get to our last and final buy or sell Vivian Health. Vivian Health, formerly known as Nurse Fly by the way, an IAC company is a healthcare jobs marketplace that announced a $60 million primary and secondary equity investment this week.
Joel (32m 41s):
Vivian works almost like a quote, "LinkedIn for healthcare" end quote. Founder Parth Bhakta says connecting clinicians with both staffing agencies, including eight of the nation's 10 largest and major health systems. Under IACS backing since 2019, Vivian has grown revenue by 45X facilitating 3 million plus job applications. More than 700,000 clinicians in the US alone are registered to use Vivian's platform to secure work. Chad, are you a buy or sell on Vivian?
Chad (33m 16s):
It's pretty impressive they have 700,000 registered clinicians, you got to say that right out of the gate. As we're seeing money dumped into the healthcare recruiting/staffing space, we're looking at a much different model than Intelycare, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. Intelycare works directly with 1600 healthcare systems, right? Where this is more of a job board model. They do work with staffing companies, but it's like Monster worked with staffing companies. You know what I mean? They can buy your shit, right? So I think, Intleycare is, is basically an evolutionary step in the staffing model itself where Vivian is literally just more of a job board.
Chad (34m 1s):
Here's the thing, no matter what here's a quote "The U S healthcare industry is on track to be more than 3 million workers short by 2026." So I don't care if you're competing platforms, whether you're Intelycare, you're Vivian Health. I think that this is a hot necessary area to be able to be spending money. And it's a buy from me.
Joel (34m 25s):
You stole all my thunder and what I was going to say, in terms of like the crisis, what these guys are doing, who backs them, the kind of money that they have. I mean, this is the wave to be on. Healthcare is going to be a theme for the next 5 to 10 years as baby boomers get older, the talent crunch isn't going anywhere. You're going to see robotics companies around robot nurses and shit like that. Like this is going to be a huge, huge category. We talk about Nomad, Intelycare, like every week, like we used to talk about AI companies for recruiting, healthcare is going to be what we're talking about. So future unicorn on this one, as my buys signal, this is, this is hot Vivian Health everybody.
Joel (35m 10s):
Keep that in mind and keep in mind whoever the ad is. That's following because our sponsors pay the bills. People there is no show without the sponsors. We'll be right back.
Chad (35m 21s):
Names they are a changin'
Joel (35m 23s):
The names they are a changing. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh, we're we're ending with a non OnlyFans porn or stripper story. Our listeners have to be totally confused.
Chad (35m 33s):
Oh, my God.
Joel (35m 34s):
There are so many OnlyFan stories about millionaires on that platform that it's just ridiculous at this point. It's no longer news it's like just normal. All right, let's get into our industry. Someone's going through a rebrand, a Predictive Hire, our friends from down under will now be known as Sapia, who can find them@safiya.ai. The name Sapia, this is from the company is a combination of homosapien, which is a human being, Chad plus AI, although it's Sapia and not safe so go figure that one on your own.
Joel (36m 15s):
CEO, Barb Hyman told us quote, "the change was to reflect the human centered and humanizing experience that they have built" end quote, Chad, you're a homosapien. How do you feel about the rebrand?
Chad (36m 30s):
It's interesting. You know, love Barb Hyman. She is incredibly smart, but this made me scratch my head because Predictive Hire was a.com, right? Not a dot.ai. Plus we're talking about two words that are common within the English language, predictive and hire. So you could spell it and he just put the.com on it. Right then you're coming into something like a Sapia. It's a new word. It's an entirely new word. And I want to flash back to the days when Recruit Soft became Toleo, they created a word, but the difference here is Recruit Soft was one of the big giants from applicant tracking systems back in the day, everybody knew who they were, which means they had to know who this new Taleo was.
Chad (37m 16s):
Right? Predictive Hire's not a, they're not a monolith in this industry yet. So now they're going to have to spend a lot more money, trying to get people to understand who they are, not to mention, just spell their shit right. And not go to a.com. The first thing I did was go Sapia.com. That's what I did. And it took me to like a construction site and I'm like, holy fuck. What's going on here? Right? Yeah.
Joel (37m 37s):
So like a construction site or a site under construction.
Chad (37m 42s):
No, it was, I think it was a construction site. I can't remember. I just knew it wasn't their site, but this is, I totally understand. They don't want to paint themselves into a corner just being hiring. They want to be more than hiring, but this is going to be, this is going to be a rough slog because being able to do any type of branding around words, that nobody knows that you've just conjured up out of nowhere. It's going to take a lot of money and it's going to take a lot of Barb in a lot of people's faces, which is not a bad thing.
Joel (38m 18s):
Yeah. Chad companies rarely change names for good reason. They've either behave badly and they don't want to be branded as that bad actor anymore. They want to provide cloud cover because the brand of Facebook has a bad reputation and they become Meta. In our space you got like Pillar that became a rebrand recently. And now Sapia, I don't think there's anything weird going on with trademarks or they're coming into a new market. And there's like, you know, Predictive Hire in Italy or something that they have to compete with. I guess if you're going to change your name, do it earlier, rather than later. I mean, they're still a startup. They're not like a 20 year company that's changing their name, but it's just kind of odd.
Joel (39m 2s):
I don't, you know, Sapia.ai over predictivehire.com. I don't, I don't see a huge benefit in doing that. Although Predictive Hire can be tough to type out, I guess, on your fingers if you're on mobile Sapia is a lot easier, but yeah, I don't know. There was clearly a big marketing meeting there and they decided to make this change. It's never easy so I hope they had good reasons to do it. I would only do it if it was totally necessary and I don't see any situation with Predictive Hire/Sapia or where it was totally necessary to do this, but they're Australian dude. They do weird shit. This is how it works. They drink Fosters for God's sakes.
Chad (39m 38s):
Hopefully they've got a big marketing group because they gong to need it. This is again a word that doesn't exist in the English language. So therefore they're going to have to build huge brand awareness around a new logo, a new word that doesn't exist and something that's not a dot-com. So, you know, hit it Barb. I can't wait to see what you're going to do next.
Joel (39m 58s):
And we know Barb's in Seattle so she's already spreading the word here in the US, by the way, Barb sponsor the show that'll build your brand, give us a call.
Chad (40m 13s):
Oh, good call.
Joel (40m 14s):
We out.
Chad (40m 15s):
We out
OUTRO (40m 15s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode.
OUTRO (40m 57s):
And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.
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