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CHAPTER 62Company Backgrounder

To understand this case study, it's important to have at least a high‐level understanding of this company's business. It's a typical, two‐sided marketplace with employers on one side and job seekers on the other.

On the employer side, the company sells job postings to businesses, ranging from individual hiring managers at small businesses, up to medium‐sized businesses. They were starting to see interest from larger enterprises with dedicated HR departments, but the product at this point in time was not yet designed or suitable for this market.

On the job‐seeker side, the focus is on people actively looking for new employment—in their case, mainly for professional (aka white‐collar) jobs. Specifically, these are not hourly or temporary workers.¹

At the time of this case study, the company is currently five years old, with annual revenues of approximately $45MM and growing at roughly 30% per year. They are close to profitability but are trying to focus on growth.

There are approximately 230 people in the company—95 in product/engineering, 45 in sales, 17 in marketing, 33 in customer success, 10 in IT, and 30 in G&A.

In terms of the executive team, there was a CEO, CFO, head of sales (CRO), and head of marketing (CMO). Then, of course, there was a head of product (CPO) and a head of technology (CTO) and you'll read about both of them below.

It's worth pointing out that in large enterprises, this is also about the size of a typical business unit. ...