Think unicorns only roam the plains of America? Well, think again. This week, the boys discuss Factorial, Europe’s newest workforce startup to hit $1 billion in value. Then it’s time to break down some unicorn wannabes with buy-or-sell, covering Easop, Enate, and Jomigo. Rounding out this episode is looking at Indeed’s new PPA and its impact on the European market. Oh, and of course, we must chat some Elon and Twitter.
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INTRO (8s):
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 (29s):
Oh yeah. Elon promised Twitter won't be a free for all Hellscape. Lucky for you this podcast will forever be a free for all Hellscape. Hi Yugen. You're listening to the Chad and Cheese podcast does Europe. I'm your co-host Joel "room 237" Cheeseman.
Chad (47s):
I'm Chad "American Werewolf in Portugal" Sowash.
Lieven (50s):
And I'm Lieven "not into Halloween" Van Nieuwenhuyze.
Joel (55s):
Boo. On this episode. A new Euro unicorn, Europe bra braces for Indeed's new ad model and a little buy or sell. Let's do this.
sfx (1m 5s):
Europe has a bunch of countries in it.
Chad (1m 8s):
Okay, so I got comment. That's a nice all Hallow's Eve t-shirt.
Joel (1m 12s):
It's scary though, right?
Chad (1m 13s):
Is it Cheeseman original? That's a question.
Joel (1m 16s):
This is a custom Cheeseman, maybe a Chad and Cheese original for next season. But yeah, I put the names of some of the scariest things on a t-shirt. So I've got Freddy Kruger, I've got Jason Vorhees, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Michael Myers and of course, the scariest of all Indeed is at the bottom of.
sfx (1m 39s):
You Cannot leave.
Joel (1m 40s):
You cannot leave. Yikes. Yeah, That's what they tell their companies when they wanna leave for the new ad model. But we will get to that in the show a little bit later.
Chad (1m 53s):
It's coming!
Joel (1m 54s):
Speaking of scary shit.
Chad (1m 56s):
Yeah.
Joel (1m 56s):
We learned that Lieven is not a fan of the horror movies. He can't get through 10 minutes of The Shining.
Lieven (2m 3s):
Did you say horror movies?
Chad (2m 6s):
Didn't say horror.
Lieven (2m 8s):
I thought you said horror. I'm a fan of horror movies.
Chad (2m 12s):
Best Little Hore House in Texas. I'm sure you saw that a few times. Yes. So why couldn't you get past 10 minutes of the Shining? What the hell stopped it for you?
Lieven (2m 23s):
I've just got a two vivid imagination and I saw the little kids on the tricycle doing something scary in the hallway, like just using its tricycle. But I knew something was coming and after 10 minutes, I shut it down and I went to bed. So I've never seen The Shining and I've never tried again.
Chad (2m 39s):
Did you have an incident when you were a kid, like on your big wheel? I mean, was that what scared you off?
Lieven (2m 45s):
No, not even just, I know kids are scary.
Joel (2m 50s):
Speaking of The Shining guys, my nickname was Room 237. Today, a great documentary on The Shining, I think it's on Netflix, is called Room 237, which is the room in the movie. I won't ruin the movie, but that is a famous room number of the film. If you're into like Stanley Kubrick and conspiracy theories. Did we actually Land on the moon? All kinds of good stuff in the documentary room 237.
Chad (3m 17s):
Nice. Okay, so Cheeseman, what's your favorite scary movie?
Joel (3m 21s):
Yeah, mine's gonna be pretty lame, but if I put it into context, I think it might make sense for you.
Chad (3m 26s):
No doubt.
Joel (3m 27s):
Mine is Jaws.
Chad (3m 29s):
Okay.
Joel (3m 30s):
The reason why Chad, you and I are the same age. Jaws came out in '76. Yep. You and I were five years old. I may have saw when I was six when it came out, but it was before PG 13 movies. It was not an R movie because the booby and the nude scene was behind shade or something. But my dad, for whatever reason, thought it was a good idea that my sister who's five years older, take me to the educational film Jaws.
Chad (3m 57s):
Yes.
Joel (3m 57s):
By the way, there was no National Geographic, there was no Discovery channel. I didn't know what a shark was. I knew kind of what a dinosaur was. And then I saw this movie where this thing eats people. I was totally traumatized for a decade. Going into pools was a thing. Lakes were scary. I could hardly walk through puddles without getting a little nervous. I would have nightmares thinking my bed was on the ocean. It was just really traumatic. So Jaws for me, even though it's totally lame at my age now, was a total emotional carnage inducing movie when I was five or six years old.
Chad (4m 33s):
And still wetting the bed today because of it.
Joel (4m 36s):
Yes. Still oceaning the bed. Yes. That's what mommy called it.
Lieven (4m 43s):
Oceaning the bed.
Chad (4m 44s):
Mommy dearest.
Joel (4m 45s):
Did you ocean the bed again, son?
Chad (4m 46s):
Oh my God. Okay, let's try to get out of this fast.
Joel (4m 48s):
How about your movie? No, no, no, no, no. You're not getting off that fast.
Chad (4m 52s):
Okay.
Joel (4m 52s):
Favorite horror film?
Chad (4m 54s):
Okay, the original 1968 Night of The Living Dead. I love that movie. It is amazing. It is definitely a classic. 1968, they had color back then, but the entire thing was in black and white. But if you haven't seen it, you've definitely gotta spend some time watching the Night of the Living Dead. Not the remake by the way.
Joel (5m 15s):
Really kind of the bridge between the old cheesy mummy, you know, werewolf movies to like present day really scary as shit kind.
Chad (5m 25s):
Bella Lagosi.
Joel (5m 26s):
Yes. Yes. Like, Abbott and Costello mee the drag, whatever, the werewolf. Wasn't there a whole series of Abbott and Costello movies meet the?
Chad (5m 36s):
Yeah. Dracula. Frankenstein.
Joel (5m 36s):
All right. Jesus. Let's get to shoutouts before we go off on a real tangent.
Chad (5m 41s):
Shoutouts! Alright you go first.
Joel (5m 41s):
I'm gonna go first. My first shout out, and you know me, I love the Canadian news stories. So this is a bridge between Canada and France. It's a Canadian European love story. If you will, Chad. Vancouver based people analytics and workforce planning platform Visier, that's spelled V I S I E R. I thought it might be Vizier because of
Chad (6m 2s):
I think it is.
Joel (6m 4s):
And it is kind of French Canadian, although Vancouver doesn't equate much with them. Anyway, they've acquired the French base company Boostrs, that's Boostrs without the e, they're an API focus skills mapping engine founded back in 2017. Terms were not disclosed, but I'm sure a lot of loonies came into play on this acquisition. Visier was, has taken on tens or 10 of boosters employees who will continue working in Paris, what is now a Visier satellite office. Visier also operates in France, Germany, UK, Canada, and the US. In July of 21, Visier became the first Canada based HR tech unicorn.
Joel (6m 44s):
You know what that means, Chad? That means I get to play:
sfx (6m 50s):
Pink fluffy unicorns.
Chad (6m 51s):
My God.
Joel (6m 51s):
Oh yes, that's right the first in Canada, when it raised 125 million SD in Series E, totaling $216.5 million in funding. They have quite an appetite. By the way listeners may remember they acquired eva.ai back in May. So I suspect there are more European companies on their radar. Shout out to Visier. Our friends from the great white North
Chad (7m 18s):
And the company they acquired Boostrs. They're URL already redirects to Visier. It was quick man. It was quick. I'm gonna shout out to the Dutch. I'm sure this is exactly what Lieven was thinking about. Okay, so check this shit out. Chetu, A company located in Florida hired a telemarketer in in the Netherlands. The company demanded the employee turn on his webcam while working.
Joel (7m 46s):
What?
Chad (7m 46s):
When the employee didn't comply with being monitored via webcam for nine hours a day, he was fired for quote unquote "refusal to work and insubordination". The employee took Chetu to court. Horrible fucking name for a company, by the way, Chetu in the Netherlands for unfair dismissal and the court found in his favor, which includes Chetu, paying for court costs, back wages, paid for unused vacation days, a fine of $50,000. And in order to remove the employee's - the non-compete clause. Yeah, here in America, we know Florida's gonna Florida, but Chetu and other American companies won't be pressing this kind of bullshit in Europe.
Chad (8m 30s):
Big shout out to the Dutch for sticking it to Florida.
Joel (8m 34s):
Love it. And I I also heard that they utilized Jeffrey Toobin's legal team on this case. All right, Lieven and what's your shout out?
Lieven (8m 44s):
Shout out to Elon Musk. Of course.
Chad (8m 48s):
Of course.
Joel (8m 48s):
Jesus, of course, your boy.
Lieven (8m 49s):
If Musk says, I'm going to buy a stupid company for $40 billion, then he buys a stupid company for $40 billion.
Chad (8m 56s):
He's forced to, Yes.
Lieven (8m 57s):
Well, okay, maybe he had second thoughts, but in the end he bought it so Musk is a man of his words. But what I found intriguing, was the first thing he did after saying he's going to fire like 75% of all employees. But the first thing he did was trying to make some money out of it. And now he wants to make users pay if they want to have a verified account. So from now on, it'll be part of Twitter Blue, you know, the little blue, what's it called? Check sign.
Chad (9m 22s):
Yep.
Lieven (9m 23s):
It's a paid service. And it used to be $5 a month, if you want to be a verified user, it'll cost you $19.99 a month. So I guess inflation is a bitch, but he's going to make you pay if you want to be famous, which I kind of like.
Joel (9m 38s):
So does that mean, are you already paying for the blue check leaving?
Lieven (9m 42s):
No, but I think now I need one.
Joel (9m 44s):
Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Chad?
Lieven (9m 45s):
If it doesn't come free, I want one.
Chad (9m 47s):
I don't need a blue check. I definitely don't.
Joel (9m 51s):
I'm on the fence. I'm on the fence. I think it'll boost your tweets. I think Elon is gonna do some interesting things. So obviously Lieven loves the deal.
Chad (9m 59s):
Oh yeah.
Joel (9m 59s):
We're gonna play a little buyer sell later. Chad, if you're playing buy or sell Elon buying Twitter, turning around the company. Are you a buy or sell on Elon taking over.
Chad (10m 9s):
You know, it's amazing. You see a guy like Elon Musk who comes up with Tesla and SpaceX and just he's so amazing and innovative and then you see stupid shit like this and you're like, Who the fuck is this guy? Right? Yeah. I mean he could have legitimately just focused on things that changed the world and then he's focusing on stupid shit like the prospect of allowing Donald Trump back on Twitter. Which I don't think's gonna happen, I think he's mainly doing it just for the media piece of it. But yeah, I'm gonna sell Twitter and I'm at the point right now where I'm just waiting for more stupid shit to happen and then I'm just going to deactivate my account or go numb on or whatever the fuck it is.
Chad (10m 53s):
But I mean, just it's kind stupid.
Joel (10m 56s):
Go numb on it. Chad, go numb on it. So I'm in Lieven's camp on this one. This one's a buy for me. All right, so if we can go back in the time machine, you'll remember that when we first talked about this, I said, Elon is going to get this deal done. He's gonna let Trump back on the platform. Fox News is gonna celebrate this. Every GOP candidate is gonna love is gonna love Elon Musk.
Chad (11m 17s):
He's gonna turn into Parlor.
Joel (11m 18s):
There's gonna be a Republican back in the White House release. That's what the bed is in 24. We're gonna have a Republican house and watch the government contracts for electric cars, the boring company satellites, sky links, solar panels, all these businesses that Elon owns are gonna get major government contracts. And this $44 billion is gonna look like a drop in the bucket in terms of the profits that Elon is gonna make outside of Twitter, let alone what the hell he can do with Twitter. Which, you know, there is some money there, but I think in the bigger picture, Elon's businesses as a whole is going to rake in the cash and that's one of the reasons why he bought Twitter.
Chad (11m 57s):
And so what you're saying is he is pretty much buying politicians with buying Twitter, which is the standard for the US.
Joel (12m 4s):
Welcome to America. Chad, welcome to America. I know you've been gone for a couple weeks, but this is how we do shit.
Chad (12m 13s):
I think I'm gonna stay.
Lieven (12m 14s):
I think I'm going to sell after all, you know, I never really liked the company Twitter and I thought it was just going to let it go broke.
Joel (12m 24s):
You're changing your mind. No, no, no, no. Lieven. Come on.
Lieven (12m 27s):
No, I still like Elon. I just don't like Twitter.
Joel (12m 30s):
Alright. That's a thing. Well, speaking of Chad and Portugal, what kind of travel schedule do we have coming up? Oh
Chad (12m 36s):
Dude. Going to the web summit this week. Keith Saundorling, our friend and podcasts, commissioner, one of the commissioners of the E E O C and he's speaking in Lisbon this week at the biggest technology conference in the year. Had no fucking clue. Actually gonna see Gert Jan and about 50 Dutchmen there as well. He has a huge contingent that's coming from the Intelligence group and around the Netherlands. And then also Martin Lentz from Austria or Buddy from JobioQ, we can't even say that right? But they're bringing people as well. So it's gonna be a big party and I can't wait.
Joel (13m 17s):
Good God, you're fancy now. What's next? You in meetings and Davos like I just, I can't fucking
Chad (13m 27s):
TOPICS!
Joel (13m 28s):
All right boys, let's talk about, let's talk about Factorial.
Chad (13m 34s):
Fact what?
Joel (13m 35s):
A Barcelona Spain based provider of an HR software. They've raised $120 million in series fee funding, which officially makes them, you guess it a unicorn.
sfx (13m 50s):
Pink Fluffy Unicorns
Joel (13m 51s):
At a $1 billion valuation. That's right. Founded in 2016 the company intends to use the funds to expand and improve its functionalities and strengthen itself in the existing markets of Spain, the UK, the US, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France, Mexico and Brazil. As well as open up a new office in Miami and expand into new markets worldwide. They claim to serve more than 7,000 businesses in 65 plus countries and employee 800 workers in offices in Brazil, Mexico, and Spain. Yep. Sounds like unicorn to me alright. Lieven, what's your take on Factorial?
Lieven (14m 30s):
I think I like them. I looked into them and I gave them some thoughts and I think I like them, and the reason why is because they claimed in their press release or market share is ridiculously small. And that is something which caught my attention. I mean most people claim and they try to make their company look bigger when they try to get venture capital. But our day said, our market share is ridiculously small. But the good thing is we only have 7,000 customers. We could potentially sell it to 10 million. After looking into it, I actually agree it's a nice company and given their main market is Spain, their Spanish speaking, the Spanish speaking countries are huge and are mostly green fields.
Lieven (15m 16s):
I mean if you look at most of South America, it's a growing continent. There are Spanish speaking and if they aim at that markets, I definitely am a believer and it's like a blue ocean. Totally there are many companies focusing there within HR technology. So I think, it could be a good idea. Yeah,
Chad (15m 35s):
I gotta see SMB or SME as we call it here in Europe. It's a bitch man. And we talk about this just about every week you have to spend tons of cash just to gain awareness, market penetration. And that's even harder in Europe. The EU has 24 official languages. So you're trying to penetrate the small to medium size market in several countries and in several languages and yet you're also going to try to invade the United States, all of that at the same time kids. Now just let that digest for a minute because here's an even bigger problem. Vendors like Oyster have also expanded into the employer of record business.
Chad (16m 20s):
Along with Deel, Remote, Atlas and other unicorns. So I don't see EOR services anywhere on their site, meaning they are at an extreme disadvantage as those medium sized businesses want to be bigger and they want to hire remote across borders. I know we're not in the buy or sell segment, but I'm hearing warning bells all over to the go to market strategy and would be running for the hills and definitely not investing in, oh boy, this organization. Yeah.
Joel (16m 51s):
Oh boy. I do think it's fair that we can throw Factorial in the big swinging dicks in Europe category with persona and HiBob. I think that's fair to do at this point. I think persona's got a really nice laser focus on Europe. I think. HiBob wants to be in the US, they're really focused there. Decent presence throughout Europe. Chad mentioned all the US names Deel, Oyster, Velocity Global. Others that are just like, great footprint have gotten, you know, I guess the smart money. This feels a lot like the following money, sort of the dumb money that's coming into this space. I do agree with Lieven that I think that that South America and Spanish speaking parts of the globe, if they can sort of unlock that there isn't a lot of opportunity and I don't think that we have companies that are really focused on that niche.
Joel (17m 43s):
So I do think that with that many potential customers that they can get a nice little foothold into the Spanish speaking world. Hit South America. I think they're wasting their time in America. Opening up in Miami sounds fun. And maybe it's a bridge to South America.
Chad (17m 60s):
It's expensive.
Joel (18m 0s):
Yeah, expensive, yeah. But it is a nice bridge to South America as well as keeping a foothold in Europe, which I'm sure their investors, like and a lot of their customers might be open to them being a US based or have a a operations in the US. So for this one, if we were playing by or sell, I'm gonna go with an applause for Factorial to make some waves in South America and the Spanish speaking countries. Well let's take a quick break cuz that was a lot of talk about horror movies and unicorns. When we come back, we will place some official real buy or sell.
Joel (18m 42s):
All right boys, let's play a little buy or sell. You know how it's played. But our listeners may not. We pick out three companies that have recently gotten some funding. We summarize the news and then each of us buys or sells the company. Are you guys ready to play a little buy or sell?
Chad (19m 1s):
Yes.
Joel (19m 1s):
All right. Let's talk about Jomigo. What the Berlin based Jomigo has raised 10 million euros from an investment from Berlin based VCIBB ventures. Founded in 2020, Jomigo assists businesses and freelance recruiters and mutually benefiting from what each other has to offer. The company wants to make actively recruiting specialized profiles easier, faster, and more modern in sync with new talent generations and the gig economy. Jomigo will use the funds to further develop in scale up their B2B recruitment marketplace. Jomigo employs 41 workers, that's according to LinkedIn. Lieven are you buy or sell Jomigo?
Lieven (19m 42s):
Hmm. This is actually a business we know pretty well because one of our companies, Fiji is doing something similar. You're matching recruiters with opportunities at companies with vacancies at companies. And the first thing which I really liked about Jomigo was they're matching you with three different and dependent recruiters and they will work together or independently, I don't know, but they will all three be working at your vacancy and this way reducing the time to hire and like twice, that's what they claim. Cause the idea is nice having three different recruiters working on the same case, but it's also a very big problem to me because you don't have a clue who those recruiters are and you're going to use the name of your company for their recruitment.
Lieven (20m 32s):
Those people have 20 different nationalities. So basically they're from all over the globe. You don't know who they are and they're going to call someone and say, Hi, I'm he or her from this company, and they're going to start talking and that could be kind of a problem. What about discrimination? What's if they misuse your name? I'm not sure. So that's something I find rather dangerous. They focus on tech, marketing, sales, basically specialized recruitment stuff pretty easy, but should work. I think for the recruiters it's easy. It's hassle free. No need to do your sales, you just get the the vacancies and you try to find someone.
Lieven (21m 13s):
For the companies. I see some problems, but I like the idea. It's a difficult one, but I think I would buy. And nice to know, I had some thoughts about their pricing system. So I mailed the company a few hours ago and they replied and they said, okay, it's 23% hiring fee, out of the total annual salary, which I think is a lot for a platform, but still, if people are willing to pay, why not? It's a buy.
Joel (21m 41s):
All right, That's a buy from Lieven. All right. All right Chad, what do you got on Jomigo?
Chad (21m 49s):
Jomigo. So only one of the founders seem to have any experience in the people space. And so that's pretty thin obviously, until you dig deeper and see that their investors are heavily experienced in the space, which tells me two things. Number one, experienced staffing people don't just throw money at three dudes with an idea, especially staffing professionals. Number two, recruiting is missing one main ingredient in driving explosive growth. And that's the ability to scale. And if you can find tech that can help you scale and cut headcount, then you have a winner. So staffing and consulting experts in the mix as investors, they've been bootstrapping so that they haven't taken a lot of money.
Chad (22m 35s):
And you've gotta remember that if staffing professionals get behind your product, it's not an aspirational investment like we see with most of HR Tech. It's a business decision. They've sharpened their pencils, they've created pivot tables, and they have to see this as a real opportunity. And if the experts in the German staffing market are behind it, then it's a buy for me.
Joel (22m 60s):
All right, two buys for Jomigo. All right guys, this to me sounds like a new Bounty Jobs or maybe a Scout, which by the way pulled in a hundred million in funding from TRI ventures back a couple years ago, which is also now, which was connected to Aquent, which now looks like they own Scout. I did find that it was 10 million euros in terms of what Jomigo had raised. Assume that's correct. So this is more or less a flyer on something that can garner a hundred million dollars in funding, even if they just create a nice footprint in Europe. To me it's incredibly good opportunity and a good flyer to have a business like this in Europe.
Joel (23m 44s):
Lieven has a better sense of sort of customer appetite for these kinds of things, but if he's on board and it sounds like he is, then to me, 10 million euros on a business like this seems like a no-brainer. I'm ready to call Jomigo, my amigo, everybody, and I'm gonna buy the company out of Berlin.
Lieven (24m 6s):
Nice.
Joel (24m 7s):
All right. Let's talk about Easop. Not to be confused with AEasop Fables, which a lot of your Europeans know. So anyway, the Paris France based startup that allows US based companies to grant equity to international hires has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The company intends to use funds to further invest in product development to build the team and expand into new markets. Customers can currently offer and manage equity incentives to employees, contractors, and advisors in some 50 countries. And $5 million is currently being managed among a small group of beta users of the product.
Joel (24m 48s):
Lieven are you a buyer sell on Easop?
Lieven (24m 52s):
I am most definitely a buy on Easop and just because I know how hard it is to get all these things arranged. I mean, in Europe you always say a bunch of countries, legislation is a bitch concerning tax and tax instruments. And we just had an exit at House of HR and I know I was very glad I wasn't part of the legal or the financial team because those people still are working literally day and night to get all the paperwork done. Yeah, so yesterday evening at 11:00 in the evening, I got a mail from someone from Finance during the weekend with some documents he needed me to sign and return. I would get a shit lot of money.
Lieven (25m 33s):
Okay. I always love it when people send me documents if they give me return, you know, but I felt sorry for the guy if he had to do that at 11 o'clock in the evening. It's so a hustle. And I think Easop, I looked into them if they can actually make it happen, if they offer a platform and if it can enable as SMEs to offer their own employees those stocks, that would be great. Also, from a just emotional point of view, I mean, if this will encourage startups to share equity with their employees, that's a very good thing and it'll make it easier. So it'll happen more often, which I like. So definitely a buy.
Chad (26m 13s):
Yeah, I'm surprised and glad that Lieven went this way because I love when you can see people spot holes in the market. The big question here is, is it too early? You know, are these guys going to suffer the slings and arrows of the discoverers? You know, the first ones on the field and you know, personally, I'm gonna go back to the names that I mentioned before, Deel, Oyster, Remote, Atlas. These are all companies with a lot of fucking money. And what are they looking for right now? They're looking for appointed differentiation and they're not finding it. I mean they're pretty much all the same platform at this point with different names, different, you know, bigger booths, those types of things.
Chad (26m 60s):
They need to be able to look for organizations like this, which have only taken $2.5 million. So it would be cheap with the kind of cash that they have. So I see Easop actually being acquired within 12 months by one of these organizations, which is an easy ad for a Deel or Remote or Atlas. So this is definitely a buy for me.
Joel (27m 22s):
No, there it is. Folks that's two buys, we are a beneficent group this week. Look, there are a lot of residual businesses that have been created out of the work from home phenomenon. And the means by which you can manage equity to employees, you know, it's grown into the same complicated issue, right? You can't just say, Hey, we're headquartered in San Francisco. Everyone's in San Francisco. So all the equity is managed through a US based provider. And it's fairly simple now you have people in multiple countries that are employees or want equity. You wanna be able to grant equity to those folks. Carta right now is I guess the brand name that everyone thinks of in terms of this service.
Joel (28m 7s):
If you're not familiar with Carta, they've received over a billion dollars in funding. So, there's ample room to say that there's some money in this business and that there's incredible opportunity to take a 2.5 million flyer on Easop just to be able to create a brand that says, Hey, we'll help you manage your international markets. There are a lot of people that don't know what the fuck Carta is. There are a lot of startups created every day that can embrace this service. So for me, like it's a huge buy, I think it's an incredible business and there will be competitors that we'll be talking about in the future as well. So three buys for Easop.
Joel (28m 49s):
Let's see if Enate garners the same kind of vivacity from the group. The Cheltonham, easy for me to say. Maybe it's next to Wrexham, UK based digital workforce management platform Enate has raised 2 million pounds in a funding round to fuel the company's expansion across the UK and beyond. Enate software product is designed to manage hybrid workforces of digital and in-person workers. The platform can be used by enterprises to manage workflows and provides data insights into company performances. The company raised 2.2 million pounds in an earlier funding round back in May of 2020.
Joel (29m 32s):
Lieven are you a buy or sell on Enate?
Lieven (29m 35s):
I'm a sell, definitely. So after being very excited about Easop, I looked at Enate and it was utterly boring and I thought it's like 13 and a dozen. And after watching their websites for five minutes, I still couldn't figure out exactly what are we doing differently than other companies and I just didn't feel like getting more information. So I thought let's sell, we already have two buys.
Joel (30m 0s):
That's a sell from Lieven. Chad?
Chad (30m 3s):
Yeah, like Lieven, I almost fell asleep reading the description on the homepage. We are talking about business automation. It should be exciting. I mean everything that we talk about around automation is exciting and these guys make automation sound boring. And here's an example quote "Enate has been at the forefront of championing the value of process orchestration software, which is reflected in the richness of its technology for the hybrid workforce and the fact they are one of the very few providers who can evidence process" <Chad starts snoring>
Lieven (30m 42s):
THROW THE OUT!
Joel (30m 42s):
Is this a sell? I'm very confused whether or not you like this company or not.
Chad (30m 46s):
I'm good with a sell. I'm gonna go with sell
Joel (30m 48s):
This. It's a sell, so it's two sells. Yes. The most exciting part about this company is that they're from Cheltonham, UK. I guess I'm saying that correctly. The site, if yeah, we're all looking at the website, they might want to redo their website, right? The site claims quote "Solve the talent crisis. Empowering business users to deliver their own solutions means that technology talent can focus on extraordinary digital customer experiences and accelerate through the backlog of work across old systems." Really that solves the talent crisis. Well thank God for that because we've all been trying to figure that out.
Joel (31m 28s):
But Enate is apparently figured out.
Chad (31m 30s):
Worst marketers ever.
Joel (31m 31s):
I go to the pricing page and I get quote, "the page you were looking for is not found." End quote. All right, call me when these guys are ready for primetime because Cheltonham, UK apparently is not ready for primetime. This is a big sell from me as well.
Chad (31m 58s):
Are you looking to buy this one? That's the question.
Joel (32m 1s):
Are we talking about Indeed?
Chad (32m 2s):
Yes.
Joel (32m 2s):
Okay. Alright guys interested to hear Lieven's take on this. So listeners of our weekly show know about Indeed's new advertising model, but here's a refresher. In 2023, employers using Indeed will pay only when a candidate starts or submits an application rather than when they click on a job ad as is currently the case. Indeed says the main advantage of a pay per applicant model over a pay per click model is the reduction of unqualified, uninterested, and even fraudulent clicks that the employer pays for. With the new model, the employer pays only for what is truly wanted: a qualified candidate.
Joel (32m 43s):
That's according to LinkedIn of course. Sounds great, right? Well maybe or maybe not, especially when we're talking about the European market. Lieven, I can't wait to hear your take on Indeed's new pricing strategy.
Lieven (32m 55s):
My first impression was this doesn't make sense at all so I must have been missing something and I reread the whole sentence again and I'll read it out loud, "employers will pay more for this upgraded experience as the value of a legitimate candidate is higher than that of lots of unidentified clicks. But in the long run paper application will save employers money as recruiters can zero in on more quality candidates faster." Okay, so look at this. So basically you used to pay per click and then at the end you've got a shitload of bad candidates, but now and then one was okay, and now instead of paying per click, you pay per candidates. But it's not like this is going to change anything.
Lieven (33m 36s):
I mean you still get a shitload of bad candidates and only now you have to pay for those bad candidates, which will make it a very annoying experience for me. And what I say about fighting fraud, this is ridiculous as well. I mean this will encourage frauds, pay per click was like 30 cents per click or something. But now how much will the charge replication? I mean 15 euros, maybe more? For 15 euros I can write a Biden script which will totally send bullshit applications to my competitors constantly and for 15 euros per applicant, this is worth my time.
Lieven (34m 16s):
So this will encourage fraud. 10 cent per click I want, but 50 euros per applicant, okay, 10 applicants, 150 euros, 365 days a year. It might cost them some money. So I just, think I must be missing out on something. Those people aren't stupid, but they weren't able to convince me so probably, it's me.
Joel (34m 37s):
I don't think, I don't think it's you Lieven.
Chad (34m 41s):
Dude, they think they gave it a different name, but it's literally the same shit. There's nothing different here kids. And, as we look at Indeed and their evil mastery of this industry, they've been able to over the years do whatever they want and companies continue to pay. Doesn't matter what the freight is, right? So they're on this sugar high of being able to do whatever they want and knowing that companies are gonna pay for it. So to be able to say that the applications, the people who actually finish the applications, which we know is less than 10% who actually start are gonna be more qualified.
Chad (35m 22s):
That's total bullshit. You can't predict that. As a matter of fact, the people that go all the way through the apply are not gonna be the most talented. Why? Because they don't have time to go through that application process. But yet remember this is a started application. This has nothing to do with a completed application. So you're still gonna pay for incomplete shit as well. I mean this is, to me again, a masterclass on evil recruiting vendors when it comes to Indeed they are the best of it. They are the best at being evil and doing shit and just calling it something different. It's nothing different.
Joel (35m 58s):
Evil genius I think was the term he used on the weekly show.
Lieven (36m 2s):
Yeah, I don't see why the quality of the applicants would improve by changing the monetization model.
Chad (36m 8s):
It won't!
Lieven (36m 8s):
Because that's basically what they're doing. Just changing monetization.
Chad (36m 12s):
Yes.
Lieven (36m 12s):
Just won't have an impact at all on the quality of the applicants. It's weird.
Joel (36m 15s):
Well, what's worse, I think Lieven you, you talked about this, right? So back in the days where there was a flat fee for job postings, people knew they were gonna get a lot of shit candidates. Right? And then pre-screening occurred and there are ways that like people got used to it and then pay per click, it's like, you know, I'm gonna get 10 to 20% shitty candidates, but I know that I'm not paying a lot per click. So that's sort of in my algorithm or or my math for what I'm paying for. When people start paying 20, 40, $50 for these crap applications, you're gonna see, you know, the the pitchforks and the fire start because people are not gonna be real happy about that shit. Indeed's gonna get a lot of calls around, I'm not paying for these applicants, these are shit and they're gonna have to deal with that, but that's their problem.
Joel (37m 2s):
But that you raise a really good point in that people are gonna have to expect people to get their head around $20, 40, 50 plus dollars for an applicant. That's bullshit. They're not gonna be real happy about it versus paying 20¢, 30¢, 40¢ cents a click.
Chad (37m 17s):
Well, first let's talk about Europe though. Let's talk about Europe. Europe has not fully embraced PPC pay per click and now they're moving toward pay per application, right? So Lieven your thoughts on Europe because they haven't even fully embraced PPC yet. What I mean now they're getting thrown a huge curve ball with PPA.
Lieven (37m 39s):
No, at first glance it's normal evolution from pay per credit to pay per click to pay per applicants. It's only getting better, but it should be like that.
Chad (37m 49s):
But it's not right?
Lieven (37m 50s):
When you pay per click and you get shady applicants, the company like Indeed could say, okay is because people click on your ads but for some reason they didn't want to apply. Now when you pay per applicant, you actually see the value you have to throw away shitty applicants. People want to it, they definitely want, it'll suddenly stand out more how much a bad applicant costs you. Pay per click. Yes. Yeah, but Indeed it's like they click on your vacancy and they see the texts, they see the whole vacancy. And if people just don't apply, well it's because your vacancy was bad, you could sell it like that. But now one, you have to pay for shitty applicants. You can't blame the company, people apply and it's just the wrong kind of people.
Lieven (38m 34s):
I don't pay for the wrong kind of people applying. So I think Indeed, they might have to reconsider.
Chad (38m 39s):
So that being said, reconsidered, do we think that this is gonna last a year to 18 months before they have to step back and go back to maybe a different new version of PPC that is just a more cost effective?
Lieven (38m 56s):
I dunno if they actually succeed in upgrading the experience and and making the candidates quality bigger. Why not?
Joel (39m 2s):
This is not just the tip. When they make a move like this, this is all in. Dude, they are Meta style, Zuckerberg. We're all in with this model and you know, it may deep fix them like Meta, who knows? But I don't see them walking back from this. You know, two perspectives from a European standpoint is, I think although programmatic is new to Europe, it's coming. We'll remember StepStone acquired Appcast for $79 million, which by the way looks like the steal of a century at this point. Appcast could have held out for a lot more than $79 million.
Joel (39m 43s):
But that's a different program. Look, programmatic is coming in a pay-per-click world where indeed is competing with a greater platform, a greater ecosystem of cost efficiency, which is programmatic. They have a really hard time competing in that world and they would rather pivot to something brand new that confuses the marketplace, that obfuscates, you know, what they're doing creates more of a black box to what they're doing is smart when they see that programmatic is coming to Europe in the way that we do on this show. The other thing I think that is maybe being discounted as far as Europe and maybe the global economy as a whole is LinkedIn here.
Joel (40m 23s):
LinkedIn is in China. I think we can all agree that, would we be surprised that China boots out every US tech company on the planet in the next 12 months? I don't think anyone would be shocked. That's a lot of money that LinkedIn has to make up. And in doing so, they're gonna be looking at, I don't know, democratic countries where there's rule of law where you know where they're safe to do business. To me, I really see LinkedIn coming into Europe much stronger than they have in the past. LinkedIn is a pay per click model that's gonna compete with Indeed and I don't think indeed once that smoke in Europe. So the combination, the one two punch of programmatic and I think LinkedIn getting a lot more serious about Europe has Indeed scared to death.
Joel (41m 8s):
And I think that spurred let's agree, a desperate move to go to this pay per acquisition model.
Chad (41m 15s):
And it is Halloween so therefore this would be a great time to be scared to death.
Joel (41m 21s):
I'm scared but I love you guys. I love Halloween. Have some candy Europe godammit, it's a fun holiday. Dress up and Lieven watch the Shining for God's sakes. I'm not here to hurt you, I'm just here to bash your fucking head in.
Chad and Cheese (41m 44s):
We out.
Lieven (41m 45s):
We out.
INTRO (41m 47s):
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.
INTRO (42m 33s):
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.