AI in Recruiting and Investing in Technology Startups with Robin Choy

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast. Because you've built the content and because you've, like, interacted, because you show your face constantly, do you think that's had an impact on the sales cycles with your clients?

Robin Choy [00:00:12]:
Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah. 100%, 200%.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:15]:
Why?

Robin Choy [00:00:16]:
And sometimes I see that when I work with founders, I'll give them advice that I don't follow myself. And most of the time I'll be like, oh, yeah, you should do this, or like, we've done this, and it worked really well for us. And then at the end, I was like, why did we stop doing this after all? Welcome to the elite Recruiter podcast with your host, Benjamin Menna, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:48]:
I am so excited about this episode.

Advertisement Voiceover [00:00:50]:
Of the Elite Recruiter podcast.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:52]:
Why? Because there's so many good podcasts out there in the recruiting space. But my guest runs one of the top recruiting podcasts. On top of that, I'm so excited to talk about his background. He's found one of the best marketplace companies in France, has built out a CRM, and is also investor in company. So I just want to kind of, like, pick his brain on why did he went that route, on how, like, others can maybe do the same. On top of that, when it comes to investing in companies, I'm really curious to pick his brain because when you're an investor, you really start to see where the future's Athenae, whether it's AI or whatever it is. So maybe we could learn something on where the recruiting world is moving. I'm so excited about Robin Choi.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:34]:
So welcome to podcast.

Robin Choy [00:01:36]:
Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:38]:
So let's just go ahead and dive right into your background. How did you even end up in this wonderful world of recruiting?

Robin Choy [00:01:44]:
Right? So I'm 32 years old today, and I started eight years ago. So that was in the west 24. You can even say that I started before this because started the first company was when I was still in school, which was a marketplace for remote talent, but on, like, micro tasks, kind of a upwork kind of thing, never scale. We grew to, like, 200 people in the marketplace. It just remains super small. But that was already venturing into recruiting and then went back to school because I still had, like, two more years in school to do. And in school, I met with my two co founders in hire suite, Ismail and Cole, and we kind of started brainstorming ideas together. One of the first ideas was to use the public information on software engineers to assess them based on the public information.

Robin Choy [00:02:29]:
So you get to the GitHub and the LinkedIn, and then you're able to draft a score. There was a company called Cloud that's no longer around, and there should be around. We'll have a new iteration of this soon, which can basically use people's online information to assess their cloud. So, like, you look at Ben Mana and you see that number of followers, and he's very active. So it's like a score of 95 because it's very recognized in the industry. So that was one of the first ideas. And then that evolved with Ismail's expertise more on something that was based on assessing software engineers with tests, because Ismail was our CTO, did a lot of competitive programming, competition where your kids codes and tried to write the most efficient algorithm. He was very good at this.

Robin Choy [00:03:14]:
He was in a french team in international Olympiads in informatics, you know, like, we talk about olympics. That was it, but for informatics. And, yeah, he did that, and then he coached the french team. And so he had kind of that expertise of creating tests for engineers. And so we started with a product like this, started selling this to companies in 2016, and everybody would tell us basically the same, that the tests were great, but the main problem was getting the candidates. And, you know, there's this kind of a black hole in the recruiting industry where everything comes back to kind of sourcing, and everything is kind of a recruiting agency. So, like, everybody told us, like, we just can't find the candidates. And so naturally we told them to post jobs online and just get, like, attract applicants.

Robin Choy [00:03:58]:
But for software engineers, it's not that easy. And, you know, we're still in school, so we knew nothing about recruiting, and we started to kind of dive in, realize that there was some value to reaching out to candidates, and that's what we started to do for the companies. And the first so kind of studied the recruiting agency without even knowing that it was a recruiting agency. Our first placements, we even didn't discuss the price, so we eventually charged like 6% or something like this. For a while, we were at 15%. And that model evolved because not being from the industry, we did a lot of things wrong, or, like, we did a lot of mistakes, but some of them were things that people in the industry wouldn't think about. Like, very quickly, the model evolved into, we won't reach out to the candidates directly, but we'll give you a list of people and reach out for yourself and we'll help you draft the email sequences. And so the companies, and typically the CTO, would reach out to the engineers.

Robin Choy [00:04:59]:
And that's kind of very counterintuitive. As an agency, you would never do this because you want to control the entire conversation. You want to control your candidates and the clients. But that was interesting, and that's kind of the beginning of the story for aero suite.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:11]:
So you guys, like, just pick. The industry just dove right in. I love that you guys started at 6% without really knowing, like, what to do. But then you guys turn into almost a legion agency or a sourcing company.

Robin Choy [00:05:25]:
Yeah, that was a legion agency. That was a legion agency where we still charged a placement fee. So.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:33]:
So wait, you guys, like, do you guys just built out the legion, built out the list and then still charge a placement fee if they actually hired somebody?

Robin Choy [00:05:40]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:41]:
How did you even have that conversation with these ctos?

Robin Choy [00:05:43]:
I don't know. I don't know. It was like, at the time, it felt natural, and it was very natural. And, like, it's a great business model because, well, it's both great and terrible. The problem is, the most successful clients, like, the most successful companies, would send them 20 names. They reach out to those 20 and make one higher, and they end up paying us. And then the placement fee for the lead generation service was still, like, 15%, so they end up paying 15% for 20 names. So they felt it was super expensive while they were the most successful, so they were disappointed and they hated us because we were so expensive.

Robin Choy [00:06:19]:
And then the companies that struggled the most, we could send them like, 800 names and they will still not hire and not, like, not pay us. So we end up spending more time working for companies that struggle the most. Super strange business model.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:33]:
I mean, that's definitely a lesson learned. You know, I just had a podcast interview with somebody that was actually a lead gen company that turned into a recruiting agency, too. And he said one of his superpowers was because he didn't know how recruiting worked. He didn't just do the same things everybody else did.

Robin Choy [00:06:49]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:50]:
And it sounds like that kind of like, was your guys a story? Like, well, we don't know how it works, so we're just going to keep on going. And then that turned into hiresuite. Talk about hiresuite.

Robin Choy [00:06:57]:
And so fast forward to today. Hire suite. We totally dropped the lead generation many years ago. Now we have two main products. The first one is a talent marketplace. So we have a team of sourcers who would talk to candidates every week, sign up candidates on the marketplace. And every Monday the database is refreshed, so new people are uploaded with a summary and blurb and more information. And people that registered more than six weeks before are removed.

Robin Choy [00:07:25]:
And we have the other side as well, where more like account executives will go find companies and have the company sign up so that every Monday you can see the candidates. So that's the time. Marketplace, in a way, is very similar to an agency. It's just like bit more scale. And we have typical rules that we're working on, like software engineers mostly. And our second product is a recruiting CRM, which we created initially for our clients and then evolved into something that we're now using. It's the backbone of everything we do, and it's kind of a bullhorn competitor with a very advanced candidate, nurturing and outreach like features, and a lot of AI in it as well, because we've always. So the other strength of ismail, aside from algorithmics, which is like a very defined branch of informatics, apparently there is also AI and data science.

Robin Choy [00:08:14]:
And so we've always had a lot of AI in the product. Like typically we use this to refresh the database and to automatically generate short list of candidates based on this. And we use this on the marketplace as well. So clients will have automated shortlist, for instance. So, yeah, two products, marketplace and CRM.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:31]:
Did you guys always have the two products or one product in the. No. First?

Robin Choy [00:08:34]:
Nope. So actually they're the both evolutions of the lead generation. The lead generation. We. So there was obviously a problem with the business model and also the fact that we didn't control the relationship with the candidates. There was two solution to this. Like either we charge a price per lead or we do something else with more involvement, and we decided to do this. So the lead generation evolved into one side, the marketplace, which is very much service.

Robin Choy [00:09:01]:
We talked to the candidates, we talked to the clients, and there is software in the middle to help with the process, but it's very much service. And then we also had in the lead generation, a very advanced outreach features where you could do multi channels and messages on LinkedIn and on email, but only to leads that we generated. And so let's just use that software company and give that to companies so they can find their own leads, or find leads in their ATS, or import CSVs and basically manage their I candidates database there. So the lead generation product evolved into.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:33]:
Because you guys took the marketplace approach when it comes to having recruiting agency, and I'm seeing a lot more of that since the early days of hired inventory as the gorillas in the space. For a recruiting company that's actually looking at that marketplace approach, what advice would you have for them to try to create something like that?

Robin Choy [00:09:53]:
I don't think that this model has proven to be superior to the traditional agency model. So my advice would be don't do this. So the problem with this is it works at scale. So it works at scale. But often there's also another effect in recruiting where it's very good to be highly focused, highly specialized, and to be in a niche. And like if you want to do a marketplace for government contractors, for instance, there's just so many clients and so many candidates that you can connect together. And if you do a marketplace, you're going to charge less per placement, so you got to make more placements. But if you're constrained in terms of placements that you can make, then you might as well add as much value as possible and just charge as much as you can for each placement because you're actually constraining placements.

Robin Choy [00:10:45]:
So it's better to add more value and to work on fewer racks than just try to do more racks and work on a higher, bigger volume, except it for some industries of verticals where there's a lot of people and where you can't add that much value anyway. Like temp staffing, for instance, is something that's more suited to marketplaces. But, you know, I don't think, like we're not much more profitable than a recruiting agency that would be focused on software engineers on the marketplace. So it's kind of the same basic economics.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:13]:
Okay, so the same basic economies, but you guys also spend a lot more money on software. On the backhand, I. Yeah, exactly.

Robin Choy [00:11:20]:
That's, that's the thing. Like you kind of also have cost and you have to build your product and then, so it's, yeah, I would say, like, it's an interesting model, but don't hope that is gonna be the holy grail. It's probably better to just keep doing what you're doing and improve and improve what you're already doing. Because if you go somewhere else, then you'll lose some years in the meantime, and probably in the end you'll reach out to the kind of the same, at high levels. Yeah, right. Basic company. Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:50]:
Well, and it's kind of just like before we jump away from that, like, what were some of the biggest lessons that you guys learned while building, like the hire suite marketplace?

Robin Choy [00:11:59]:
So one of the big lessons, and again, we didn't work in recruiting before. So the first time that we worked with a client, they told us, we're looking for this person, and we just say, yes, sir, and go and find the person. What we came to realize is a big part of the value and also why there's so much value in recruiting agencies is like, most of the clients expectations are unrealistic, and they need to adjust their expectations at some point. And in the end, like, that was so frustrating in the first years because they would tell us, we're looking for a software engineer with ten years of experience and who knows that language, and then six months later, they'll just hire an intern. We knew nothing about the language. Much younger. And so one of the big learning is kind of don't necessarily take everything. Like, certainly don't take everything you hear for granted.

Robin Choy [00:12:49]:
Always challenge, never assume, and also try to understand the underlying need and the underlying pain and try to solve for that pain instead of just executing what people tell you to do. And that's where there's way more value, and that's where you're able to actually help people who wouldn't have hired otherwise. I used to think that the big value add for an agency or recruiter was to find that kind of a hidden person diamond in a roth. Like, go on those hidden networks. And now I realize there's much more value. There is this, obviously, if you can find a person that a client wouldn't find, and they're exactly perfect for the role and they're up and to chatting with them, obviously there's value there. But there's also a ton of value in coaching the client, adjusting their expectations, and doing the same for the candidates. Like, a candidate who is.

Robin Choy [00:13:39]:
It's not exactly their dream company on paper, but you think it could be and you think they're overlooking something, then you have to coach them. And this is where. So that was my biggest learning.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:48]:
I mean, that's definitely, like, the recruiting industry is one of those businesses where it's just weird where you really have, like, two people that you're selling to. Yeah. It's not like you just selling a widget and like, cool, awesome. Thank you for buying. Goodbye. You're selling to a human being here, and then you're selling to another human being right there.

Robin Choy [00:14:04]:
Right. And they have moving expectations. And also, like, the other thing is, during the first call, the client or the candidate will tell you something. And if you don't ask the same question to you two weeks later, then you won't learn that it totally changed. Right. Like, they're looking to you, that happened again this week with hiresuit. Like a client replied to a short list saying, none of these clients master this specific technology. And then the person hired you was like, oh, I thought you were open to people learning that technology.

Robin Choy [00:14:31]:
So has something changed? Oh, yeah, yeah. Something has changed since this week. Right. So you gotta always be asking because things will change and expectations will change.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:40]:
I have the choice of changing expectations.

Robin Choy [00:14:42]:
Right. Well, it's frustrating when you realize until you realize that it's actually why you're getting paid, basically. Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:51]:
And that is true. That is true. I deal in the government space. So not only the client changes their mind, the government changes their mind of what they need, so they do as well.

Robin Choy [00:15:00]:
I was wondering, because there's long term contracts and I guess like regulatory expectations as well, but these also change our mind a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:08]:
Oh, yeah. There's many times where the government's like, we don't need that anymore. Well, like, we need to do quick little contract adjustment. And then you're like, but I just spent the last month and a half building out the perfect person for this new team in this new program. Yeah, well, okay, so you guys have been on the forefront of AI for a while, and I know everybody's talking about AI. You've been involved, you've hosted actually a few AI summits yourself. You're actively involved in AI. What do you think is going to be the impact of artificial intelligence within the recruiting space?

Robin Choy [00:15:41]:
So I think one of the impact will be, and we're already seeing this, is there's going to be much more noise, much, much more noise at every level. So more candidate applications that are generated with AI, more outbound messages from recruiters that are generated with AI. And, you know, we start seeing the kind of AI powered recruiters, same in sales. They are AI's doctor's that are basically companies that just blast the entire market with somehow personalized messages. So I think there's going to be much more noise and we're already seeing this, which will decrease the reply rates to outbound messages, which will be one of the biggest impact. And as a result, it means that if you want people to keep replying to your messages, either candidates or clients, then you gotta somehow invest even more on the human side and invest on your brand and invest on like, what we're doing here. Right. Like show your face and show your voice and that people can relate to you because this is where you'll have the biggest impact on the reply.

Robin Choy [00:16:44]:
Right. And I'll just hoping that a AI powered recruiter will just blast the market and get those candidates for you. Because if everybody does this, then we're back to square one. So I think that's going to be one of the big impacts. Another big impact that we're seeing is the data. So somehow there's more noise and some things there's more noise. And I hate when AI adds noise. Like typically it's articles that are generated by AI, and there's just, you can see that there's just one sentence, like, best ways to make money in recruiting.

Robin Choy [00:17:12]:
Then AI will spit out the ten bullet points that are very generic. This is the worst when the prompt is crappy and there's not a ton of value. So that's one of the things that I hate most about AI, and then one of the things that I love most about AI is the ability to actually find signal into the noise. Like, typically, if you have an ATS today, it's much more easy to find to research candidates and resurface candidates and even look at all your previous interactions with candidates. Even if your ATS is a mess, as it often is, as it should be, and everybody's ATS is a mess. But all that unstructured data can be used by an AI and help you make more sense of that data. Same for the AI note takers, the bright hires and metaview of the world. And Firefly.

Robin Choy [00:18:00]:
Now you get all those conversations and you can extract much more data and much more information from all those conversations. So more noise on one end, which means you get to find other ways to add signal. And that's going to be with your brand and with putting out content and showing your face. And then on the other end, more signal as well, which makes more, like, data that used to be, like, totally unusable and make it more valuable today. What do you think?

Benjamin Mena [00:18:28]:
My head's all over the place when it comes to artificial intelligence and recruiting. I think it also depends on how far in the future that we're looking at. I hear stories of people talking about AI just taking over all the recruiting functions. I also say at that point in time, AI is probably taken over every job function, and we should be in trouble in a different way, right?

Robin Choy [00:18:45]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:48]:
Just AI. And recruiting is not the issue anymore, but it's one of those things. Like, it is generating so much noise. And that kind of goes into my next question is, like, you talked about being authentic, you talked about building content, you talked about showing your face. It's 2024 going into 2025. How should recruiters make content?

Robin Choy [00:19:09]:
That's a great question. There's tons of ways to do it. Obviously, there's like, LinkedIn posts, there's podcasts, videos. I think one point is just show yourself. At least have a clean LinkedIn profile. Interact with people on LinkedIn. That's kind of the basics. Just make sure that you're connecting.

Robin Choy [00:19:25]:
I know you did an awesome podcast with the Clarke from the digital recruiter as well. So it's got to be the elite recruiter, the modern recruiter, the digital recruiter. And you mentioned how it's kind of the basics should be that every week you're connecting with people in your niche. If you're working government contracting, there's like, again, so many people that you can reach out to. So, like, every week, make sure you're connecting with them on LinkedIn. Show your face, send them a few messages. It doesn't have to be like, create a podcast or create a YouTube channel. But I think even micro interactions where you show you're an actual human, and then people can see and just have, like, one or two years of experience, background interacting with you, when you're reaching out to them, they're much more likely to reply.

Robin Choy [00:20:08]:
That's just like an AI recruiter that they never heard of because they don't exist. Yeah, I don't think everybody has to create a podcast or everybody has to create a YouTube channel or whatever, but at least be in that dynamic of, like, showing your face and interacting with people on a human level.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:24]:
You just said something about, like, two years. And I know, like, building content is a long game, but because you've built the content and because you've, like, interacted, because you show your face constantly, I think you, like, you post multiple times a week from watching you. Do you think that's had an impact on the sales cycles with your clients?

Robin Choy [00:20:42]:
Oh, yeah, totally. Yeah, I percent, 200%.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:46]:
Why?

Robin Choy [00:20:47]:
Well, you. You get just like, you get more inbound to, and then when people are already chatting with you, they're more likely to convert, and they, like, every time people will mention the podcast or mention something and they trust you, it's like back to trust. Right? They trust you more, and so they're more likely to enter in a business deal with you because they know you're going to hang for a few more years, you're still going to be here, they can trust you. Other people have trusted you. It's a lot of social proof. There was this experiment in a newspaper in a school in the US. I don't remember which it was maybe like Harvard or something like this. And at the end of the newspaper, every day or every week, they would show a chinese character.

Robin Choy [00:21:27]:
And at the end of the year, so, like, random thing. And at the end of the year, they surveyed the students with list of characters and asked them if they were more likely to be positive or negative. And I realized that the characters that happened the most, like that happened, like, ten times during the year, were more likely to be seen as positive, and the characters that maybe never happened were more likely to be seen as negative, and they had no idea what was the underlying concept. It's just like a science, and just because you're exposed to something more, then it gets more familiar, and then you're less afraid, and then you're more likely to judge as positive. The same, like, if you see a person's name on LinkedIn every week for two years, then you feel like you know that person, right? I listen to podcasts, and I, like, I'm sure if I saw the person in real life, it'll be like, oh, that's me. It's Rob henship. But the person doesn't know me, but I feel they're a friend, right? Like, so the more you expose to someone, the closer you feel to them.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:24]:
Oh, that's awesome. I hated content for years. I think I've been on LinkedIn for almost two decades. I hated posting. I was like, I'm a recruiter. I'm paying for LinkedIn. They should, like, shoot my jobs that I'm posting as the number one most important thing. Like, we're like, us recruiters are paying LinkedIn billions of dollars.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:43]:
And then I finally just gave up. And about a year ago, I was like, maybe I should, like, write something at least once a week.

Robin Choy [00:22:48]:
And how did that work out for you?

Benjamin Mena [00:22:50]:
I mean, it's. I talk about this constantly. The accidental brand.

Robin Choy [00:22:56]:
That's the thing, right? Like, it doesn't have to be that huge thing. And I like also that when you talk about your podcast, you say you do it mostly for yourself initially. And then the initial goal was to record 100 episodes. And, like, if you get to 101 episode and you still just single person to listen to them, you're still happy, and that's still a success. And I think that's the right mindset. And it's way less intimidating than just like, oh, I'm going to create that big brand and I'm going to. It's just like, put yourself out there. Show what you're doing.

Robin Choy [00:23:25]:
If you talk to someone, might as well just record it and post it as a podcast, and that's it. And then it compounds, because now people that listen to the podcast for three years, they know about you. And when you send them a message, I'm pretty sure they'll get a incredible reply race, because there's just like, this guy's legit. He's an actual person. He's not an AI.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:46]:
That is true.

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Benjamin Mena [00:24:20]:
We're going to jump over to another part. We're really going to talk about investing. So, you know, you're seeing what's out there. I'm sure you're seeing tons of pitch decks. You're seeing like, what could impact the recruiting industry, first of all, like, what do you see out there? Or let me take a step back. When you're investing in companies, what are some of the biggest things that you're looking for?

Robin Choy [00:24:39]:
So, yeah, now for context, I'm doing much more enjoy investing, and I invest in technology companies, so not necessarily marketing companies. It can be like HR or recruiting technology companies, but don't have to be then I invest in very early stage. So the number one thing that I look at is the team, like the team dynamics. So basically what you want to do when you invest, especially early stage, you just want to make sure that the company doesn't die in the next two years. One of the main reasons why companies die is because the founders don't get along or like, are not able to work together. So that's super important. So that's one thing. And then the other thing actually don't look that much at like what they're doing now, but mostly like, what is the universe they evolve in? And that's the same for creating company.

Robin Choy [00:25:23]:
Like, there's more money in some areas. So if you're the best at recruiting, I don't know, like if you're the best at recruiting software engineers, you're probably, or executives, they're probably going to be more profitable and more of a more like, differentiated approach and more valuable brand that if you're the best at creating, I don't know like another type of job. So the market is so important. And that's also something that I realized for us, like most of our lifetime, we served early stage companies, startups, tech companies, and now the CRM, we're selling much more into staffing companies. But there's a lot of seasonality. You know, when the rates are low, there is a ton of early stage companies, lots of fundraising, lots of companies hiring software engineers, and there's like everybody's struggling and so that's great. And all our competitors and ourselves were doing great. When the rates are higher, suddenly there's no more money in the ecosystem and everybody drops.

Robin Choy [00:26:18]:
And so the underlying market is so, so important. That's more this that I look at like, what's the underlying market then, really, what are you doing today? Because what you're doing, you can change. The market is much harder to change. You can still change, but it's harder. And the third thing is kind of, what's the defensibility? And especially in recruiting, it's very easy to, so there is a pattern in marketing where it's kind of easy to start doing a few hundred thousand, a few million dollars in revenue per year, but it's very hard to scale from this. So like how scalable can that be and how defensible it is? And it's usually like what's kind of the lock in effect that you have with your clients. And that's the same for every industry, especially in the early stage. It can be very tempting to invest in companies that have revenue that's very early and grows fast as well.

Robin Choy [00:27:05]:
But some of these companies just don't scale after that and hit a glass ceiling and they're stuck there. And that can be a trap as well from an investor point of view. Like, and when you're the company out there, they can have a super, like a great company that's capping a certain revenue and still profitable and that's a great company. But for an investor, it won't necessarily be the like best fund returner or like portfolio returner.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:29]:
And now you guys have like your own fund now too, right?

Robin Choy [00:27:31]:
I, right, yes, we're investing in YC companies.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:35]:
Oh, nice. Okay. And I know you talked about team. How can you, like, you're looking at the deck, you're looking at the investor pitch, you're looking at the conversations. And I think this is also something for recruiters that are important to hear also when they're looking at a co founder, how are you able to so quickly assess the team and if their team is actually going to make it.

Robin Choy [00:27:55]:
Frankly, I wish I was able to do it so quickly. So, like for now, we'll see. You know, it's always a few years. There are some techniques. Basically what I'm trying to do when it comes to investing is to replicate the structured interview way. And so there is a like very basic question you can ask, for instance, is tell me a time where you had a conflict with your co founder and how did you solve this? And that's very telling. You can see how they resolve the conflict because you're going to have conflicts. That's the most important thing.

Robin Choy [00:28:23]:
And you need to have ways and mechanism to sort out the conflicts. This is a very telling question that you can ask. And that's basically like, can you tell me an instance of something you've done in the past, not in the future, or how would you behave in that situation, but like what happened in the past? How did you solve this? And that can be applied to everything. It can be the same for the product. Like can you tell me of a time where a customer really hated the product or didn't think it was relevant to them? Like what did you do? How did you adjust? Or can you tell me about the last client that you signed, how did that go? Kind of. These questions in the past are very structured into interview questions. And you can score on a scale from one to five and add comments. Yeah, I'll tell you in ten years.

Robin Choy [00:29:04]:
We'll see. It's a bit annoying.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:08]:
And one of the fun things about recruiting is like, we're, most of them, a pretty good profit margin industry. Now, if you're looking at and you're interested looking at investing in companies, what's the best way to go about that? Is it to find a fund or is it to go and find companies to try to invest in at the angel stage?

Robin Choy [00:29:26]:
So the cool thing is if you want to invest, and I'll be talking about technology companies because that's what I know, like if you want to invest in brick and mortar restaurants and stuff like this, I don't know nothing about that. But if you want to invest in technology companies, you got to find a way where you have more signal and more information than the rest of the market. So it can be a friend that you really trust, or a friend a friend and you trust them and kind of want to bet on the person that can be one way to invest. Another way to invest is to invest in your clients. You have a good relationship, and when you work in recruiting, you have that very strategic relationship. You can see how responsive they are, how they're making decisions. You know, like if they're able to attract good talent, you can have the talent feedback as well, candidates feedback as well. And so you're kind of very, in a very good situation to know which companies are going to be successful and which teams are good.

Robin Choy [00:30:20]:
So that's one way to do it. And if you don't want to do this, because it's still a lot of work, you can do this for fun and you are not going to make a ton of money, but that's fine. But if you want to make money out of it, then you have to find an angle. You have to find where you're better than the rest of the market. That can be because you have some confidential information or because you delegate this to a fund, typically, and you give your money to someone who has that angle and who's theoretically better than the market. You'll never know for sure because again, it takes five to ten years to materialize United staged companies, but if the person has more signal than the rest of the market, it's already a good sign.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:01]:
Awesome. And you were talking about being as a recruiter, in depth with those companies, with those clients that you're recruiting for. Have you ever like, structured a recruiting placement fee that is actually like part money slash part equity?

Robin Choy [00:31:16]:
Nope, I haven't. I haven't. I know some companies do. That's very smart. But, but, yeah, no, we haven't done this. Yeah, that's like the, the equity doesn't pay the bills and the salaries and.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:30]:
Oh, I know. Yes.

Robin Choy [00:31:32]:
So that's, that's the thing, right? Like it's got to be on top. So, yeah, we haven't done this.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:37]:
Okay.

Robin Choy [00:31:38]:
Have you before you.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:39]:
I haven't yet, but I was just curious, especially since you're in the tech space. Well, before we jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share about hire, suite, your background, how you got into recruiting or even investing?

Robin Choy [00:31:51]:
No, I don't think so. We can move on.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:54]:
I'll just say that I think you're sounding like a way better investor than me. I think I'm about 90 companies on Republic Co. And whoo. It's not doing good.

Robin Choy [00:32:03]:
That's the thing. The problem with this is like, you don't have an angle on the market. Like you're not better than the market. So you're going to just perform as well as the market, which is the tech startups market in the US is still a good underlying asset on which to invest. Still about this. Slightly more profitable than the S and P 500, but yeah, broadly, in investing at least you invested in 80 companies, which is good because you diversify your risk. The worst is to kind of invest in three and then invest a ton of money in each. And that's like the worst.

Robin Choy [00:32:33]:
So what's your return for now?

Benjamin Mena [00:32:35]:
Two of them have gone public. I mean, small returns, like, they're small investments, but it's been fun to watch the, some of them have turned into a complete shit show, some have turned into lawsuits, like founders fighting each other. So like, you know, it's really just been semi fun slash like, huh?

Robin Choy [00:32:53]:
Yeah, it's interesting. It's good. Good. And also think that even if you don't make your money back, you're learning a lot in the process. You see a lot of the inner working, the many different companies, so it's still useful. And sometimes I see that when I work with founders, I'll give them advice that I don't follow myself. And most of the time I'll be like, oh yeah, you should do this. Or like, we've done this and it worked really well for us.

Robin Choy [00:33:16]:
And then at the end I was like, why did we stop doing this? After all? Like, that worked for us, why did we stop doing this? So it's also good to do this and it's a better way to at least more the odds are in your favor as opposed to like sports betting or other ways to spend your money. You're learning your lego win.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:33]:
That is true. Like, when it comes to sports betting, I know nothing about sports, but at least I can look at the pitch decks and the cap tables and all that fun stuff and be like, hey, at least I'm making more of an educated choice. But jumping over the quick fire questions, what advice would you have for a career that's just getting started in our industry this year on how to succeed.

Robin Choy [00:33:52]:
Playing the long term game? Like start investing and be like, okay, what can I do now that will be helpful in ten to 20 years? So talk to people, stay super cool with everyone, respect everybody, be reactive with any clients, prepare for the next ten years and start building out your brand. If you can do micro things, post here and there and start connecting with people. Every week you grow your line in work, stack compounds, and then go to events and meet people. Don't try and hack it. Don't try and think like very short term and, and whatever is going to happen in the next twelve months, but more like longer term and longer term, it means that your competitors could be your next boss, that people you hate today could be your next boss. That maybe you're going to join one of your clients company. So there's so many things that can happen. You get to keep all your options open.

Robin Choy [00:34:40]:
Great advice.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:41]:
And the same question, but for people that have been around the block 510, 25 years, based on what you've seen, what advice would you give to them to keep on seeing success?

Robin Choy [00:34:51]:
Great question. I would say keep. The hardest thing for people that have been around for a long time is you get tired. Recruiting can be super repetitive. It's hard. You get a lot of disrespect from everyone, from clients, from candidates. So find ways to keep on enjoying the game. And one way to do this is to keep on learning and go to industry events as well.

Robin Choy [00:35:13]:
Meet with peers, join groups, join communities, because that makes the work so much more fun. So you already have, you know how to do your job. You just have to keep on enjoying it. And that's what's going to make the next ten years very enjoyable.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:27]:
Awesome.

Robin Choy [00:35:28]:
I want to hear your answers to those questions.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:32]:
Maybe another day. Robin, I'm interviewing you. When it comes to a rec tech founder, if somebody in the space is listening to this, that they're building a tech company within the recruiting space, what's the number one piece of advice that you have for them?

Robin Choy [00:35:45]:
Depending on what you want, just make sure that a company can scale. If you're fine with building a company up to several millions in revenue, like five to 10 million, then a lot of people can do this. It doesn't need to scale a lot, but it's so much harder to scale a company beyond this. And so you have to have a plan on how you're going to scale this, because understand that a lot of companies just stop growing in recruiting at an early stage compared to other industries, and that's fine. But, you know, if you're raising a ton of money, that's what happened with hired. Like hired raised a ton of money. In the end, they got acquired by vettery. I don't think they had a very good return for the investors or for the founders, who had both, by the way, left in the early days.

Robin Choy [00:36:27]:
But it could have been, it would have been a very successful company if they only had raised like a million.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:32]:
Didn't they raise something like 100 million and they get bought for 100 million?

Robin Choy [00:36:35]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like this or even less than 100 million. Like they got bought for nothing.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:40]:
Like, oh, man. Because I remember the biggest thing on the scene for a little while, and they just, like, money was pouring in, like they're going to take over the recruiting space. And then.

Robin Choy [00:36:53]:
Yeah, so many companies. So many companies. And we're very happy that we only raise 1.5 million, which makes it so much easier for us as founders to have like, a profitable outcome. But if we had raised 100 million, then, like, you need to return at least 100 million to stop making just $1 as a founder and selling a recruiting company for more than 100 million is hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:16]:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, and. Okay.

Robin Choy [00:37:19]:
Raised 132 million. I'm checking now. 132.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:23]:
Oh, so it was like a negative return. Okay, so you have a super successful podcast in the recruiting space. You talk to people constantly, you talking with customers and clients and recruiters all the time. I'm sure you have recruiters that are constantly reaching out to you with questions, asking for advice. Out of all those conversations that you have, is there a question that you wish those recruiters would actually ask you? And if so, what would be that answer?

Robin Choy [00:37:49]:
I'm not sure. I feel people are very curious and ask a very wide range of questions from how am I going to use AI or this type of software to how can I build a brand? To how can it be more strategic, how can I be better? At closing, we've covered so many different topics with the modern recruiter. It's very wide and there is something in there for founders, for professional recruiters, for agencies. So, like, I don't think I've ever had a, like, yeah, it's a very hard question, which I like. I don't think I have an answer to this because I get so many different questions. And actually, that's one thing. I don't have been around for so many, like, I've just been around for eight years in the working space. I don't know how it was 20 years ago, but I feel we are in the a moment in time where people want to, are super eager for knowledge and for learning and new technology and trying stuff.

Robin Choy [00:38:41]:
And that's pretty cool. You know, there's like, even the podcasts, there weren't that many podcasts, or there hasn't been that much content for recruiting. And now we have so many different options and people can hear what's happening in other companies. So, yeah, what could be an answer to that question that's hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:58]:
Every now and then? Like, yeah, I'd like to ask that just because, like, sometimes, like, you know, I wish, like, somebody would ask me, like, how hard it is or just something of that nature. And you just, you never know the answer that you're gonna get. And this is kind of, you know, definitely a question for you as a founder, especially in the recruiting space, especially in the tech space, like, being a founder and starting a company is hard.

Robin Choy [00:39:18]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:19]:
You know, not every day is sunshine and roses. How do you make it through those days where you have like a tough week or a tough month? Like, what do you do?

Robin Choy [00:39:27]:
That's a good point. Points. That's a good point. And there's cycles as well. Like, I've noticed that people have this cycle at like four to five years and then another one at like seven to eight years about where I am today. The key is to find new things that excite you. Like, four is typically at about four years. At the four year mark, we expanded to the US, went through Waicuminator, started the podcast.

Robin Choy [00:39:50]:
So kind of start doing new things that excite you and look forward to something, because the day that you stop looking forward to something, then gotta be much harder to wake up in the morning and also surround yourself with people that give you energy because they're positive and optimistic, but also because they launch new projects and want to teach you new things. You know, like the same again, at about the six year mark or five year mark, we hired a guy that was an intern initially, and that helped us scale on social media and on LinkedIn. This guy was super instrumental in growing my presence on LinkedIn. And then that was a snowball effect where I got to talk to more people, get better guests, and made it more enjoyable as well.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:30]:
That's awesome. This kind of goes into the next question that I have. So you've had tons of ops, like tons of ups, it sounds like, but I'm sure you've also had tons of downs, you've had tons of conversations. If you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself and you and your co founders, when you guys started hiresuite, what advice would you give yourself?

Robin Choy [00:40:52]:
The worst thing is that we did that. We talked to a lot of founders that were way ahead of us, and they gave us the same advice I would give us. I would give us like eight years back. One other thing was basically this, like, just want to make sure that what you're doing is scalable, specifically in marketing. Yeah, you can get trapped very quickly in that cycle of like, especially when you do direct placements where you have that, you have a very good month, and then the next month, like very good month of January, and then the next month, February, you start from scratch again, and then you have to do everything you did before and then some if you want to keep growing. And that's very hard. And we, for, like, four years, we were, like, kind of trapped in that cycle, and we talked to founders, and they told us that that was a trap, and we kind of didn't listen to them. So, yeah, that's like, the hard thing is, I feel like we would have done the same mistakes anyway, and that sometimes you have to feel the learnings in your flesh to really imprint, you know, the learning.

Robin Choy [00:41:53]:
And, like, if somebody tells you, if you're young and kind of optimistic and you're like, yeah, we'll figure out a way. And that's also the reason why you get started in the first place, because this is so hard. Everybody tells you it's hard, and you're like, yeah, can't be that hard. I gotta find a way to make it hard. And it's that hard, and it's even harder. But you gotta be optimistic, and you gotta somehow discard what people tell you. But then the downside of this is sometimes you'll discard very good advice, and you'll just have to wait for a few years that you really leave them to understand. So, yeah, one thing I would tell to my younger self is, like, make sure that you have a long term plan and don't get kind of trapped in that cycle.

Robin Choy [00:42:33]:
But I know I wouldn't have listened to myself anyway, so those people told us.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:42]:
Well, it sounds like you guys did listen somewhere. It's definitely been working for you all.

Robin Choy [00:42:46]:
Yeah, it took a few years.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:49]:
Well, before I let you go. If somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Robin Choy [00:42:54]:
LinkedIn. Yeah, go on LinkedIn. Listen to the modern Recruiter podcast as well. We're gonna have an episode together soon, so listen to that as well. And, yeah, LinkedIn. I'm also very reactive on LinkedIn, and if you have one of these questions that nobody has asked me before, feel free to ask.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:12]:
I would love to know that, too. Like, if it's the brain question, that question. Well, Robin, before I let you go, is there anything else that you would love to share with the listeners?

Robin Choy [00:43:22]:
I don't think so. Listen to the modern recruiter and our episode together on the modern recruiter, and, yep, let's stay in touch.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:29]:
Awesome. Well, Robin, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on, you know, sharing about how you guys got started and the talent marketplace out of the house. But also, like, you know, I talk to a lot of recruiters that are, like, interested in investing. They're looking at the ways to diversify. They're looking at things to do. And I think understanding the fundamentals of what to look for as an investment is going to be a super important conversation to listen to. So, Robin, I just want to say thank you so much. And for the listeners, definitely check out the modern recruiter podcast and make sure to follow Robin.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:56]:
I want you guys to crush the rest of the year. I want 2024 to be your best year yet. Let's go, guys.