"Leave job boards in the dust." A bold statement for sure, but Sam Beiler, CEO and co-founder at Boostpoint, believes his startup has the muscle to really stick it to the job board industry. How? With a mix of social media marketing, automation, SMS and lots more, like - of course - an AI writing assistant. A lovely cocktail, for sure, but is it enough to put Indeed out of business. Well, about that ... oh, you'll just have to listen to find out what we think of Boostpoint.
[00:00:00] Like Shark Tank, then you'll love firing squad, Chad Soosh and Joel Cheeseman are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest,
[00:00:08] the ballsyest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they've got what it takes to make it out alive.
[00:00:15] Big O'Foxhole and Duck for Cover, kids. The Chad and Cheese podcast is taking it to a whole other level.
[00:00:22] Awwww. Yeah, it's Pink Floyd's favorite podcast, AKA The Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheeseman.
[00:00:31] Joined as always, the Roger Waters to my David Gilmore. Chad Soosh is in the house and you are now listening to Firing Squad as we welcome
[00:00:39] Sam Baylor.
[00:00:42] Biler.
[00:00:43] Biler. Sorry, we had some Amish talk in the green.
[00:00:46] Oh, Baylor.
[00:00:47] We'll just call you Sam from here on out.
[00:00:50] There's also a correction. It wasn't Pink Floyd, it's Stink Floyd. The cover band loves us, not Pink Floyd.
[00:00:57] Stink Floyd? Oh, well that's more appropriate. By the way, Sam, your name auto-corrects to Boiler, so just you probably knew that.
[00:01:04] Boiler. Nice.
[00:01:06] I should throw that into AI. I wonder what AI would do.
[00:01:10] Pink might not want to know, Sam. He might not want to know.
[00:01:13] Anyway, you are CEO and co-founder of a company called Boost Point. Founded back in 2018. Welcome to Firing Squad.
[00:01:21] A lot of people don't know you, don't know the company. Before we get into the nitty gritty of the business, tell us about Sam.
[00:01:27] We know so much about you from the green room that you need to share with the world. What are some of those bits and pieces that help us understand you, the person?
[00:01:34] Likes to express himself in watercolors.
[00:01:37] Yeah, not quite me. Well, thanks for having me on the show guys. But yeah, a bit about me. So I'm based in Lancaster, PA, which is between Harrisburg and Philadelphia on the east side of Pennsylvania.
[00:01:47] Amish country.
[00:01:48] Amish country, yeah. So with the last name like Byler, that's like a huge like Amish roots name. So like that's actually, I run like a technology company, a software company.
[00:01:58] Very Amish.
[00:01:59] I grew up like half my relatives are Amish. My parents left the Amish like before I was born, but like really rooted in like the conservative Amish culture here in Lancaster.
[00:02:10] So I grew up like doing construction with my dad and then like in a manufacturing company. And so kind of an unconventional way into tech and software.
[00:02:21] But it's been it's been a fun journey right now. I have four kids as well. So this year we're going to get on our bikes a lot and be outside.
[00:02:30] Nice, very nice. Well, Sam, welcome to your own personal room spring. Now this is called firing squad, right? And this is how it's going to go.
[00:02:39] Sound of the bell. You are going to have two minutes to pitch. Boost point at the end of two minutes, we're going to hit you with about 20 minutes of Q&A.
[00:02:48] Be sure to be concise or you're going to get hit with the crickets. That means tighten up your game at the end of Q&A.
[00:02:54] You're going to receive a big applause. No boost necessary.
[00:02:58] Crack that champagne because you're on the way. Golf clap. You're moving in the right direction, but you're going to need a little nitrous to get this bad boy moving faster.
[00:03:08] And last but not least, the firing squad.
[00:03:12] No amount of boost will get this Jalopy over the finish line. Call the junkyard and try again. That's firing squad, Sam. Are you ready?
[00:03:22] Ready or not, let's go.
[00:03:23] All right, baby. Three, two.
[00:03:25] Hey everybody. So, boost point going to tell you a bit about boost point. Boost point is a recruitment marketing platform.
[00:03:34] The problem with the way people are finding jobs today is just it's evolving, especially for hourly workers.
[00:03:41] And job boards relying on job board advertising no longer is sufficient to fulfill a candidate pool of qualified candidates,
[00:03:51] especially for hourly positions for mid-market and enterprise companies. That's where boost point comes in.
[00:03:56] Our platform is powered by targeted social media advertising to help you get in front of the passive job seekers, especially for hourly workers.
[00:04:06] We do this with three core products. One is our generative AI tool, which helps convert boring job descriptions into high performing ads that you can place targeted at scale on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
[00:04:24] We have an automated feature that we can monitor job feeds, XML feeds and then automatically publish job ads at scale on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
[00:04:37] And then lastly our SMS product kind of ties the loop where you can automatically engage with these candidates as soon as they're up flying through these social media ads.
[00:04:49] And those three platforms make up what is boost point as a software technology platform. That's about it. I'm not sure where I'm at, a minute and a half, two minutes.
[00:04:59] We can close it up Sam. We can close it up early. Let's talk about the name. Chad had a lot of fun with the boost name.
[00:05:07] Personally, I think I'm buying cell service from Ted Danson or Ryan Reynolds.
[00:05:12] Maybe I'm drinking a protein shake in the morning. So talk about the name. Boost Point doesn't really say social media marketing. So talk about the genesis of the brand.
[00:05:22] The genesis of the brand, Boost Point is around targeted advertising. So boosting mainly, you know, the thing especially with recruitment advertising is mostly like around a certain geography.
[00:05:36] And so it's like the idea of boosting and creating more awareness for brands around a certain geography.
[00:05:43] It's an answer. It's not sexy, but it's an answer. All right, all right Sam.
[00:05:48] Also the dot com was available back in the live.
[00:05:52] I'll give you that. It's not .ai, goboostpoint.io or whatever. Yeah, I'll give you that.
[00:05:58] I will say we're most commonly misreferenced of our name tends to be Goose Point.
[00:06:03] I don't know how that just happens almost every time.
[00:06:06] It'd be Gross Point in Michigan. What did you say?
[00:06:08] Yeah, Gross Point. All right. So you've raised 700,000-ish dollars. You've been around for a while. Are you just that profitable?
[00:06:16] Are you looking to raise a series A? What have you done with the 700,000? Talk about the finances.
[00:06:22] Yeah, so our goal from the beginning was to be super capital efficient.
[00:06:27] And we've done that through maintaining a tight line on our expenses and growing at a healthy rate.
[00:06:37] We've had positive growth every year since we started back in 2018.
[00:06:42] And it's just really stemmed from capital efficiency and keeping a tight reign on that.
[00:06:49] Well, excellent. Talk about the team. So how big is the team? Who is your co-founder?
[00:06:54] Give us a little insight on the actual team.
[00:06:57] Yeah, so there's 12 of us, 12 full-time employees right now at Goose Point.
[00:07:02] We do all the product development in-house.
[00:07:05] This is our conference room. So we have a physical location where...
[00:07:11] We're piping in the ceiling, but we won't talk about it.
[00:07:16] Danger.
[00:07:17] Our team is all local here in Lancaster, which has been a lot of fun.
[00:07:21] And I still see a lot of value in being in a space like as a startup.
[00:07:26] So a third of the team is the product team.
[00:07:30] And then we've got sales, marketing and customer success.
[00:07:34] Talk about your background and then also your co-founder's background.
[00:07:38] Is it in recruiting technology? Where do you come from? Where do they come from?
[00:07:43] Personally, I have a sales and marketing background.
[00:07:45] So I got my wheels in business specifically first in sales and then figured out marketing,
[00:07:51] took a very unconventional approach.
[00:07:53] Like, didn't go to college or anything for marketing or anything.
[00:07:57] I actually didn't go to college, which is again kind of an unconventional way of getting where I'm at right now.
[00:08:02] But just really learned and understood sales and then specifically marketing the past decade in relation to social media.
[00:08:09] My co-founder, he brings the technical component to the table.
[00:08:14] So I know nothing about like coding and all that stuff.
[00:08:18] But we synced up. That was kind of another weird one.
[00:08:21] It's like it's hard to find like skilled engineers like in Lancaster PA.
[00:08:26] Especially when you're only hiring local.
[00:08:29] Yes, I did. See, that's a problem.
[00:08:31] We were super fortunate.
[00:08:32] That's kind of a long story how we got connected,
[00:08:34] but then even building the product team to where it is today.
[00:08:37] Like it's all local talent and super talented talent.
[00:08:42] But yeah, we've been super fortunate to be connected.
[00:08:45] So what is the major problem you are trying to help the market with?
[00:08:50] And who does it help?
[00:08:51] So we really focus on helping companies with over a thousand employees attract,
[00:08:59] especially an hourly workforce.
[00:09:02] The core problem that we've seen, especially over the past three years,
[00:09:08] is the way people are finding jobs is evolving.
[00:09:12] Even just like the broken process of how people find jobs,
[00:09:16] the whole idea like to go to Indeed and quick apply for a hundred jobs.
[00:09:21] And then you just have like an oversaturation of unqualified candidates because of kind of that broken experience.
[00:09:28] So helping the recruiter to be able to get to that point faster, recruitment marketing.
[00:09:33] Who are you trying to target with this solution?
[00:09:37] Who's having pain on a daily basis?
[00:09:40] Our buyer is either in recruitment marketing or like VP of talent acquisition
[00:09:45] where whoever's job it is to and different organization sizes,
[00:09:49] kind of different titles.
[00:09:51] But basically whoever's responsibility is to source talent and attract talent
[00:09:55] and deploy advertising dollars.
[00:09:58] So you've got Gen AI, which pretty much the whole world has today.
[00:10:03] Do you use generative AI in monitoring the job feeds to be able to create content off of that
[00:10:09] and then also the engagement through SMS?
[00:10:13] Is generative AI pretty much wrapped into the entire platform?
[00:10:17] Whereas we specifically use generative AI is in the content creation of ads.
[00:10:23] So one of the, especially when you think of programmatic advertising
[00:10:27] and trying to fit that process into social media ads.
[00:10:31] There's a little bit of a disconnect because like, well, Facebook isn't Indeed or like the job board format.
[00:10:37] So what we're doing with generative AI is taking your job description.
[00:10:41] Hey, here's that boring job description and reformatting that with, you know, the right headlines,
[00:10:48] the right ad copy to actually encourage engagement on social media
[00:10:53] because you copy and paste a job description in a Facebook ad, it's not going to perform.
[00:10:57] So that's specifically the role that generative AI plays within our technology
[00:11:03] is to convert those job descriptions into high performing social media ad content.
[00:11:08] Okay, so generative AI, what model are you guys currently using?
[00:11:13] We use open AI GPT-4.
[00:11:16] Gotcha, okay. So generative AI is obviously commodity now because everybody has it.
[00:11:21] So what is boost points moat against the rest of the market?
[00:11:25] Because everybody has generative AI now, whether it's Amazon's, whether it's Google's,
[00:11:31] whether it's using open AI and Microsoft.
[00:11:33] So what's your moat?
[00:11:34] Our moat is specifically how to leverage that for social advertising.
[00:11:38] So like all the models that we've seen like just kind of used out of the box
[00:11:42] and without the expertise of understanding social media advertising, it's all vanilla.
[00:11:49] And you don't actually get like high performing ads.
[00:11:52] So that's our specific moat to this is like we bring the social media expertise to this
[00:11:59] and how to leverage AI to leverage it into super high performing ads.
[00:12:06] So what about ad agencies who've been doing this for a very long time?
[00:12:10] Obviously have deeper pockets and they have access to generative AI.
[00:12:16] It seems like they might be your biggest competitors,
[00:12:18] prospectively down the road.
[00:12:20] Is that the case?
[00:12:21] Yeah, what we've seen the gap there is the lack of automation
[00:12:25] like because recruitment advertising agencies are more structured,
[00:12:31] like historically structured as like a services company,
[00:12:35] leveraging AI as like an augmentation to make their people more efficient.
[00:12:39] And where our approach has been always as a technology and a software company,
[00:12:43] where we just like bake it all into the technology and the software,
[00:12:47] versus relying on more professional services model.
[00:12:52] Just curious, why wouldn't a company just go to Facebook, create an ad,
[00:12:57] go to marketing and say, hey, can you make us a little square ad
[00:13:00] that says we need warehouse workers and put it out there for us?
[00:13:04] Like is that conversation not happening?
[00:13:07] I'm just curious why people don't just go to the,
[00:13:10] go right to the cow for the milk and have to go through a middleman.
[00:13:13] Yeah, the answer is that the answer of that is kind of in the details
[00:13:17] of performing social media ads.
[00:13:20] So the reality is that most talent acquisition teams are very under supported
[00:13:24] when it comes to marketing, especially around social media.
[00:13:28] It's like it's kind of, you know, not all TA teams have like an internal recruitment marketing team.
[00:13:33] If they do, they're definitely not social media ad experts
[00:13:37] because we're not just talking about organic social.
[00:13:39] That's a whole other animal.
[00:13:40] We're talking about deploying thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars a month
[00:13:45] into Facebook and TikTok ads.
[00:13:48] And there's certain like details, even like one of the main things like we leverage
[00:13:53] kind of building a quick apply like experience.
[00:13:56] Like it's easy.
[00:13:57] Facebook loves your money, Meta.
[00:13:58] They love to take your money.
[00:13:59] So it's super easy to deploy advertising dollars and to spin up an ad.
[00:14:03] But how do you actually have that perform into like, okay, what's my cost per applicant?
[00:14:08] What's my cost per hire?
[00:14:10] And like really being able to optimize for hiring.
[00:14:13] Your dashboard makes all that a reality.
[00:14:17] Like here are my ads.
[00:14:18] Here's what I'm targeting.
[00:14:19] Here's how many clicks.
[00:14:20] Here's how many views.
[00:14:21] How many applicants am I getting?
[00:14:23] Like you guys kind of closed that loop for the consumer.
[00:14:26] Is that what I'm hearing?
[00:14:27] Yeah.
[00:14:28] The biggest thing that way we closed that loop is the candidate flow.
[00:14:32] So because like social media is just such a different platform, people are on their
[00:14:36] phones, super distracted.
[00:14:37] So like creating an ad that's just directing people to your careers page or to
[00:14:42] an external landing page for them to apply.
[00:14:45] The ROI is not going to be positive.
[00:14:47] Like we've done a ton of A.B.
[00:14:48] tests around like conversion.
[00:14:49] So you need to leverage the internal conversion pages of these platforms.
[00:14:53] And so, but basically the candidate data then is flowing from the meta platform and
[00:14:58] like to be able to capture that and then to integrate with ATS platforms for the
[00:15:03] recruiters to be like, Hey, someone applied on Facebook and I can instantly access
[00:15:07] that candidate because it's in my ATS.
[00:15:10] Our software helps with also like streamlining the candidate flow.
[00:15:14] Okay.
[00:15:15] You say it's easy, but like Facebook has put some pretty hard restrictions on job
[00:15:20] opportunities and promoting and even I not even hiring anybody because it's job
[00:15:26] related or employment related.
[00:15:28] My ad goes through a certain level of policing.
[00:15:30] Yep.
[00:15:31] Talk about that and how much of a challenge or hurdle that is for your
[00:15:34] clients when they realize, Oh, this ad isn't approved for Facebook or does
[00:15:38] that not happen in your system?
[00:15:40] Well, I mean, that's another mode to our platform because like that's one
[00:15:43] of the bigger challenges if you're doing it yourself natively through the
[00:15:46] ATS manager platform where our software has a lot of those checks and balances
[00:15:50] is like, okay, there's certain questions you're not allowed to ask in a lead form
[00:15:54] on Facebook, you know, or to get flagged.
[00:15:56] So like we have a lot of that stuff kind of filtered beforehand before you ever
[00:16:00] launched the ad met as a hell of a platform to work with and we've
[00:16:04] needed to ride, you know, the changes of the platform.
[00:16:07] But I mean, this is the only thing we do.
[00:16:10] Like we don't even do organic social media at this point.
[00:16:13] So it's enabled us to stay ahead of the curve because we monitor just this
[00:16:17] and we're not trying to do a million different things, which has enabled
[00:16:20] us to stay ahead of the curve with a lot of the things that meta is doing.
[00:16:24] And so far it's worked.
[00:16:26] Who's your target client?
[00:16:27] Who's the perfect client for boost point?
[00:16:31] Who are you guys really honed in on?
[00:16:33] Our ideal customer profile really segments, you know, companies
[00:16:37] with over a thousand employees hiring hourly workers.
[00:16:41] So that tends to be a lot like the frontline workforce.
[00:16:44] 40% of our customers are in the healthcare industry.
[00:16:47] We do a lot in like trucking, transportation, manufacturing,
[00:16:51] warehousing, postal service, you know, things like that as well.
[00:16:55] But yeah, kind of the common denominator isn't necessarily
[00:16:58] a specific industry, but it's like company size with the type
[00:17:03] of position that they're hiring.
[00:17:04] Okay.
[00:17:05] Are you working with any recruitment ad agencies to be able
[00:17:09] to provide them market differentiating kind of capabilities
[00:17:14] in prospectively white labeling anything like that?
[00:17:17] We are.
[00:17:18] Our newest initiative, most recent initiative is our ability
[00:17:22] to launch ads via monitoring and XML feed, which has opened
[00:17:26] up the opportunity for us to work with programmatic advertising
[00:17:29] platforms as well and open up social media as a channel
[00:17:34] for those partners.
[00:17:35] And that's been really exciting.
[00:17:37] Yeah.
[00:17:38] So are those white label types of integrations that you have
[00:17:42] that just automatically pop and you start using or,
[00:17:45] and you're working with like the recruit X or the,
[00:17:48] the appcast or what have you, or are you working specifically
[00:17:52] direct to brand on this, the actual employer?
[00:17:55] How, how is that happening?
[00:17:57] We do both.
[00:17:58] It depends on the customer need.
[00:18:00] Okay.
[00:18:01] If the end organization that's hiring is looking at this
[00:18:04] as like a huge like brand play as well, like we will advertise
[00:18:08] on behalf of their social media profiles so that they get the
[00:18:11] added benefit of like the reach and followers that comes
[00:18:15] from supporting a page with, with advertising dollars.
[00:18:19] In that case, we'll usually be a part of the customer
[00:18:22] conversation and it's more of a partnership.
[00:18:25] But then we do white labeling as well.
[00:18:27] We're just, Hey, the need is candidate flow, you know,
[00:18:30] from social media.
[00:18:31] And so we're just in the back end monitoring the feed, you know,
[00:18:34] pushing candidates.
[00:18:35] So how does that happen?
[00:18:36] You monitor the job feeds, you isolate the jobs that you
[00:18:40] really need to focus on or at least the company helps you
[00:18:43] understand which jobs you need to isolate and identify
[00:18:46] on which ones you need to focus on.
[00:18:48] Then the system does what?
[00:18:50] Our system then takes the, the, the filtered jobs,
[00:18:54] you know, it for filtering from the feed.
[00:18:56] The first step is generating the content.
[00:18:59] So convert and that's where genera AI comes into play.
[00:19:02] It's like looking at the job descriptions and generating
[00:19:05] the content for the social media ads.
[00:19:08] We're then taking that content and based on the geolocation
[00:19:12] and all the variables within, you know, the items within
[00:19:16] the job description itself, we're then automatically
[00:19:19] posting that to the meta platform to create targeted ads.
[00:19:25] So that in itself is entirely automated.
[00:19:27] No person has to push a button, nothing.
[00:19:30] It just automatically starts when you receive a job from the feed.
[00:19:34] Right now we have one step that's manual that kind of steps
[00:19:38] in between there right now.
[00:19:39] We just launched the beta feature of this.
[00:19:41] Ultimately it will be completely automated, but you know,
[00:19:45] even the monitoring like one of the details is like, well,
[00:19:47] what if a job goes down?
[00:19:48] You know, just and like we have like every three hours
[00:19:50] we monitor a job feed.
[00:19:52] And so if the job closes, you know, the ad will
[00:19:54] automatically close so that you're not getting candidates
[00:19:57] for jobs that are still open.
[00:19:59] You're a cobbler selling shoes, which usually means
[00:20:01] you have the worst pair of shoes historically.
[00:20:03] So putting your own company on the microscope,
[00:20:06] your marketing solution, you should have kick-ass marketing
[00:20:10] just because that's the business that you're in.
[00:20:12] So I'm curious, you say things on the site like
[00:20:14] leave job boards in the dust, like which, you know,
[00:20:17] I certainly appreciate it, but you get really out there.
[00:20:19] But I want to throw some numbers at you and just
[00:20:22] get your sense of are you happy with that or not.
[00:20:24] So you have about 680 Instagram followers,
[00:20:27] 900 Facebook fans, 177 YouTube subscribers,
[00:20:31] 604 LinkedIn, you're a five year old company.
[00:20:34] So that's about 100 a year.
[00:20:36] You have no TikTok presence, which I'm kind of shocked at.
[00:20:40] Any marketing companies have a TikTok account,
[00:20:42] I would think.
[00:20:43] Talk about your marketing.
[00:20:45] Are you happy with where you are?
[00:20:47] Also, you had a podcast that hasn't published
[00:20:49] since May of 23.
[00:20:51] Podcasting is hard though, so I understand that.
[00:20:53] But marketing-wise, are you happy with where you're going?
[00:20:56] Is it effective? Retargeting efforts, what not?
[00:20:59] Talk about your own marketing and its effectiveness.
[00:21:01] Yes, or internal marketing.
[00:21:03] I'm a big believer in especially a startup
[00:21:06] with limited resources.
[00:21:08] And again, kind of our capital efficiency mindset
[00:21:11] is finding one, maybe two channels
[00:21:14] that are super effective and really leaning on those
[00:21:17] because we have a small marketing team.
[00:21:19] I have a marketing director and we have a content person.
[00:21:22] And so for them to be really effective,
[00:21:25] we've really needed to focus in on two primary channels.
[00:21:30] And that's different, the reality in our space
[00:21:34] because B2B to HR and talent acquisition teams,
[00:21:37] it's different platforms than what we encourage
[00:21:40] our customers to be active on.
[00:21:42] Because to find hourly workers, TikTok, Instagram,
[00:21:45] Facebook, those are the platforms to be active on.
[00:21:49] The bandwidth isn't there. Got it.
[00:21:51] Yeah, LinkedIn, email marketing,
[00:21:54] we've found more success there.
[00:21:56] Who's your competition? You seem to be all around.
[00:21:58] You seem to be marketing but we do SMS.
[00:22:01] Now we're doing automated generative AI stuff.
[00:22:05] You just talked about focus and marketing.
[00:22:07] I would say what about focus in your solutions?
[00:22:10] Tile that together for me to where it makes sense.
[00:22:13] Who's your competition? Is it the candidate ID or I-SIMs?
[00:22:18] Is it text recruiting? Help me understand that.
[00:22:23] Help me clarify that.
[00:22:24] At the end of the day, the problem we're solving
[00:22:26] is to be able to source candidates,
[00:22:28] qualify candidates from social media
[00:22:31] and help organizations hire those candidates.
[00:22:34] Our biggest competitive when you look at
[00:22:37] who holds the majority of the wallet
[00:22:40] would be job platforms like Indeed,
[00:22:44] because that's where most job advertising
[00:22:46] is currently spent.
[00:22:47] From a wallet size, I'd put Indeed
[00:22:50] as our biggest competitor,
[00:22:51] even though our products aren't like apples to apples.
[00:22:54] From encapsulating our products,
[00:22:56] really what we've found is to be successful
[00:22:59] to source candidates through social media
[00:23:01] and then hire those candidates,
[00:23:03] it's required us to build other features
[00:23:06] that aid in the candidate experience.
[00:23:08] Because just publishing a Facebook ad doesn't get you success.
[00:23:11] Just publishing a Facebook ad and generating a candidate
[00:23:13] doesn't give you success in hiring.
[00:23:15] So connecting with the candidate,
[00:23:17] that's where our SMS tool comes into place
[00:23:19] and helping from,
[00:23:21] hey, this person found us on a Facebook ad
[00:23:23] to we're connected with the recruitment team.
[00:23:26] That's really where the Boost Point technology sits.
[00:23:28] Gotcha.
[00:23:29] You say on your site that you're loved by recruiters
[00:23:31] across the globe.
[00:23:32] So talk about your global footprint.
[00:23:35] Yeah, so we released a free tool.
[00:23:38] It's like chat GPT for recruiters
[00:23:41] and Q4 of last year.
[00:23:44] So it started as a freemium tool,
[00:23:46] a lead generation tool for us.
[00:23:48] It provides a lot of value.
[00:23:49] And with that tool,
[00:23:50] we've really been able to expand our reach a lot.
[00:23:53] We have users across the globe
[00:23:55] with that product specifically.
[00:23:57] For our advertising platform, Boost Point Attract,
[00:24:00] we focused on North America specifically.
[00:24:04] Tie those again together for me.
[00:24:07] You've got generative AI,
[00:24:09] then you've got the monitoring of job feeds,
[00:24:12] then you have SMS.
[00:24:14] How do those three work together?
[00:24:17] How those three work together is,
[00:24:19] number one,
[00:24:20] you need an efficient way to build ads and launch ads.
[00:24:23] So that's where our generative AI
[00:24:25] and our advertising tool comes into play.
[00:24:29] To really find hiring success,
[00:24:32] we saw the need to build a method
[00:24:35] for companies to connect with the candidates immediately as well.
[00:24:38] Because what happens a lot is like,
[00:24:39] oh, you generate a candidate,
[00:24:41] it gets into the ATS
[00:24:43] and two days later,
[00:24:45] recruiters reaching out to this candidate,
[00:24:47] they applied on social media,
[00:24:48] they were distracted,
[00:24:50] and they don't even remember you
[00:24:52] two, three days later.
[00:24:54] And so that's why we built out our SMS tool
[00:24:57] and there's re-engagement things
[00:24:59] that you can do with that as well.
[00:25:01] We can also integrate with ATS platforms,
[00:25:03] like if there are text recruiters,
[00:25:05] people that are using text recruiters
[00:25:06] or other SMS tools,
[00:25:07] Paradox, Phenom,
[00:25:08] we play well with partners in that space as well.
[00:25:11] But we need to have some sort of technology
[00:25:15] to automatically engage with candidates
[00:25:17] for this to be successful,
[00:25:19] and that's why we built a platform for that.
[00:25:21] So is it mainly to re-engage them
[00:25:23] to complete the application?
[00:25:25] Is it mainly to engage them
[00:25:27] to complete the interview scheduling?
[00:25:30] What is it specifically needed for?
[00:25:33] The primary use cases to take from,
[00:25:35] hey, I've filled out a quick-apply kind of experience
[00:25:38] and now I need to schedule my interview
[00:25:40] and I need to get connected to most companies.
[00:25:42] That's kind of the workflow.
[00:25:44] Some of it's like, hey, complete the full application,
[00:25:46] but whatever that next stage in the hiring process is,
[00:25:49] that's what that tool encourages.
[00:25:52] Gotcha. Okay.
[00:25:53] This, I don't know, Joel,
[00:25:54] sounds a little expensive.
[00:25:56] Sounds really expensive, Chad.
[00:25:58] You actually got to pay Facebook for all the ads
[00:26:00] and then you got to pay these guys.
[00:26:02] What can I expect to pay for this product there, Sam?
[00:26:06] So we've removed a lot of the barriers to get started.
[00:26:09] We were just like, hey, in a space
[00:26:11] where a lot of people are requiring annual contracts
[00:26:13] and a minimum ad spend,
[00:26:15] we're like, hey, we have a technology that we built
[00:26:17] that can just do this.
[00:26:19] So our minimum, it's wrapped into how much you're investing
[00:26:22] into the social media platform.
[00:26:24] Our pricing model for attracting the advertising piece
[00:26:28] is a minimum of $1,500 a month of spend.
[00:26:33] Boostpoint just retains a portion of that advertising spend.
[00:26:37] So we are good fit.
[00:26:38] We do a lot in like the healthcare and like the franchise,
[00:26:41] like caregiver space, senior care space.
[00:26:43] So is there a set commission that you guys take?
[00:26:46] There's a set commission.
[00:26:47] Our standard is 30%.
[00:26:49] Okay.
[00:26:50] Of the ad spend.
[00:26:51] Of the ad spend.
[00:26:52] That's retained.
[00:26:53] Pretty good.
[00:26:54] That's not too bad.
[00:26:55] And then there's for SMS tool,
[00:26:58] that's like priced by volume of SMS credits needed.
[00:27:04] All right, Sam, you know what that bell means?
[00:27:07] It means it's time to face the firing squad.
[00:27:10] Are you ready, my friend?
[00:27:11] Bring it on.
[00:27:12] All right.
[00:27:13] I'm going to go first because Chad's done
[00:27:15] the first grading for past few episodes.
[00:27:18] So full disclosure on this,
[00:27:20] I'm an advisor for candidate hub and rec text,
[00:27:23] which kind of have pieces, bits and pieces of what you guys
[00:27:25] are doing.
[00:27:26] So I just wanted to put that out there before I give my thoughts.
[00:27:28] To me, this is a lot like we did, we interviewed a company,
[00:27:32] was it draft board chat that did these like referrals?
[00:27:35] You market the job and they pay you thousands of dollars.
[00:27:38] If someone, you know,
[00:27:39] clicks on the link and they apply from that.
[00:27:42] And that idea has been around for 20 some years
[00:27:45] and it just doesn't catch on.
[00:27:47] That doesn't mean that it can't.
[00:27:49] It just means that it has not.
[00:27:51] These kind of like recruitment marketing platforms
[00:27:53] feel the same to me.
[00:27:54] Like they should totally work.
[00:27:56] People are on Instagram all day.
[00:27:58] People are on social media all day to put the puzzle pieces
[00:28:01] together and say, like maybe my,
[00:28:02] maybe my opportunity should be on these platforms
[00:28:05] isn't a real long bridge to cross.
[00:28:07] But for whatever reason,
[00:28:08] these platforms have a hard time sort of catching when.
[00:28:11] And my, my guess is you're putting a lot of extra
[00:28:14] features on in the hopes that that's going to hook.
[00:28:18] That's going to be the hook that gets people in that,
[00:28:20] that makes everything else make sense.
[00:28:22] The challenge with that is you create complexities around it
[00:28:25] that make it harder to understand what the product is
[00:28:28] and how this works.
[00:28:29] I mean, Chad and I have been around for 25 years.
[00:28:31] We've interviewed over a hundred startups for Firing Squad.
[00:28:35] And after 25 minutes,
[00:28:36] I'm not sure that either one of us could be a salesperson
[00:28:39] for your product.
[00:28:40] So if it's hard for us to challenge for us to sort of get it,
[00:28:43] imagine the person that just got in the seat of TA
[00:28:46] and trying to understand this.
[00:28:47] So I feel like you need either like a full service component
[00:28:50] where you're almost an agency
[00:28:52] and then you have these solutions that sort of power
[00:28:55] what the agency does.
[00:28:57] Of course, then you get into like issues with,
[00:28:59] okay, you're only selling your own product.
[00:29:01] So you can't go.
[00:29:02] So you're sort of in this no man's land.
[00:29:04] In short, the idea makes sense now for five years going on six,
[00:29:08] you know, I'd like to see more than 700,000 raised.
[00:29:11] I'd like to see more than, you know, 10, 15 people employed.
[00:29:15] I'd like to see more salespeople.
[00:29:17] I'd like to see more logos on the site.
[00:29:19] Your integrations are kind of weird.
[00:29:22] You've got some weird integrations into some different sites
[00:29:25] that we don't normally have on startups.
[00:29:27] So for me, like there's a mountain to climb here,
[00:29:30] but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt
[00:29:33] that you can make it up that hill,
[00:29:36] whether it's that one product that pulls everything together,
[00:29:39] that one sales pitch.
[00:29:40] I don't know what that is,
[00:29:42] but I think it's a good idea.
[00:29:44] It's just a tough market, a tough audience, a tough consumer.
[00:29:47] But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt with a golf
[00:29:51] flap saying that you're not there,
[00:29:54] but I'm not ready to bury you yet.
[00:29:56] But I'm leaning on the guns, Sam.
[00:29:59] Figure it out sooner rather than later for me.
[00:30:02] Okay?
[00:30:03] I got you.
[00:30:05] All right, Chad.
[00:30:06] All right.
[00:30:07] I got to say that the timing is great,
[00:30:10] but then it's not great for a couple of different reasons.
[00:30:13] First and foremost, automation is definitely big.
[00:30:16] There's no question, right?
[00:30:17] But now everybody has access to it.
[00:30:19] So everybody's coming after you much faster
[00:30:22] unless you start to really dig that deep moat.
[00:30:26] Understanding that, I think Joel forgot,
[00:30:29] candidate ID caught some wind
[00:30:31] and they were acquired by Isims.
[00:30:33] There's opportunity that's out there.
[00:30:36] And raising more money doesn't equal success.
[00:30:38] We've seen that in the space, right?
[00:30:41] So I like where you're at from that standpoint.
[00:30:44] One thing I don't like is you thinking indeed,
[00:30:46] your competition, they're not velocity is probably
[00:30:51] your biggest enemy right now just because everybody's out there.
[00:30:55] They do have a lot of cash.
[00:30:56] The indeeds of the world.
[00:30:57] But the beautiful part about that is this would augment
[00:31:01] their platform.
[00:31:02] This would augment a recruitment ad agency.
[00:31:05] This would provide a market differentiator to them, right?
[00:31:09] That's where I think you have a lot, a lot of work
[00:31:13] to focus on your story.
[00:31:15] As Joel had said from a sales standpoint,
[00:31:17] but here's what I want you to really focus on.
[00:31:20] Tell your automation story.
[00:31:22] You have those three products.
[00:31:24] Those three products should flow together seamlessly
[00:31:28] in a story in a two minute pitch or less, right?
[00:31:33] 30%, that's going to be nice
[00:31:35] because you've got some good padding to some extent
[00:31:37] and you can work very closely with recruitment ad agencies
[00:31:40] where you can actually hopefully get penetration
[00:31:43] into their portfolio because they, it's their job
[00:31:47] to take the newest, latest, greatest, best tech
[00:31:50] to their clients.
[00:31:51] We're talking Fortune 500, Fortune 10 clients, right?
[00:31:54] That's who you want to be.
[00:31:56] I think you've got a great opportunity if you focus
[00:31:59] and you really focus on partnership
[00:32:01] in the prospect of white labeling,
[00:32:03] which means I'm going to give you a golf clap.
[00:32:06] You're getting there.
[00:32:07] I'm not leaning on the gun.
[00:32:09] All right, Sam, a little bloodied,
[00:32:11] a little black and blue,
[00:32:13] but you've made it out alive.
[00:32:15] How do you feel, my friend?
[00:32:17] Good.
[00:32:18] It's been another, I think we have enough time
[00:32:21] to go into this story as well,
[00:32:22] but we've really evolved as a brand.
[00:32:24] Like we've only been in recruitment marketing
[00:32:26] for two and a half of the five years
[00:32:29] that we've existed.
[00:32:31] Sam, the pitch is over, dude.
[00:32:33] Tell us how you feel.
[00:32:35] Let us know where we can find out more about Boost Point,
[00:32:37] and we'll call it a day.
[00:32:39] I got you.
[00:32:40] I got you.
[00:32:41] I feel good.
[00:32:42] We've got a lot of traction going on this year.
[00:32:45] I really appreciate your feedback on partnerships
[00:32:47] and stuff like that.
[00:32:48] We were at HR Tech last October
[00:32:49] that launched a number of strategic partnerships
[00:32:51] that we didn't have previously.
[00:32:53] It wasn't a part of our growth initiatives
[00:32:55] at that point just because we didn't have
[00:32:57] the relationship, so I definitely heard that
[00:32:59] and appreciate that.
[00:33:00] Yeah, if anyone's interested in what we do,
[00:33:02] finding out more, you can go to boostpoint.com.
[00:33:04] Thank you, Sam.
[00:33:05] Chad, that is another one in the can.
[00:33:07] We out.
[00:33:08] We out.
[00:33:10] This has been the Firing Squad.
[00:33:12] Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and G podcast
[00:33:15] so you don't miss an episode.
[00:33:17] And if you're a startup who wants to face
[00:33:19] the Firing Squad, contact the boys
[00:33:21] at ChadCheese.com today.
[00:33:23] That's www.chad.com.
[00:33:32] Thank you.