StartUs Presents: skeeled.com

Describe skeeled.com in 50 words or less.

skeeled.com is a job-applicant screening software, supporting recruiters in their selection process. It allows companies to monitor and evaluate candidates based on standardised CVs, personality traits and pre-recorded interviews. We operate a match and shortlist the most promising candidates based on your company’s recruitment necessities.

Why did you decide to pursue your own dreams rather than someone else’s?

I’ve always felt a great passion towards entrepreneurship and taking the challenge of starting something from scratch that could impact and benefit the needs of society and businesses. Besides, I really enjoy the experience of building a team around this startup and working together with great people that share our vision and passion to bring this project forward. Finally, I strongly believe that leadership and management styles have changed over the past decade and my biggest fulfillment in this environment is to just live the dream the way we feel like.

How does your software work in an organization?

In a couple of words, companies publish their job opening as usual via multiple candidate sourcing channels (own website, job boards, social media, etc). Instead of receiving hundreds of candidates’ CVs and screening them manually, applicants will be directed to the skeeled SaaS platform. From there, all will fill in a standardised CV, take an industry leading personality evaluation, and record a short video interview based on standardized or predefined HR questions.

Following this, our distributed matching algorithm will analyse each candidate’s in-depth employability profile, based on companies’ recruitment necessities, and shortlist the most promising applicants. A collaboration tool (currently in development) will enable the entire recruitment team to screen, evaluate, comment and rank each applicant. That’s why we always say we don’t “recruit” for companies, we help them find the best future employees based on analyses that go beyond current possibilities. Implementing skeeled.com saves you up to 50% of time on your current recruitment process as well as considerably increases the quality of hire and reducing related cost by 30%.

7 years from now: How did your startup change the world?

7 years from now, skeeled.com will hold a matching algorithm able to cross-relate skills and personality traits with working environment and company culture in the most accurate manner. The artificial intelligence behind our software will be fed with data and feedback over the years, to make it understand and link candidates with the best job openings in the market. We will automate this process and have the most advanced intelligence to support recruiters in their selection process, but also offering job seekers a platform that enables them to promote their employability profile in a revolutionising way, and matching them with a work place that fits to them.

In what ways do you measure your success and how do you make sure you don’t lose track?

I believe that at the moment, I cannot yet speak of “measuring” our success. Personally, what makes me most happy at the moment, and if you want you can call it success, is the fact that we have a great team that works on this project. Put yourself in our shoes and imagine starting a tech startup, but you are not a programmer. For me, a great success was to find Ivan, our lead engineer, a person with the required appetite and experience to bring the development forward. An engineer, able to take a scientific approach towards the complexity and scale of this project, is very difficult to find but key to developing a scalable and reliable foundation for the software. Finally, to start this company with Nicolas, the co-founder of skeeled.com, makes the management level diverse and we both share the vision required to lead this startup to future truly measurable success.

Describe your typical working day from coming to the office to leaving it.

Nicolas and I normally start working around 8 am. A typical day would start with a coffee and a chat about the plan of the day. Often, we look into the startup scene, read and talk about current news and movements. Around 9 am, our engineers arrive and we hold a meeting to see where the development is and how things are moving on. It’s very important for us to keep an eye on it, especially now as we’re adapting the beta testing strategy accordingly.

For lunch we all eat together in the office. It’s a great moment to talk about other subjects and bring/keep the team together. The afternoon is similar to the morning. We hold fixed meetings with everyone three times a week and also communicate a lot during our typical working day. Communication and transparency are of great importance for us. In the evening, we either go to do sports or have a drink together. Our fridge holds a nice variety of local beers and it is seen as a great compensation for a good working day.

Already pivoted? Did customers use the service like you imagined it in the beginning?

We did pivot indeed! We quickly realized that a planned strategy for a startup can be very short-lived. During our mentoring at the Microsoft Innovation Center, we got familiar with the “lean approach.” It helped us a lot to get out of the building and see what our future customers really need. As we conducted our research, it gave us a clear view on how recruiters could and would use our software, what they liked and disliked about it… We also created events where we invited people that are currently looking for jobs, to understand their needs. We looked at both sides, recruiters and jobseekers, to understand how to create the best link between them. This phase was very important for us and made our strategy pivot a couple of times. We even estimate that entering the beta testing phase now, the strategy could slightly change again soon!

With ferocious competition and a booming trend to build new companies: How do you make sure you don’t get lost in the shuffle?

It is true that there is competition around us, and in recent years many startups have been created. But it does not have too much of an impact on us. We strongly focus on what we do. Especially in the development phase, it is core for us to keep track of how to reach our milestones and constantly keep an eye on what the competition does. Our unique service is still sort of a hidden secret and we protect it very well. Of course we’re following the trend of more and more startups being built, thus I believe that this is a good proof that there is a need and opportunities around us.

Bootstrapped or financed: What fuels your startup now and what will in the future?

skeeled.com is a fully bootstrapped startup. As the business plan was developed during our Masters degree, we evaluated in detail how much we needed to develop stable and functional software that customers can use. When reaching this milestone, the next step will be to go and reach out to investors to overcome the next stages. skeeled.com will start looking to raise funds towards the end of 2015.

What do you look for in team members?

A true team member for us needs to have a clear view on what it means to work in a startup. Here it’s not about “working hours” or specific and repeating tasks. In our environment we play as a team and the personality of a person is key. We also share a lot of responsibilities and keep a strong transparency between all. A good team member does not come here for the job only, we look for people that see the potential of the project and share the passion and vision of the managers. It is one of the main reasons why we develop skeeled.com! We believe that a CV is not enough to identify a good team member. The person behind is the most important. You can have the best CV in your hand but a couple of month down the road, you realize that your new team member can’t play in a team… What then?

Why would a talent join your team?

A talent would join us because he or she would believe in the project. That’s the starting point. We need people that can share our passion and thrive to bring skeeled.com forward. Also, we define “talent” not only on skills and experiences. A talent is also someone with a great personality. You would want to join us if you are a person that looks for a dynamic and fun work environment but you need to be someone that can take responsibilities and work independently at the same time.

What was your most memorable moment so far?

My personal most memorable moment was when skeeled.com was invited to exhibit at the Collision Conference in Las Vegas. The startup movement is highly advanced in the US and we met so many interesting people within a limited amount of time that the experience was fantastic. During the same trip we also stopped in San Francisco, the hub of world famous startups. It was a wake up call for us when we felt the difference between what we believe here in Europe is a “startup working environment” and what it means to work over there. The comfort we have here in Europe cannot be compared to the pure focus people reach in a driven startup eco system such as in SF. That is why this moment remains for all of us a memorable and game changing experience towards the approach of our daily commitment to our project.

What advice would you give fellow founders for their startup?

Nowadays startups have become a trendy path to go. More and more people realize that there are other options than working in big multinationals. Thus I would advise to enter the startup environment in a very organized way. Get the business plan done, do your market analysis and know your competitors and how they act.

Finally, and as I did myself, I’d suggest you put yourself together with someone you can trust and that you believe you can work with, someone with the same vision on short and long term goals. Don’t take your best friend or your partner in life. It’s too risky in my opinion. And don’t take someone that is similar to you. You need to complement each other at work and concentrate on different tasks.

P.S. Make sure you’ve got a well structured and calculated financial plan, and never lose track of it and the linked milestones you have to reach. Here at skeeled.com we got our Timeline poster hanging on every wall. Make sure everyone involved knows where you are trying to go.

So what’s next for skeeled.com?

Our software will now enter the beta testing phase, a key element in our strategy to optimise and fine-tune the application. On top of that, we have great industry-related events coming up, offering us to show the software to the world of HR. A very special stage for us will be this year’s 2015 HR Tech World Congress in Paris. It’s a major event for the industry at large but most importantly, only 30 startups have been selected to exhibit and pitch their innovative idea in the HR disrupt zone. To be part of the selected is not only a proof of concept, it also allows us to open new doors and network with specific people linked to the HR world.