6 ms·

Snaptalent relaunches - completely changes business model (YC W08)

48 points by flavio87 18y ago

vaksel 18y ago
I thought their old idea had merit...what went wrong?
- aston 18y ago
  I think the last quote I got from them on it was, really roughly, "good idea; bad business."
falsestprophet 18y ago
There is something not quite right with your form handling in the signup process. I had to refresh a few times to get through it. And the next button should stand out more. But, otherwise, very well done guys. The presentation is beautiful and the economics of the business are mouthwatering. I have been toying with a (presumably) very similar plan, but I have been busy with other things and other schemes. Maybe I'll see you on the field. Good luck.
lpgauth 18y ago
Cool, this actually looks like something I could use... Could you guys add a way to sign up without an .edu address? My university uses @mail.mcgill.ca.
johnrob 18y ago
Great idea. Appealing to employers who want to hire was more relevant 1 year ago. Now they are appealing to job seekers. The best part is that when the tide turns again, they can simply re-launch their original idea!
- vaksel 18y ago
  its probably still bad throughout. Why hire some fresh college kid who you have to teach everything, when for the same money you can get someone with experience who is desperate to find a job and will take a paycut?
  - johnrob 18y ago
    That problem (or lack thereof) is not what they are addressing now. Companies who are hiring have little to complain about right now, because there are tons of candidates and little competition. Who does have stuff to complain about? Candidates. Who is going to be complaining the most? Recent college grads. By shifting their focus, they are once again addressing a pain.
    - sharpshoot 18y ago
      Spot on. You made some good points. Def email me on sumon [at] snaptalent [dot] com would love to catch up
  - Dilpil 18y ago
    The logic is as follows: the college graduate is out of work because he or she has just successfully finished a degree, whereas the 'someone with more experience' is out of work for an unknown reason.
maxniederhofer 18y ago
would be great to hear your story of why you decided to change model...?
- jamiequint 18y ago
  I hope to write a post on this sometime in the near future. I'll be sure to post it here.
joubert 18y ago
How is this different from the other gazillion job boards?
- palish 18y ago
  Snaptalent feels more personal. (That's just the first thing I thought of.)
  - jmtame 18y ago
    I would say that Google felt a little cuter, but the fact is it had better search results. I'm not really going to pay for something because it's more personal necessarily (although it helps). I still don't understand how this is differentiated?
    - sharpshoot 18y ago
      Hey, thanks for the comment. We've identified a huge pain point, and have decided to go and build a deep solution, with a minimum first feature set. Expect the obvious differentiation with snaptalent flair to appear over subsequent iterations - homepage doesn't say anything yet
  - palish 18y ago
    Followup: According to its karma, my comment apparently contributed nothing to this conversation, or was at least a net negative (doing more harm than good), so I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself next time. (Note: I am not complaining about karma count. You can reset my total karma count to 0 if you'd like. I'm complaining about being ridiculed for answering an open question honestly.)
    - plinkplonk 18y ago
      Palish said, "According to its karma, my comment apparently contributed nothing to the conversation, or at least a net negative (more harm than good)." I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've noticed many otherwise insightful comments being downmodded to zero over the last few months, mostly (I think) because people use downvotes to signal disgareement than incoherence/irrelevance. And even if your conclusion about net negative contribution were valid, "So I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself next time." might be a suboptimal reaction. Just something to think about.
gustaf 18y ago
Looks very cool! Can you add hyperisland.se ?
judegomila 18y ago
Well done guys!
sharpshoot 18y ago
Hey Guys, this is actually an early prerelease, so a little premature to announce a relaunch :) We're doing some interesting things inside and out and will let Hacker News members of what's up sometime soon. In between email me on Sumon [at] Snaptalent [dot] com
- ggruschow 18y ago
  It's good you posted this here. I was about to slam on you for not letting me sign up and post my jobs online without contacting sales reps (I'm hiring, so if the price wasn't insane I was going to give it a shot.)
  - sharpshoot 18y ago
    If you want to be one of the first companies to use it email me sumon [at] snaptalent [dot] com
- adamsmith 18y ago
  http://twitter.com/sharpshoot http://twitter.com/sharpshoot -- millions of twits like this: > Never ever surrender > Reaching March 2008 levels of confidence again. This is on > super proud of the progress being made by Imperial Entrepreneurs > Oh man - so excited by the prospect of hustling again. You are an animal!
Alex3917 18y ago
The "Online College Career Fair" is brilliant. It tells you exactly what the site does in four words. The only thing I don't like is that there isn't a screenshot gallery. I'm not going to make an account on a site like that unless I can see screenshots of what each company's page looks like, what my resume looks like, etc. I want to know that A) The site is useful B) The site is trustworthy. Without being able to see what the interaction looks like I can't do that, so I'm not going to sign up. If you want me to put out, buy me a drink first; asking for all my information right away is too much too fast. I need to know more about what I get out of it.
- sharpshoot 18y ago
  Hey Alex, thanks for feedback. For sure - we didn't anticipate anyone seeing that page. So look out for iterations over the next few weeks. Hard to optimize when you didn't anticipate being "hacker newsed!"
rokhayakebe 18y ago
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please be the Google for Resumes.
Dilpil 18y ago
I like the idea, but there are quite a few errors. I had to try 3 times to add my degree to my profile. Furthermore, I keep getting internal server errors when browsing companies (happens whenever I look at a page other than 1).
dimitry 18y ago
Good stuff Sumon and the crew. Being able to change and adapt is key and seems like you guys got it down. Go get 'em
zack 18y ago
I have some Feedback. 1) You are forced to enter a .edu email address, and then prompted to enter your University's name -- wtf? 2) The grey-on-white "details" text is hard to read and non-obvious. Otherwise great design and seems like a neat concept, definitely.
hbien 18y ago
This hits home pretty well - I'm a recent grad looking for a job. Just wondering, why did you guys decide to relaunch it with a different model? The original idea seemed good too.
drewcrawford 18y ago
I try to enter my college as "LeTourneau University" but it defaults to Lasell college. WTF? Also, help@staptalent.com is bouncing back.
- jamiequint 18y ago
  Sorry about that Drew, we'll look into it. We may have an incomplete list of schools. Like Sumon said earlier in the thread we didn't expect this to gain too much early attention. I just created the help@snaptalent.com email so you should have no problem with that anymore. If there are any other issues feel free to email me directly - jamie at snaptalent
shatastic 18y ago
Checked out the site briefly today but still not sure how I feel about posting my whole resume online - I suppose that's the way technology is heading though. Would be cool if it was like Pandora or something and you could give recommended companies a thumbs up/down and then the site got better at finding companies you're interested in.
- sharpshoot 18y ago
  good feedback - working on it. Thanks
thinkcomp 18y ago
An an employer, I'm stumped. What do I do? Call?
sho 18y ago
This is probably pretty superficial compared to the other feedback so far, but I just wanted to say I don't like the photo of someone doing a star jump on the front page. Maybe I'm more jaded than average but it really screams "generic stock photo" to me. I mean come on, is someone really going to be SO happy using your service that they just spontaeneously start jumping? I suggest a slideshow of handshake closeups or something instead. Never underestimate how impressed non-HN readers are by slideshows.
- swivelmaster 18y ago
  Handshake closeups, women with glasses wearing headsets talking to 'customers' on the phone, and cute, racially ambiguous twenty-something women sitting in grass being happy. Yes, it's the office of the future and an ad for PMS medication all rolled into one. Honestly I'm not sure where this comment is supposed to be going. I just wanted to agree about how stupid stock photography is in certain contexts. edit: Unnaturally happy-looking couples smiling at each other on a couch. Old couples in bath tubs on the beach. You know what I'm talking about....
  - patio11 18y ago
    Handshake closeups, women with glasses wearing headsets talking to 'customers' on the phone, and cute, racially ambiguous twenty-something women sitting in grass being happy. This is the visual equivalent of How To X, 10 Ways to Y, and The Secret That Z Doesn't Want You To Know in the field of copywriting. They're used because they work, in many circumstances. Ridiculously well, as a matter of fact. Cosmo has forgotten more about to write headlines than you or I will ever know, and they keep using 10 Ways to Y despite the fact that every time I see one I want to burn all paper in the vicinity. I so wanted to make a mini-site devoted only to girl-in-a-headset photos, because I thought a) good for a laugh and b) there are some easy affiliate commissions to make there, and the [girl in a headset] SERP can't be that tough. But I held off because, eh, not quite enough ha-ha in that joke to motivate me to do it. Then somebody actually did it. http://www.headsethotties.com/ http://www.headsethotties.com/
    - 18y ago

48 points by flavio87 18y ago

vaksel 18y ago

I thought their old idea had merit...what went wrong?

aston 18y ago
I think the last quote I got from them on it was, really roughly, "good idea; bad business."

falsestprophet 18y ago

There is something not quite right with your form handling in the signup process. I had to refresh a few times to get through it. And the next button should stand out more. But, otherwise, very well done guys. The presentation is beautiful and the economics of the business are mouthwatering. I have been toying with a (presumably) very similar plan, but I have been busy with other things and other schemes. Maybe I'll see you on the field. Good luck.

lpgauth 18y ago

Cool, this actually looks like something I could use... Could you guys add a way to sign up without an .edu address? My university uses @mail.mcgill.ca.

johnrob 18y ago

Great idea. Appealing to employers who want to hire was more relevant 1 year ago. Now they are appealing to job seekers. The best part is that when the tide turns again, they can simply re-launch their original idea!

vaksel 18y ago
its probably still bad throughout. Why hire some fresh college kid who you have to teach everything, when for the same money you can get someone with experience who is desperate to find a job and will take a paycut?
- johnrob 18y ago
  That problem (or lack thereof) is not what they are addressing now. Companies who are hiring have little to complain about right now, because there are tons of candidates and little competition. Who does have stuff to complain about? Candidates. Who is going to be complaining the most? Recent college grads. By shifting their focus, they are once again addressing a pain.
  - sharpshoot 18y ago
    Spot on. You made some good points. Def email me on sumon [at] snaptalent [dot] com would love to catch up
- Dilpil 18y ago
  The logic is as follows: the college graduate is out of work because he or she has just successfully finished a degree, whereas the 'someone with more experience' is out of work for an unknown reason.

maxniederhofer 18y ago

would be great to hear your story of why you decided to change model...?

jamiequint 18y ago
I hope to write a post on this sometime in the near future. I'll be sure to post it here.

joubert 18y ago

How is this different from the other gazillion job boards?

palish 18y ago
Snaptalent feels more personal. (That's just the first thing I thought of.)
- jmtame 18y ago
  I would say that Google felt a little cuter, but the fact is it had better search results. I'm not really going to pay for something because it's more personal necessarily (although it helps). I still don't understand how this is differentiated?
  - sharpshoot 18y ago
    Hey, thanks for the comment. We've identified a huge pain point, and have decided to go and build a deep solution, with a minimum first feature set. Expect the obvious differentiation with snaptalent flair to appear over subsequent iterations - homepage doesn't say anything yet
- palish 18y ago
  Followup: According to its karma, my comment apparently contributed nothing to this conversation, or was at least a net negative (doing more harm than good), so I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself next time. (Note: I am not complaining about karma count. You can reset my total karma count to 0 if you'd like. I'm complaining about being ridiculed for answering an open question honestly.)
  - plinkplonk 18y ago
    Palish said, "According to its karma, my comment apparently contributed nothing to the conversation, or at least a net negative (more harm than good)." I wouldn't be so sure about that. I've noticed many otherwise insightful comments being downmodded to zero over the last few months, mostly (I think) because people use downvotes to signal disgareement than incoherence/irrelevance. And even if your conclusion about net negative contribution were valid, "So I'll be sure to keep my thoughts to myself next time." might be a suboptimal reaction. Just something to think about.

gustaf 18y ago

Looks very cool! Can you add hyperisland.se ?

judegomila 18y ago

Well done guys!

sharpshoot 18y ago

Hey Guys, this is actually an early prerelease, so a little premature to announce a relaunch :) We're doing some interesting things inside and out and will let Hacker News members of what's up sometime soon. In between email me on Sumon [at] Snaptalent [dot] com

ggruschow 18y ago
It's good you posted this here. I was about to slam on you for not letting me sign up and post my jobs online without contacting sales reps (I'm hiring, so if the price wasn't insane I was going to give it a shot.)
- sharpshoot 18y ago
  If you want to be one of the first companies to use it email me sumon [at] snaptalent [dot] com
adamsmith 18y ago
http://twitter.com/sharpshoot http://twitter.com/sharpshoot -- millions of twits like this: > Never ever surrender > Reaching March 2008 levels of confidence again. This is on > super proud of the progress being made by Imperial Entrepreneurs > Oh man - so excited by the prospect of hustling again. You are an animal!

Alex3917 18y ago

The "Online College Career Fair" is brilliant. It tells you exactly what the site does in four words. The only thing I don't like is that there isn't a screenshot gallery. I'm not going to make an account on a site like that unless I can see screenshots of what each company's page looks like, what my resume looks like, etc. I want to know that A) The site is useful B) The site is trustworthy. Without being able to see what the interaction looks like I can't do that, so I'm not going to sign up. If you want me to put out, buy me a drink first; asking for all my information right away is too much too fast. I need to know more about what I get out of it.

sharpshoot 18y ago
Hey Alex, thanks for feedback. For sure - we didn't anticipate anyone seeing that page. So look out for iterations over the next few weeks. Hard to optimize when you didn't anticipate being "hacker newsed!"

rokhayakebe 18y ago

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please be the Google for Resumes.

Dilpil 18y ago

I like the idea, but there are quite a few errors. I had to try 3 times to add my degree to my profile. Furthermore, I keep getting internal server errors when browsing companies (happens whenever I look at a page other than 1).

dimitry 18y ago

Good stuff Sumon and the crew. Being able to change and adapt is key and seems like you guys got it down. Go get 'em

zack 18y ago

I have some Feedback. 1) You are forced to enter a .edu email address, and then prompted to enter your University's name -- wtf? 2) The grey-on-white "details" text is hard to read and non-obvious. Otherwise great design and seems like a neat concept, definitely.

hbien 18y ago

This hits home pretty well - I'm a recent grad looking for a job. Just wondering, why did you guys decide to relaunch it with a different model? The original idea seemed good too.

drewcrawford 18y ago

I try to enter my college as "LeTourneau University" but it defaults to Lasell college. WTF? Also, help@staptalent.com is bouncing back.

jamiequint 18y ago
Sorry about that Drew, we'll look into it. We may have an incomplete list of schools. Like Sumon said earlier in the thread we didn't expect this to gain too much early attention. I just created the help@snaptalent.com email so you should have no problem with that anymore. If there are any other issues feel free to email me directly - jamie at snaptalent

shatastic 18y ago

Checked out the site briefly today but still not sure how I feel about posting my whole resume online - I suppose that's the way technology is heading though. Would be cool if it was like Pandora or something and you could give recommended companies a thumbs up/down and then the site got better at finding companies you're interested in.

sharpshoot 18y ago
good feedback - working on it. Thanks

thinkcomp 18y ago

An an employer, I'm stumped. What do I do? Call?

sho 18y ago

This is probably pretty superficial compared to the other feedback so far, but I just wanted to say I don't like the photo of someone doing a star jump on the front page. Maybe I'm more jaded than average but it really screams "generic stock photo" to me. I mean come on, is someone really going to be SO happy using your service that they just spontaeneously start jumping? I suggest a slideshow of handshake closeups or something instead. Never underestimate how impressed non-HN readers are by slideshows.

swivelmaster 18y ago
Handshake closeups, women with glasses wearing headsets talking to 'customers' on the phone, and cute, racially ambiguous twenty-something women sitting in grass being happy. Yes, it's the office of the future and an ad for PMS medication all rolled into one. Honestly I'm not sure where this comment is supposed to be going. I just wanted to agree about how stupid stock photography is in certain contexts. edit: Unnaturally happy-looking couples smiling at each other on a couch. Old couples in bath tubs on the beach. You know what I'm talking about....
- patio11 18y ago
  Handshake closeups, women with glasses wearing headsets talking to 'customers' on the phone, and cute, racially ambiguous twenty-something women sitting in grass being happy. This is the visual equivalent of How To X, 10 Ways to Y, and The Secret That Z Doesn't Want You To Know in the field of copywriting. They're used because they work, in many circumstances. Ridiculously well, as a matter of fact. Cosmo has forgotten more about to write headlines than you or I will ever know, and they keep using 10 Ways to Y despite the fact that every time I see one I want to burn all paper in the vicinity. I so wanted to make a mini-site devoted only to girl-in-a-headset photos, because I thought a) good for a laugh and b) there are some easy affiliate commissions to make there, and the [girl in a headset] SERP can't be that tough. But I held off because, eh, not quite enough ha-ha in that joke to motivate me to do it. Then somebody actually did it. http://www.headsethotties.com/ http://www.headsethotties.com/
  - 18y ago