Your matching network for work

The internet significantly reduced the asymmetry of our gaining and exchanging information. Previously, discovering worthwhile sources of knowledge about any given topic took weeks of research, often including multiple visits to libraries, slow letters, and expensive phone calls. Today, it only takes a few seconds to search and discover what books to buy, articles to read, videos to watch, experts to follow, and online classes to take. Booking a flight or buying pretty much any product can now be done in seconds while lazing on a couch.

Yet, when it comes to hiring talent, the processes involved remain rooted in the last century. Suppose I were to ask you, "Who is the best developer you can hire for your team?" or "Who is the best piano tutor for your children?" or "Who is the best part-time executive assistant you can hire for yourself?" The answer will likely take not seconds, minutes, or hours, but most likely weeks or even months! Not only that: the answer will probably be wrong. At best, you’ll be able to say "Out of the dozens of candidates I was able to review, this is the best person." However, that's but a tremendously small fraction of all the people across the globe who might have been a far better match. This illustrates the vast asymmetry of information we’ve become accustomed to in recruiting. Consequently, most of the talent in the world is going to waste because it never gets exposed to the right opportunities.

What’s the ecosystem like today? Recruiting and staffing easily surpass $1T in market size, yet remain ultra-fragmented. Recruit Holdings, the owner of Indeed and Glassdoor, for example, earns billions of dollars a year and shows massive profit margins, all with less than 5% job board market share. There are more than 4,000 job boards. Countries—and even cities—have different sets of leading job boards. Why? We used to find work where we lived. Not anymore. Now, thanks to remote work, instead of talent going to where companies are located, more and more companies are realizing they need to go where the talent is located. Also, there are no platforms optimized for both full-time as well as flexible work, and most candidates want the option for both. With a more remote and gig-oriented world, there’s no way recruiting will scale. At least, not the way it is now.

Currently, we have numerous social networking platforms (from Facebook to Instagram to TikTok, Twitter, Clubhouse, etc.), but there is still only one dominant global professional network: LinkedIn. We believe there is plenty of room for another, and we don’t have to engage LinkedIn head-on. There’s no need, especially when ours is not a platform focused on networking, but rather automating the process of finding talent and finding work.

There are many other companies, both startups and large corporations, that focus on recruiting automation. In fact, we’re a fan of anyone who is passionate about solving this problem. At the same time, we believe the solutions being developed today are the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a bullet wound .

In 2018, we had a vision: the future of recruiting will be mostly, if not entirely, automated . In the same way that you can run a Google search to find the information you are looking for, in the not-so-distant future there will be networks that match talent to opportunity, removing biases, bringing search time down to barely a blink of what it is today while doing a better job of predicting a person’s fit for a job, a company, a team, an opportunity, than any human is capable of doing. There’ll be a new network: a network for automated, smart recruiting. ‘Programmatic Recruiting’, as we call it. At Torre, we’re building that network.

Of course, it’s not an easy thing to accomplish, which is why we started off by bringing on a solid team of engineers, data scientists, advisors, and, last year, our first investors. As you may know, this isn’t our first time building a similar technology. Both Voice123 and Bunny Studio use algorithms and machine learning to match talent with opportunity, albeit in niche areas. This time, our vision is much larger.

To build the world’s network that automates recruiting, we know we have to do not only one thing, but many things better than the alternatives and our competitors. First and foremost, we have to provide massive value to candidates. This is, and will always be, our focus, our drive, our passion.

Here is what we know we must do:

• We must build a global team of entrepreneurial, detail-oriented, data-driven, fast-learning overachievers.
• We must follow the scientific method: observe, ideate, hypothesize, test, analyze, learn, and repeat rapidly.
• The experience of our users must be bug-free, fast, usable, fun, transparent, mobile-first, and better than anything else out there.
• We must automate whenever possible to increase speed, lower costs, and increase quality.
• We must build a product and network abstract enough to be usable by multiple segments. Then, we’ll grow where the market pulls us. We should prioritize segments that are bringing the most engagement value and virality. We must obsess with identifying, understanding, and tailoring our offering to such segments.
• We must develop business models that don't slow down network effects.
• Our brand and product positioning must be hyper-personalized. This isn't easy, but it’s a requirement to systematically identify the segments where we can deliver the most value.

Our goal is ambitious, but our roadmap must be both realistic and pragmatic. Simply put, here is our plan:

1. Release professional genomes.
2. Focus on the remote software development segment. Attract candidates massively.
3. Open the doors for companies where job market liquidity can be guaranteed.
4. Release a free application tracking system for companies. Attract them to the product. Keep them for the network.
5. Expand the network to other segments.
6. Blitzscale.
7. Monetize.

We’re committed to using technology and AI not to replace humans, but to help them find work faster, more accurately, more fairly, and more humanely. Work that better realizes their potential. Work that is fulfilling.

Join us and help us create a better future.