Jay Polaki, CEO and founder of HR Geckos, joins the Chad and Cheese Podcast for a session of Firing Squad. HR Geckos is an HR operations co-pilot that automates key HR processes, connects all HR systems, and provides an AI-powered help desk for HR. Jay shares her personal journey in HR and the inspiration behind starting HR Geckos. The company aims to replace fragmented HR systems with a unified, digital platform that connects employees to the information and services they need. Jay discusses the competitive landscape, pricing, go-to-market strategy, and the importance of partnerships. The hosts provide feedback and advice on raising funds, building a team, and scaling the business. Does she survive the Firing Squad? Gotta listen to find out.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Joel Cheesman (00:21.115)
Uhhhh YEAH!~
Come on, another Firing Squad. What's up, everybody? It's Balaque's favorite podcast, AKA the Chad and Cheese Podcast. I'm your co -host, Joel Cheeseman. Joined as always, the key to my peel, Chad Sew Wash is in the house. And we're happy to welcome Jay Palacky, not Balaque, CEO and founder at HR Geckos, two HRs, most dangerous podcast. Jay, welcome to Firing Squad.
Chad (00:36.127)
Hello.
Jay (00:49.934)
Glad to be here and I'm ready with my bazooka, Joel and Chad.
Joel Cheesman (00:54.011)
she's going to fire back on us, Chad. She's ready. She's ready. So, so real quick, real quick, Jay, if there's, if there's a picture under the word persistence in the dictionary, it's Jay, because she has been lobbying so long to be on the show. so, so finally you've achieved your goal, Jay. Congratulations. You're on the podcast. Most of our listeners will not know who you are. We like to get a little flavor of what makes you tick here on Firing Squad. So give us the personal side of Jay.
Chad (00:54.559)
fighting back. I love it. I love it. I love it.
Jay (01:23.598)
Well, thank you again for accepting my numerous emails and messages to have me on the show, Joel and Chad. So glad to be here. Hi, everyone. I'm Jay Palaki, the chief gecko, AKA CEO of HR Geckos. And to keep the geckos in the conversation, I'll borrow a term from Botany. I've had a very, very gated.
start to my career. I started in IO Psych. That's my background. Believe it or not, I started working for the beer giant Anheuser -Busch as an external consultant. And I've had many, many instances where I doubted whether I still wanted to be in HR. Like when I got shot at when accompanying the LASD, LA Sheriff's Department's Deputy.
on a job analysis and the viewers, you know, in the middle of a chase, a car thief started shooting at our convoy. And then, yeah, so I've been in the line of gunfire, real gunfire. And, you know, I've also had the real pleasure of visiting some of the Chicago fire stations, one notable one being the one in ladder 49.
Chad (02:29.055)
Hello.
Joel Cheesman (02:29.915)
Yikes. Yeah, I draw the line at gunfire.
Chad (02:38.047)
Yeah.
Jay (02:48.75)
the Kurt Russell movie. And, you know, so that's been my variegated start in HR and I've been in HR for over 20 years.
Chad (02:57.855)
5G action.
Joel Cheesman (02:58.811)
5G action, yep.
Jay (03:01.294)
So this is HR Geckos is my baby. So I've built HR Geckos from all of my experience.
Joel Cheesman (03:07.003)
Okay, okay. Well, let's stop you there before you get into your baby chat. Tell her what she's won today on Firing Squad.
Chad (03:16.127)
Welcome Jay, this is how a firing squad is going to go today. At sound of the bell, you are going to have two minutes to pitch HR geckos. At the end of two minutes, we're going to hit you with about 20 minutes of Q and A. Be concise because if you start droning on, you're gonna hear the crickets. That's your signal to tighten it up and move out. At the end of Q and A, you will receive either big applause, gecko, no way.
This is Godzilla. That's right, Jay. You're gonna make this happen. Golf clap. Well, we like it, but there's something you need to feed this gecko. It's got some legs, but you're gonna have to feed this gecko. And last but never least, the firing squad. Squish. That's the sound you're gonna hear because you're gonna have to ditch this business model. That gecko's gonna get squished. Try, try, try something else.
Joel Cheesman (04:02.619)
Yikes.
Chad (04:12.927)
That's Firing Squad, are you ready, Jay?
Jay (04:17.006)
Yes, I am.
Joel Cheesman (04:19.259)
All right, Jay, pitch this thing in three, two.
Chad (04:19.263)
Let's do it.
Jay (04:24.302)
Meet HR geckos. We make HR as agile as a gecko. We are a co -pilot for HR operations. And we automate key HR processes, connect all HR systems, and our AI -powered help desk is the only help desk built for HR by HR. The significant advantage we are bringing to HR teams is that we help them provide HR services instantly.
And the big advantage for businesses is that they can comply with ever -changing laws and avoid the costs that come with manual processes and outdated technology. Our purpose is to replace fragmented systems with a unified, digital, one -stop shop that connects employees to what they need, when they need it, and where they need it. That's us, HR geckos with the Godzilla inside. So we are ready.
Joel Cheesman (05:16.027)
Okay. That's, that was quick for a product with a lot of stuff going on. All right. All right, Jay, let's, let's get to the name. This is what we, we cover first, HR gecko. Why the gecko? have you got a cease and desist from Geico? you're also using what looks like a Godzilla icon. Have the Godzilla folks contacted you, to change, to change things. And you have, you're very adamant about the trademark usage. So do you really have a trademark?
Chad (05:21.951)
I love it, I love it.
Chad (05:36.063)
I love it.
Joel Cheesman (05:45.371)
around HR geckos.
Jay (05:48.398)
So great question. Our origin story is we started as HR Godzilla. We didn't meet the lawyers from Godzilla, but we decided to be the smaller reptile, the gecko, because what we intend to do is transform HR. And so true to our name, HR Geckos is built to transform HR and HR processes and bring us into the 21st century. The logo is self -explanatory.
Chad (06:12.703)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (06:18.094)
We are the gecko with the Godzilla inside and no one's contacted us. I don't think we'll be ever sued. We have a trademark applied for it and it's ongoing. So yeah.
Joel Cheesman (06:28.123)
Well, if you, if you do well on this show, you might need one because the, the phones are going to be ringing off the hook with, with new sales. You, you, you have a robust history in HR, from your LinkedIn profile. What was the, what was the catalyst for an HR lady to start a company?
Chad (06:34.047)
and truly be Godzilla.
Jay (06:50.062)
Well, first off, I think when I turned 40, I realized that HR needs to leverage technology more. And being in organizations where I had to really go through the bureaucracy to get anything done, get any new technology implemented, I found that being on the outside,
of organizations and helping to drive this transformation would work better for me. And so a couple of years before the pandemic, I picked up the gauntlet and said, here I go, HR Godzilla. And then when we went to market, we realized when we went to market to figure out the name, Godzilla has...
a definite ominous ring to it. Of course, it's the king of monsters and our intention was to burn down these paper silos in HR. But we decided to be friendly and said, okay, so, you know, we are here to actually transform, not just burn down. And so Geckos was the ultimate choice.
Joel Cheesman (07:53.115)
Yikes.
Jay (08:04.558)
We had a family brainstorming event and my five -year -old nephew was one of the people who actually chose the name HR Godzilla. And then we convinced him that HR Geckos was a friendlier name as well. So, hey, he's the future of the workplace. He's 12 years old today and he loves HR Geckos.
Joel Cheesman (08:21.627)
What better way to name a company than to talk to the young people, Chad? So you got an undisclosed amount of money in 23. Are you prepared to tell us how much that was? And if so, great. But regardless, what have you done with the money? Are you looking to raise a real round of money, a seed round? Talk about the financial situation.
Jay (08:45.326)
Sure, we're fully bootstrapped. We've always been bootstrapped. The undisclosed amount of money is undisclosed to me as well. So I don't know what Crunchbase is reporting. So we were part of Mass Challenge, which is one of the global accelerators. And we were accepted into the program last year. Finalists at the PitchFest as well. And...
Joel Cheesman (08:55.643)
hahahaha
Chad (08:57.055)
HAHAHAHA
Joel Cheesman (08:59.515)
haha
Jay (09:12.942)
You know, as a company, we've grown being bootstrapped and we have a comfortable runway. Of course, you've got to start begging for money when you really don't need it, right? So we are, we have our begging bowl in hand and we are approaching investors, but we'll see how that goes.
Joel Cheesman (09:22.619)
Mm -hmm.
Chad (09:29.375)
Well, how big are you now? How many employees do you currently have?
Jay (09:32.91)
so we have a software development center in India and we have about five employees there. and we also have a digital marketing specialist and a business development specialist. the CTO and CEO are co -founders and my CTO is also my husband. His name is Sayan Adhata and he is a. Yeah. Yep. And he's, he's a tech genius par compare. he's just brilliant. So.
Chad (09:53.759)
Keep it in the family. That's good.
Jay (10:01.87)
I'm happy to have him on board at HR Geckos.
Joel Cheesman (10:05.019)
And he's dead sexy too. I'll just throw that in there.
Chad (10:06.911)
well, of course, of course. So...
Jay (10:09.134)
Yeah, Jules met him actually, right? Yeah.
Chad (10:14.079)
I don't want to go down that road. I'm sure there's a story there. Anyway, when did you start using the terminology copilot?
Joel Cheesman (10:16.315)
different podcasts.
Jay (10:23.374)
So we started using the terminology, I would say the beginning when we launched, when we launched in January of 2023. That's when we started using the terminology.
Chad (10:36.383)
Okay, so everybody's using it now. Do you think that it makes it better from an adoption standpoint or is there just way too much noise? Are you looking at, prospectively, getting out of kind of like co -pilot and going into something that maybe is more sexy, like a Godzilla pilot? I don't know.
Jay (10:54.286)
Good question. But you know, the word co -pilot is very prevalent among you and me, the ones who talk about this new technology and the ones who talk about HR technology a lot. But when I approach my industry segments in the small to medium business spaces, they are really not that aware of this technology. In fact, the term sometimes helps them better understand what we can do as an automation and a technology tool for HR.
Chad (11:19.263)
Mm.
Jay (11:23.022)
So I don't think there is too much noise there. I still think it's a good use of that buzzword when we go talk to people.
Chad (11:30.975)
okay. Okay. Also, another buzzword that's happening a lot lately is process efficiency, which I didn't hear in your pitch. Although the entire pitch to me sounded like this is just a big ball of process efficiency. So is that where you guys are really leaning hard to be a process efficiency excellence kind of technology or where are you going? Because that's what I got from the pitch.
Jay (11:59.246)
Absolutely. So definitely process efficiency because there is so much fragmentation in the HR tech stack in an organization. You know, employees, the two are, I'll say the three biggest problems we want to solve is that employees find it very hard to find what they want when they're looking for it in the moment that matters. And they don't know whom to contact about it. They don't have the necessary active directory kind of
you know, process to figure out whom to contact for what within HR or within the business. And then, you know, they have no visibility into the status of their requests. The process is not transparent enough. The policies are not transparent enough. And the resolution is not transparent enough to the employee.
So these are some of the top things we are trying to resolve with our product. Definitely the process efficiency is part of that, right? We are streamlining the HR operations with the tech. But at the end of it, we are trying to make sure that the focus remains on the human and not all of this process pushing where you're asking them to complete these different forms or different provide you with
different pieces of information at the end of the day, making it look like this really cumbersome, frustrating moment for the employee, especially when they're calling you when they've had a new baby, or they're calling you in the midst of a crisis and they need resolution, or they just want to go on vacation and they just want to know how much vacation they have. Like in chat.
Chad (13:25.567)
Mm -hmm.
Chad (13:43.295)
Mm -hmm.
Chad (13:49.663)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jay (13:51.182)
Not everyone's going to Europe like you, but you know, I want to go to the beach, but I want to know how much vacation I have. And I can't get a handle of it unless someone, you know, looks up a different system and tells me, or I wait for someone to email me back. So those are some of the frustrations that we are looking into and solving.
Chad (14:04.511)
Okay.
Chad (14:09.215)
So just to be able to provide an understanding and scope of the actual technology and who it's going to serve, where do you start? Do you start after the hire and then going through onboarding and through the talent management whole process methodology or is it before that? Just help me with scope role.
Jay (14:27.758)
Absolutely. We start right when an applicant has offered the job and is in the process of considering and accepting it. So we start with that onboarding and that's where the automation part of our platform comes in as well, where we help digitize that part of the process as well. Yeah.
Chad (14:32.511)
Gotcha.
Joel Cheesman (14:44.891)
All right, Jay, let's talk about the Godzilla in the room. I want to get a sense from you of the competitive landscape. From where I sit, there are some well -funded, well -resourced competitors, Rippling, Bamboo, High Bob, Factorial, just to name a few. Where do you guys fit in? How do you cut through the clutter? How do you differentiate?
Jay (15:10.99)
Absolutely. So that's a great question. In fact, one of my board of advisors just sent me an email asking me one of those questions as well. So when you look at, you mentioned Rippling. Rippling is built primarily for payroll. And on top of that, they've added on some additional functionalities to help out. And they cater to companies apparently who even have two employees.
because that's apparently where payroll comes into play. Our company is differentiated by the fact that we are using our chat pod not just to provide employee self -service, but also to help the HR team with their side of the operations. So we are tapping into knowledge center resources and knowledge bases that would help HR teams be more efficient and more...
you know, productive as well. That's one of our key differentiators. No one's doing that. The chat bot's only used for employee self -service. The second thing that we are doing very well is not just building a workflow, but actually connecting everyone who needs to be a part of that workflow in one single system. We are taking away that disjointed, fragmented HR tech stack and acting as a hub for
the employee, for the HR, for the business, so that they can connect easily and seamlessly with all of their technology through a single sign -on gateway, through us acting as a hub. And the third differentiator is our custom integrations. We integrate with and we build integrations with anything that has an open API or not based on the different technologies that are already in -house. We will make sure that
We are connecting all of them and making it a seamless experience for the...
Joel Cheesman (17:12.795)
How about on pricing? Do you guys differentiate quite a bit on the pricing side as well? It feels like a product for a smaller company. Am I wrong about that? Who's your customer? What do they look like typically?
Jay (17:25.678)
So we are here to serve the small to medium business segment. So anywhere from 50 ,000 to 5 ,000 employee companies, that's where we sit. And the pricing, we have a freemium model for smaller companies that are less than 25 employees. In fact, we're extending that to even 50 employees or less at this point in time this year.
so that we can help you with getting set up with your HR people function, because we have all of the other, you know, bells and whistles that you need as a company that's starting up org charts, job descriptions, digitizing your employee handbook, having your employee profiles in one place with all of the contact information so you can actually build the chart and look at how your organization is scaling and growing. These are things that...
People say, some of the companies say they are able to provide, but they provide it in a very piecemeal fashion. Whereas we do the whole gamut of all of this that I've just mentioned. We also have survey, we have a survey tool and we have push notifications and announcements and integrations with Slack and Teams. So we do a lot of things that organizations say they do, but they really don't do it to the full extent of the process or the technology. But we are doing it to the full 100 % extent.
Chad (18:51.007)
Excellent. So as we talk about SMB, SMB is a very, very, very hard market to penetrate, which you've probably heard us say on this podcast a million times. It can be done. Don't get me wrong. What is your go -to -market strategy on being able to penetrate the SMB market?
Jay (19:08.494)
Education. First off, small to medium businesses are not aware that there are tools for the HR function. Tools in general. I mean, they don't pay attention to the service nows, the replings, they do because there is some payroll involved, but the service nows which are built for service delivery, they don't pay attention to those bigger tools because they've never needed to use them.
Chad (19:17.087)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (19:31.63)
So the education component is key in this market about educating. In fact, I was just speaking to a CHRO of a 200 people company who never thought about using AI the way HR Geckos is using it, where they have multiple channels on Slack and Teams, and they have employees in different countries at this point in time because of the way everyone's shifted to remote and can employ anyone anywhere today.
And they're finding it hard to corral all of that into one place and train a chatbot. I mean, the Slackbot is not going to be able to help them because they have messages coming in through email and Teams and even voicemail and walk -ins. So our platform actually corrals all of that information. The chatbot is very, very private to the company. We are not Gen .ai, we are not ChatGPT. And I'll say that again and again, we are not ChatGPT.
We are built for the company. The chatbot is very private, is trained only on your data and does not share your data outside of your organization and does not bring in outside data to be, you know, compared to your data at all. So it's a very custom built NLP machine learning bot, and it will serve the purpose of augmenting the work of say an office manager or an HR manager or an HR team of one.
with 150, 200 employees who really needs that help and is resource strapped and is short on time and life is passing us by as we speak on an HR team of one. So that's the efficiency and the augmentation we are bringing with the technology and the education piece is key to this. And that's why the go -to market, the content is key.
And strategically going and speaking to where these small to medium businesses are is also very key. And they're not going to attend HR technology conference. They're not going to attend these larger conferences. So we have to go where they are in the local areas, in the local networking business networking groups. And believe it or not, with all of... Yes.
Chad (21:44.063)
Are you partnering with companies on that? Are you partnering with companies to be able to get that kind of penetration? Talk about that because that to me is the good of market strategy.
Jay (21:49.358)
Yes.
Yes, so we've partnered with a couple of companies already in the background screening and people analytics space. And we have a couple of HR consulting partners and a couple more who are coming on board shortly. And we are also trying to partner with the bigger companies who serve the SMB market. So we are trying to get on their marketplace as well.
We have a few deals in the pipeline with these companies and hopefully we'll be on their marketplace soon so we can reach that SMB segment. Partnerships are very, very key today because how do you reach a small business owner who has 300 employees and is so busy?
running the business is not even thinking about the HR piece, right? So that's one of the biggest ways also to approach this market and get into the market.
Chad (22:47.455)
Yeah, what about the other Godzillas in the market? Because we just talked about Chet, GPT. I mean, you've got Gemini that's out there. You've got all these different large language models that are outspending. I mean, they're pretty much buying all the GPU power. I mean, they are monopolies in themselves already, but they're going to monopolize the GPU power. In a very slim market like you are looking at compared to what they're looking at in the entire universe of data,
Do you need that kind of power? Number one. Number two, can another company jump in with an open AI or, you know, a Gemini or what have you, and pretty much take you guys out much faster and scale faster. Tell me about that, that, that competition piece.
Jay (23:35.566)
great question. Definitely spent a lot of time on that when we were launching in January and we were asked the same question. So here's the difference. ChatGPT and other Gen .ai tools are using data from God knows where. They themselves do not know where they're getting the data from, okay, because they can. Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (23:54.719)
Yeah.
But they can, so think about it though. I understand what you're saying, but they can, let's say for instance, you can still use those AI models with smaller data lakes, correct? So a company can actually go and they can utilize that and hit a data lake like you're talking about with these SMB companies. So let's talk about that threat, because that's the threat that I care about. I don't care about the whole universe of data. I care about them actually
Jay (24:10.222)
Yes.
Chad (24:27.455)
able to efficiently use that model against your model.
Jay (24:31.182)
So you are seeing Chat GPT being used in customer service today, correct? Where it can answer a query and say, OK, here's the info. So we are going a step beyond that with our chatbot. Our chatbot is not just bringing in the information. It's also acting as a place where you can.
Chad (24:36.319)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (24:47.231)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (24:55.63)
evolve your HR practices, your HR handbook, your FAQ library as the chatbot is interacting with your employee populations. I don't see ChatGPT or anyone doing that at this point and they're cost prohibitive for small to medium businesses. Have you seen how much their subscription costs? It's beyond what anyone can afford for a platform like that. Our cost, our cost, we are,
Chad (25:20.767)
huh.
Jay (25:23.95)
pegged for small to medium businesses. And so we are affordable, much more affordable than any of these Gen .ai tools. Besides, when we speak to small to medium businesses, they tell us why do we need a Gen .ai tool, first of all? They can use it as a personal assistant, maybe they can write a job description with it, or maybe they can write a job posting, clever job posting with all the fun buzzwords in it.
But it's really not helpful to serve their employees because by the time they train that GPT, they would have spent thousands of dollars doing that. Whereas our bot hits the ground running with the data that is in their system already with their employee handbook, with their company policies. And its training curve, its learning curve is very short and it's very private to that company. It does not share data outside of that company.
And it does not bring data from outside to share with people within the company. So there is a huge difference in the way a generative AI tool is used versus an AI machine learning NLP tool is used. And that's also a differentiator that we need to educate people about because obviously everyone's caught up in this cycle of, wow, AI.
Joel Cheesman (26:42.203)
All right, Jay, let's, let's move on. Let's move on. let's talk about, sales and marketing. You have a team of five. I don't know if any of those are salespeople. your marketing strategy from what I can tell is you have a podcast. now I've been on the podcast, so that's obviously sound, marketing, sound marketing decision on your part, but talk about the marketing. How are you educating? How are you getting the word out? What is the sales process?
It's a big world. How are you? How are you getting in front of it?
Jay (27:14.382)
Great, yeah, so the podcast is actually a very big educational tool on leveraging technology and talking to HR practitioners, sharing their insights and seeing how we are able to use technologies like this today in the HR function. When it comes to reaching folks, I believe in a lot of networking. And so I've been doing that outreach myself, being an HR.
tech influencer myself has been helpful. I was told as a startup, you can't afford an influencer. So try to be an influencer yourself. Then I first started in the business and believe it or not, that's very true because HR tech influencers, like you guys cost a fortune and I can afford you. So, Hey.
Chad (28:02.303)
What?
Joel Cheesman (28:04.347)
True.
Jay (28:06.606)
I'd love to jump off the stratosphere with you, but it's going to cost me so much money. I can't afford it. You know, I'd rather just be on the outside watching you guys like, I don't know, fall.
Joel Cheesman (28:16.059)
You're welcome to watch. There'll be a huge crowd, I'm sure.
Chad (28:18.751)
Yeah, you're more than welcome to watch. Yeah, you can pop the champagne when we're done. I've got one last question for you. One last question. Yeah. Let's not, let's not go into that. Let's not go into that. Okay. So I have one last question, Jay. How much money do you want? That's follow up from early funding and the, and the, the Oliver wanting more gruel. How much money do you want? And when you get that money, what do you want to do with it?
Joel Cheesman (28:23.547)
You can change my diaper when I'm done.
Did that go too far? That went too far, didn't it? Sorry.
Jay (28:46.702)
We are looking to raise a million and a half, and we are going to put that mostly into product development and marketing and sales. So we're thinking 30 % product and 70 % sales and marketing at this point in time. And our ask is very much geared towards smaller angels, investors, not big conglomerate private equity firms at this point in time.
where they understand HR and they understand the future of work kind of technologies and those are the kind of investors we are looking to attract and work with in the near future.
Joel Cheesman (29:28.091)
Speaking of money, Chad, this product sounds a little pricey for me. Jay, you got a freemium model. It went from 25 to 50. I'm not sure that's a good sign, but talk to us about what it's gonna cost to use HR geckos.
Jay (29:45.358)
So at this point in time, we have a PEPM plan, which is a per employee per month plan. It's $13 .99 per employee per month to use our platform with all of the built -in customizations and all of the other tools that we have for HR teams and employees. We have slashed our prices. I'll.
a number of times for our clients and we've also offered a flat rate on the annual contract instead of using the PEPA model. And that has worked for smaller teams who have some attrition, like smaller technology startups who have had a lot of attrition these past six months. So the annual contract is also very well priced and we are very flexible on the annual contract flat pricing as well.
Joel Cheesman (30:35.835)
All right. Well, that bell means one thing, Jay. It's time to face the firing squad. Are you ready? Well, even if you're not ready, we're doing it. Chad, Chad, have at it.
Jay (30:44.494)
Yes, I am!
Chad (30:47.295)
Too bad. Jay, all I got to say is burn it down. Burn it down, Godzilla style. So a partnership is where you went, okay? It's really the only practical way your business scales. The first thing, and as I talk to and advise startups on a daily damn basis, it's get to MVP as soon as you can. And then, especially when you're looking at trying to be SMB, right?
you want to get into those bigger portfolios, right? The bamboo HRs, those types of things. The ones who need to evolve their platform. They need to evolve their technology, right? And they can't, it's better to buy than it is to try to have somebody develop it internally. We've seen that over and over because the velocity of technology right now is going so fast. Most of those companies don't have the assets to be able to.
are the resources to be able to actually do that in -house, in most cases, right? And if they do, they're gonna do it half -assed. They just are, right? So that is where you win. So when you're talking about getting that funding, I would say, yes, tech is great, being able to do more with the product is great, but don't go too far. Focus on revenue, revenue, revenue. That's all that matters, right? Turn that revenue. Man, you turn 40 and the HR practitioner,
and you realized it's not getting better, it's not getting faster, it's not enough. So you said, I'm gonna change it. You have the experience, your husband has the experience. I fucking love that. I fucking love that, right? And talent management is where the money is. Talent management, not talent acquisition, there's great stuff there to be able to start penetrating in the market, to be able to go down funnel, but you're already going down funnel. That's where the money is, right? So usually,
Jay (32:18.542)
Thank you.
Chad (32:34.783)
Hate the SMB market, which I said earlier, but there are tons of bigger platforms. And if you do focus, which I think you will, sticking to the co -pilot is smart. That was kind of like a trap question because to be quite frank, you want to be able to get into something that everybody understands. And if you have a company like, I don't know, Microsoft using co -pilot as a way to help adoption and understanding of what this tech is, use it.
Use it, use it. Don't try to recreate the wheel, right? So I don't know if it's because I'm in Euro Chad mode, but to me, this is, I'm happy. This is great. I love this conversation. I love it. Big applause. And I believe acquisition is imminent. Acquisition is imminent. Good job, Jay.
Joel Cheesman (33:20.731)
way, if any, if anyone wants a loan, now's a good time to hit up Chad for some cash if you're, if you're a little low on it. All right. Yeah. If you can find them, if you can find them, he'll be, he'll be on the stratosphere next week, next Tuesday. so Jay, I was totally prepared to come into this saying that this wasn't even a knife in a gunfight. It was more like a spoon and a tank battle. and I still sort of believe that now what.
Chad (33:24.639)
If you can, if you can get me that's the thing.
Joel Cheesman (33:48.187)
What I, what I feel like your secret sauce is, is the tagline on your site, HR built, built by HR for HR. We don't get a lot of companies on firing squad that have a founder that's rooted as deeply as you are into HR. I think that's a huge benefit to this company. You're you being able to have real conversations with other HR people is should be magical for you going forward.
five people, this is a skeleton crew. I'm amazed that you've been able to build all that you've been able to build. But you need, you need money. You need, you need, you got a tech guy that's probably like in the basement working 23 hours a day, right? You've got, you know, and what you need, you need, you need a chief revenue officer. You need a chief marketing officer that knows what the hell they're doing. You know, dump.
Chad (34:43.615)
fractional.
Joel Cheesman (34:44.571)
dump the stock photos on the website, like get a real professional. Cause that's kind of what lights the world. That's, that's like, you gotta have that stuff. Get some salespeople, you know, pounding the pavement and call it, you know, on the phone. I think there's a market for this. I just think you're on that ledge. And I think that 1 .5 million, which I think you'll get, there's a lot of seed money being thrown around right now. if you were looking for 50 million, I'd say maybe not.
But you should be able to raise one to 2 million and seed with just what you've done so far. And I think once that happens, get some, get some people that can help you grow this thing. And then I think it's off to the races and I, and I didn't really think about it until Chad said it, but yeah, acquisition, is a real opportunity for you and at two to 3 million in funding, you should find a really nice payday, for those investors. So again, I love it. I just want to see the money. If you had the money.
I'd be Euro Chad mode giving you a big applause as well, but because there's no money in the bank for me at this moment.
Chad (35:49.055)
golf clap, yeah?
Joel Cheesman (35:50.139)
We're going golf clap. We're going golf clap. So Jay, get to work, raise some money, build a team, and kick this thing into, into fourth, fifth gear.
Chad (35:59.742)
and thanks for coming on.
Joel Cheesman (36:01.211)
And thanks for coming on. I could tell by the smile on your face that you're feeling pretty good, which is great. I want you to let us know when you raise that money. For those listeners out there that want to want to know more about you, more about HR geckos, where do you send them?
Jay (36:01.422)
Wonderful, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure.
Jay (36:17.902)
I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, anywhere you are on a social media platform. I'm there, so I'm happy to connect mostly on LinkedIn though. And definitely look us up on the web or on LinkedIn. Our company pages are everywhere.
Joel Cheesman (36:32.123)
This is why you need a marketing person because the answer is check us out at HRgeckos .com. Chad, that's another one in the can. We out.
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