The industry remains as hot as ever, which is good because there's some Halloween weight I'm trying to burn.
Anyway...
Indeed leads off the show with the kind of tomfoolery that would even make 2007 Monster blush. (Yes, they're still who we thought they were.)
Greenhouse marries a sourcing solution you've likely never heard of... Errr...
Fiverr tells LinkedIn and Upwork, "Hold my beer."
A scorching round of Buy-or-Sell w/ 1) Multiplier 2) When I Work and 3) Ladder
Sam's Club is crushing the retention issue plaguing so many organizations,
...and a mathematician teaches a masterclass on marketing: Sex sells.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel (24s):
Minneapolis residents voted no on defending the police this week, but voted yes on the Chad and cheese podcast. Hi kids, it's your favorite guilty pleasure. This is your cohost Joel "silent majority" Cheeseman.
INTRO (37s):
And this is Chad "they are who we thought they were" Sowash.
Joel (41s):
On this week's show Indeed is up to its usual Tom-fuckery, climbing the ladder with a little buy or sell in a certain mathematician on a certain porn site shows us just how marketing is done. So let's do this. It's beautiful in the Midwest Chad, this is one of my favorite times of the year.
Chad (1m 0s):
Beautiful, yet a little cold.
Joel (1m 3s):
Right.
Chad (1m 3s):
It needs some warm apple cider.
Joel (1m 5s):
It's time to embrace the hot toddy. Chad, I need to introduce you to the hot toddy.
Chad (1m 11s):
A hot toddy. Yeah, that sounds great. I hope it comes with an umbrella.
Joel (1m 15s):
A little bit of spice, a little bit of cinnamon. That's what I like.
Chad (1m 18s):
You know, who likes spice? Max Armbruster likes spice the CEO over at TalkPush. The thing is he is now a proud Papa, so there's not going to be much spice and or sleep in that man's life. Congratulations with that new baby girl, Max we're we're excited for you, man.
Joel (1m 36s):
This is first born, you know, Max a little better than I do.
Chad (1m 38s):
This is number one, baby. Number one.
Joel (1m 40s):
So you can't just have one, it's like potato chips. So you gotta, you gotta have more. Shout out to Facebook.
Chad (1m 48s):
Who?
Joel (1m 49s):
Facebook is shutting down its facial recognition technology, which we've talked about and they've gotten sued over.
Chad (1m 55s):
A lot!
Joel (1m 56s):
They've decided that knowing who's in that picture, that you posted, isn't all that important. They're stopping the technology and they're deleting all the data. At least that's what Zuckerberg is telling us.
Chad (2m 8s):
You know who doesn't lie that new chief people officer over at Smart Recruiters, Lisa Sterling, she just picked up the new role on the heels of everybody might remember that Rocky Howard just left the CDO position for a new CPO position over at the Mom Project. So we've got great talent moving all over the place.
Joel (2m 30s):
All over the place. Speaking of talent, how about CareerBuilder in my shout out list?
Chad (2m 35s):
Come on.
Joel (2m 35s):
We talked about their new ad campaign on a recent show. Well, I was curious because I'm used to seeing ZipRecruiter ads where I am, I'm used to seeing Indeed ads, have not seen the CareerBuilder ads. And since they're in Chicago, I thought that was a little, little weird. Maybe I'd get a little bit of CareerBuilder flavor. So I put on a LinkedIn poll to see who out there has actually seen this ad on television. So my poll has gotten about 8,000 views, 200 votes, 96% say they have not seen the CareerBuilder ad. So the market must be real limited into where they're actually distributed in this thing, but they're not apparently unleashing it on the world to any grand scale.
Joel (3m 20s):
CareerBuilder, shout out.`
Chad (3m 23s):
Probably as boring as fuck as is along with that new logo, they have. That's great stuff. Ooh, shout out to Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka. So since they were strong enough to actually bring up the uncomfortable topic of mental health, it allowed players like Calvin Ridley of the Atlanta Falcons this week to step away from football to actually focus on his mental health. We're starting, I think we're not there yet. We're starting to understand that broken bones and torn cartilage are definitely injuries, but we can have different types of injuries and Calvin Ridley and he showed that this week.
Chad (4m 4s):
So he stepped away. And I think there's a lot to do with that with Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka because they pretty much broke that same line.
Joel (4m 14s):
Well, speaking of, out of the game with injury or COVID in this case, Aaron Rogers makes my shout-out lists.
Chad (4m 21s):
What an idiot.
Joel (4m 23s):
Americans will know him as the Green Bay Packers quarterback. He agreed to take partial salary in Bitcoin this week, and we'll also be giving away a million dollars in Bitcoin to fans just to get a little extra promotion in his decision to do so. Bitcoin is all over the place. Crypto is everywhere. I'm sure you've seen commercials with everyone from Matt Damon to Tom Brady, pimping, trading crypto, Aaron Rogers is the latest to get on board. We'll see how many more players look for Bitcoin salary. You'll remember Tim Sackett on our yearly show predicted more and more people would be requesting payments in Bitcoin. It looks like Tim was right too.
Chad (5m 4s):
If you're a millionaire and you have money to throw around, why not? I mean diversify. So yeah, but I don't think normal Joe is asking for Bitcoin. Okay? What they are asking for Joel is there. They're asking for new chatbots and a marvel.ai integrated with Wade and Wendy and dude, the chat bot is named that they created it's, it's a visual video chat bot. So it's integrated with Wade, Wade and Wendy has this amazing audio quality to it. And the chat bot is named Chad. So they actually made a Chad bot and it looks, it looks nothing like me.
Chad (5m 46s):
What the actual fuck? I mean, I'm totally going to go up the chain of command on this one. This is ridiculous.
Joel (5m 54s):
It's a video, it's a visual and audio experience. Is that what we're saying?
Chad (5m 58s):
Yup. Yup. So you can be on your phone and you can use your microphone. It asks you questions and you can reply right back to it.
Joel (6m 7s):
Ah, that's very interesting. We actually had a story in the feed about companies creating visual, I don't know, concierge for the Metaverse and that's kind of what I thought when you, when you said that. And I also thought, I think you're a fan of prophecy, right? Yeah. Scott Galloway. So you listen to his, his podcast is Standalone Thing. He also mentioned it in pivot with
Chad (6m 30s):
Kara Swisher?
Joel (6m 32s):
Kara Swisher. So he's, he's really, he hates the whole, Metaverse, the Facebook thing,the face plate in the eye, but he really thinks that the future is in the ears where that sort of your AI and that's your, that's your Metaverse being able to connect through audio. So interesting that, Wade and Wendy is making this play in the video and audio segment. Interesting future trends to watch Chad, another trend, Lever.
Chad (7m 2s):
Cash, baby.
Joel (7m 2s):
Yes. Popular with a lot of the kids out there announced a $50 million raise in series B funding this week, bringing the total to $133 million total.
Chad (7m 14s):
There you go.
Joel (7m 15s):
But the show is so packed with shit this week, that is a shout out $50 million, just gets you a shout out on this week show.
Chad (7m 22s):
So I know this is going to sound odd, but it seems rather light, right? I mean, with all the unicorn cash being thrown around, I would have expected double that at the very least, especially in a series D and also for global expansion, because they talked about global expansion, so I'm not sure. It sounds like it might be a setup for acquisition.
Joel (7m 44s):
Does it feel like a bridge, a bridge fund, a bridge? Like, Hey, let's just get you to the acquisition. Let's just get us to whatever.
Chad (7m 54s):
Yeah, a little validation through funding and then a glorious vision that is painted by the CEO. Right? I mean, it just, it's one of those things that just, there's something that's not right about that.
Joel (8m 4s):
Yeah. It's a little, bridgey, it's a little bridge. I'll give that to you. We're watching you Lever, we're watching you.
Chad (8m 13s):
Well, as we're talking about Lever, we talked about the new Cornerstone on Demand logo on the European show earlier this week. If you haven't checked it out, check it out. So we received comments after that show, that referred to the new Cornerstone logo as the cat anus, what? And then I went to the site and I was like, yeah, yeah, Cornerstone's new logo looks like a cat anus. This is, I can't unsee it. This is, I don't know who was in the marketing behind this, but yes, this is horrible and true.
Joel (8m 51s):
All right. For our listeners out there that have a certain skillset in Photoshop, please send us a cat ass with Cornerstones new imagery. And we will gladly post it onto social media, whether or not you want your brand or your company to be associated. You know, we'll honor whatever you want. But if anyone out there can make a cat ass as the Cornerstone logo, we will, we will hook you up with some social media love. By the way, you've seen Meta's new logo, that thing got the Photoshop treatment, one I saw it as a penis. I saw it as a pair of boobs. I saw it as nuts, like people had a lot of fun with that. So let's have fun in our industry with the Cornerstone logo. Put that thing on a cat.
Joel (9m 34s):
We want to share that on social call. And speaking of sharing, Chad, nothing is sharing and caring like free shit. If you haven't signed up for free stuff from Chad and Cheese, we got t-shirts from Emissary. We got beer from our new, our new sponsor for Beerdrop, Pillar, pillar.hr, Adzua who was our former beer drop sponsor. They've moved up there to the weekly sponsorship. Pillar's filling in for beer. And as usual, Sovren is a is killing our livers with whiskey. You can get it for free, but you can't unless you go to Chadcheese.com/free and fill it out.
Chad (10m 16s):
That's right. And we have an event coming kids remember? You've got to come and have Thanksgiving in Belgium, with Chad and Cheese. We already have a WhatsApp group created with about 15 people that we're going to meet in Ostend, Belgium for the Congress. We already have dinner scheduled the night prior. It's going to be a damn good time. Probably no turkey, there might be, but I, I don't know. Check out the speakers register for the event@erecruitment-congress.com. And if you're attending, hit us up on the socials and we'll see if we can actually get you into the fancy dinner that Lieven reserved at the Royal sailing club.
Chad (11m 1s):
That's right. Posh, baby, posh.
Joel (11m 2s):
The Royal Sailing Club. That's nice. That's nice. I'm going to have, I'm going to have Duvel flavored turkey on Thanksgiving. Well, Chad, speaking of a group of fine folks, it's time for the fantasy football update sponsored by Poach. I'm going to go from first to worst here on our leaderboard. Number one, Benjamin, worst to first. Do you remember Benjamin was in last place a few weeks ago, way to go, buddy. The wonderful Miss Q just can't get over that hump to the number one spot she's been sitting in the number two place for quite a while. Jason and the Argonauts. You remember that one don't you Chad?
Joel (11m 42s):
Putnam is next. Followed by Cheesy does it, your boy here, Christy bad moon, rising. Pistol Pete Suchi, Bill race to the bottom Fanning. Chris, the football team, Russell, Michael Keaton Cox and Chad the bottom of the barrel
Chad (12m 1s):
Suck it.
Joel (12m 2s):
Is you. And that is your fantasy football leaderboard update.
Chad (12m 6s):
Oh shit. Do we have birthdays?
Joel (12m 10s):
We got birthdays, baby. Listeners, fans, and just friends of the show. A happy birthday to Jarvis Corel. Steve Juul, Graham Ferguson, Louie WHAT?.
Chad (12m 23s):
Excuse me.
Joel (12m 24s):
Yeah. David Jorg, Chloe Rada and Jeff Webb all celebrate birthdays this month. Another trip around the sun, everybody.
Chad (12m 35s):
Bunch of November birthdays. That's awesome.
Joel (12m 38s):
A lot of sex going on if my math is right, would that be September? Anyway, anyway.
Chad (12m 47s):
Topics! Dude.
Joel (12m 48s):
Two weeks with Indeed starting the show.
Chad (12m 49s):
Oh fuck. Last week we updated on Indeed throttling, unpaid jobs, regressing from a search engine model to a job board model. It's pretty simple. If you're not paying for jobs or kicking you off the site, or at least they're hiding the jobs, right? That was what we talked about last week. This week, we have more Tom fuckery to report. Here's a message. I'm just going to read this off because it's so good. Here's a message we received from a leader in the talent acquisition space quote, "our friends at Indeed are up to their tomfoolery yet again, after conditioning users of their resume search tool over the last few years to earn contact credits two for positive responses, one for negative responses, Indeed, we'll be doing away with that functionality in 2022.
Chad (13m 40s):
Resume users will allegedly earn credits by executing interviews on their interview platform." They're jamming this interview platform down people's throats. Anyway, of course, back to the quote, "of course their timing is fantastic, as many clients, especially Enterprise clients have either committed contract spend to them or at a minimum budgeted for what they are expected to spend. This puts high volume clients in a particularly shitty position as some efficient users that could use five to 600 contacts a month on their credits will now have to spend an additional $800 to $1000 per month to contact those candidates with quote-unquote shared contacts, but don't worry kids don't worry while they are taking away some features they're also raising the prices in the new year.
Chad (14m 36s):
At least Indeed is apparently worth more" end quote.
sfx (14m 38s):
They aren't what we thought they were. And we let them off the hook.
Joel (14m 41s):
They're exactly who we thought they were, but we're not letting them off the hook. Dude. We've seen this story before.
Chad (14m 48s):
Yes.
Joel (14m 49s):
But Indeed seems to be taking it to new heights.
Chad (14m 53s):
Yes.
Joel (14m 53s):
They are Monster 2.0. One of two things is happening here, I'm not sure which. Either one, they clearly think their customers have no other options and are soaking them as much as possible, think Netflix without, you know, perceived competition or two they're seeing greater attrition and need to get as much profit as possible out of the current customers before they don't have any left. I think it's very telling that changes were made after so many customers have already committed for the year. You can only soak your customers for so long before they revolt. And I think the time may be coming for pitchforks and fire, kids.
Chad (15m 31s):
Yeah. So we have always known who Indeed was and is, right? so I guess we can't be surprised when they show up to the party dressed as the evil empire. This has been the way for them for over a decade. And once again, I blame the recruitment advertising agency space. They had the power to change Indeed's trajectory, years ago and they just sat back and did nothing. And as Dennis Green said,
sfx (15m 57s):
But they aren't what we thought they were. And we let them off the hook.
Joel (16m 2s):
I blame Monster and CareerBuilder who could have nipped that shit in the bud. And we wouldn't even be talking about Indeed 15 years, hence, but either way, here we are.
Chad (16m 14s):
That's on Sal right? It really has got to be honestly. Fucking Sal.
Joel (16m 18s):
Indeed we're watching you and we'll continue to comment on your Tom fuckery,
Chad (16m 22s):
More listeners, more listeners, give us more feedback. We, I had so many messages this week. This is just one that we read through because it was incredibly pointed, but continue to give us intel and thoughts on what you're seeing here.
Joel (16m 35s):
We appreciate it. And we will keep you anonymous if you choose to be anonymous. Well, let's go to a Greenhouse continuing with the news stories of the week. A couple of New York City based companies are getting married, Chad. A greenhouse, a popular ATS provider announced late last week it has acquired sourcing automation provider Interseller. The acquisition enables Greenhouse customers to do their talent sourcing natively within Greenhouse. Greenhouse co-founder and CEO Daniel Chit said, quote, "our decision to buy Interseller came after an extensive review of the market. Interseller absolutely stood out because of their rigorous approach to email, deliverability and innovations that ensure high quality candidate interactions."
Joel (17m 21s):
How often do you see email and innovations in the same sentence? Founded in 2016, Interseller looks like it was totally bootstrapped and employees about 14 folks. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chad, what do you make of this move?
Chad (17m 38s):
I'm glad to see Greenhouse, getting out there, acquisitions, looking at this type of tech. I just wonder what happens when LinkedIn locks them out. I mean, what will the platform be worth then? Innerseller nor Greenhouse owns the rails on this one, LinkedIn owns them. Right? So even though I like the aggressive move, I'm wondering about the long-term viability also. Why are systems like Greenhouse focusing inward when it comes to candidates? Companies are spending shit tons of cash acquiring the same candidates over and over and over. You already have them.
Joel (18m 18s):
Yeah.
Chad (18m 18s):
I would think that a company like Greenhouse, like iCIMS with the acquisition of opening.io would move to make recruiting more cost-effective instead of feeding the LinkedIn recruiter seat, beast. That to me, I don't know if it was just cheap and it was something that might've been a cool add on from a feature standpoint. But overall I think strategically it's not the best move.
Joel (18m 36s):
It's it's an interesting move. So at first glance, I thought it was a lot like iCIMS buying Text Recruit, right?
Chad (18m 42s):
Yeah.
Joel (18m 43s):
That is too much. Keep an eye on the most popular apps in your marketplace and then go make a buy to add that tech to your catalog as a native solution. Right? So in that case was iCIMS bringing text recruiting SMS to their platform. Greenhouse has many sourcing solutions already in their marketplace. A lot of names you'll know, our listeners will know, SeekOut, HireTool, Fetch, et cetera. Many of whom have raised a lot of money and would have cost Greenhouse a premium if they had gone to buy one of those. However, I don't see Interseller in their marketplace. So either they took them out after the acquisition or they've never been in there. So that makes it very interesting to me.
Joel (19m 23s):
Both of these companies are in New York, so it feels a little bit like the LA deal a while back or a couple of weeks ago when they were like, oh, let's Hey, we met at a bar, they had this sourcing tool thing. They were pretty cheap. So we decided to buy them. I don't know if that's what happened, but it kinda smells a little bit like that. Greenhouse has taken over a hundred million dollars in investment, which is a lot, so it's not, but it's not enough to make big moves, like buying SeekOut, who's raised about the same amount of money.
Chad (19m 52s):
Yeah, no.
Joel (19m 53s):
I think a move into sourcing had to be made and I think they'll continue, I think a trend will start just like with chatbots where a lot of these ATS is and platforms feel like, oh, we need a sourcing tool. And let's be honest. There are a lot of sourcing tools out there that are probably for sale, probably up for not a lot of money outside of a few of them. So my question is also is sourcing, becoming a commodity. Now your spin on that is different in that LinkedIn owns the rails and the profiles. My take is sort of profiles are everywhere and they're sort of there for the taking and if they are there for the taking, is it a commodity?
Joel (20m 35s):
Is it just a check box that companies will have to tick off and their ATS will help them do that? In this case, Greenhouse with Interseller? Ultimately I think it's probably a bad sign for companies like SeekOut that Greenhouse chose to make an acquisition kind of off the clearance rack. To be honest, I had never even heard of Interseller before this deal and I like to think that I know a lot of the sourcing tools because we talked to a lot of people in sourcing. So interesting deal. I feel like it was on the cheap. I feel like it's that they probably need that solution, but they have a ton if you go to the marketplace there are a ton of sourcing solutions.
Joel (21m 15s):
So this deal is really kind of strange. It feels like, oh, it was on the cheap. We needed a native sourcing tool that we could monetize, screw the other sourcing providers and make this move. But it's confusing to me. It doesn't feel like a round peg in a round hole.
Chad (21m 31s):
No, we did talk about Interseller a few years ago, I think maybe when they got some funding, but they've been silent since, we really haven't heard anything. And I think for the most part, they were more on the sales contact side of the house before they actually got into recruiting. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's interesting. I'm glad to see the aggressiveness and acquisition, but it's more than likely was a clearance rack.
Joel (21m 56s):
Yeah. Do you agree that we'll see more acquisitions in this space or you think this'll be a one-off?
Chad (22m 3s):
Yeah, no, I think there will be acquisitions in this space. I think there'll be more high powered. I also think that there will be more matching and also, you know, again, I'm biased on the candidate ID side of the house, but you know, we don't have any like Marquetto systems in this space. We have like one. Right? And to be able to market to candidates that you've already paid for. I mean, you think of it from the standpoint, if you were a COO and you paid for a shit ton of leads, right. And you did nothing with those leads, you probably wouldn't be CMO for long, right. You've paid millions of dollars for those leads. So what HR is doing is they're paying millions of dollars for leads that they're fucking doing nothing with, how are they keeping their jobs?
Chad (22m 50s):
How are they actually getting more money for recruitment marketing when, who they're bringing in, they already have. I mean, I just don't get it. So I think the matching side of the house, the be able to that the nurturing side of the house is where it's at.
Joel (23m 6s):
Yeah. I really thought we would initially be reporting, you know, like Microsoft buying SeekOut for half a million to half a billion dollars or something. And then from there Hire Tool gets acquired and HiringSolved.
Chad (23m 18s):
That's how Dominoes goes baby.
Joel (23m 20s):
And everybody else, the fact that it's sort of like at the bottom and maybe we'll work our way up, but it usually doesn't start like that. So again, I think that's a bad sign for the industry, but we'll have to watch and find out. Well, speaking of an industry, that's on fire, let's talk about Fiverr announced this week, Fiverr has acquired Stoke Talent in a $95 million deal. Stoke Talent is a freelancer management system that provides tools that enable companies to manage their freelance talent. This includes onboarding, payment and tracking budgets. Fiverr founder and CEO Kaufman said, quote, "the Stoke acquisition made complete sense on multiple levels"
Joel (24m 4s):
end quote. The deal enables Fiverr to engage with much larger customers offer software solutions to firms that already have freelancers and gives Fiverr access to the offline freelancing market. Stoke Talent was founded by Shahar Erez and Hillik Paz. It's headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel and has almost 30 full-time employees. Chad, what's your take?
Chad (24m 31s):
Where's my Glenn Fry playlist, baby cause the heat is on? Fiverr right now, as you'd said, it gives Fiverr access to the offline freelancing market that it's still orders of magnitude larger than online freelancing. So they're trying to expand, they're moving upstream into Enterprise. I wonder why that is any guesses? Maybe LinkedIn, or maybe they're just trying to continue to gain ground on Upwork? Either way this is great! That the market's frothy and I think Fiverr and organizations like Stoke and hopefully the Communu's of the world who, you know, haven't taken a shit ton of cash can get a good payout and get, get their portfolio into a big name, like Fiverr or Upwork?
Joel (25m 20s):
Chad in that 28 seconds that you talked about it, it got hotter. That's how hot the image is, the LinkedIn is jumping in, we talked about that. They're going global with their solution. Upwork is doing incredibly well. Their quarterly earnings knocked it out of the park. Facebook has been rumored for a while to get in. I'm not going to be surprised if, and when they do. Now, it's an arms race and this acquisition helps prove that thesis. Fiverr was born as this quirky site where you could get little things done for five bucks. I think, give me a logo or a banner ad for $5 and now it wants to be a soup to nuts platform for organizations of all sizes online and offline to manage their contract workers.
Joel (26m 5s):
It's very exciting. It just makes a lot of sense. We've talked a ton about the great resignation and people being unhappy. People wanting flexibility, people wanting, you know, different opportunities and the gig economy lets them do that. Or at least lets them support a lifestyle until they figure out what they want to do with their life. I'm interested to see the trend around the brick and mortar side. I think, you know, servers, construction, healthcare, that's going to be a really interesting space and people like Nomad Health. It seems to be sort of niche.
Chad (26m 34s):
That's (Nomad) fire though...
Joel (26m 35s):
Do these guys get gobbled up? And by the way, Task Rabbit has been really quiet lately. I don't know if it's because they're now owned by a bunch of Swedes, but I want to see some Task Rabbit activity.
Chad (26m 50s):
Good luck with that one.
Joel (26m 51s):
Let's take a quick break and buy or sell. One of our favorite activities. And I think what is it like three weeks now that we've done buy or sell?
Chad (27m 1s):
I think so, with all the money.
Joel (27m 3s):
Buy or sell, we get back everybody. Buy or sell baby. You ready to do this?
Chad (27m 12s):
Yes.
Joel (27m 12s):
All right, everybody, you know how this works. We talk about three startups that recently have received funding and Chad and I will either buy or sell that startup. Number one, we have Multiplier. Global recruitment and employment management startup Multiplier has raised $13.2 million in a series A capital four months after snagging a seed funding round of around $4 million. Founded just last year in Singapore, Multiplier helps employers onboard, pay, and manage distributed workforce, in 150 plus countries. It's online section talent wiki features details about talent acquisition sources in foreign countries, in addition to PayScale and other markets specific employment information.
Joel (28m 1s):
With a hundred plus legal experts, m=Multiplier manages issues related to local compliance, labor contracts, payroll systems, employee benefits and taxes. Chad multiplier buy or sell?
Chad (28m 9s):
Onboarding sucks. Payrolling sucks. Compliance sucks. I sound like a fucking broken record. I've said this. I don't know on how many podcasts. Will it automate? yes. Will it scale? Yes. Does it cut out shit that nobody wants to do? Yes. The founder experience isn't in talent acquisition, although it is in FinTech for payrolling. So I think speed to market is Multiplier's super power. To be able to help all those companies that are out there who want to get into emerging markets and they want a partner that can help them get into these new countries.
Chad (28m 53s):
It's too easy. So speed to market, Multiplier's superpower. It's a buy for me.
Joel (28m 57s):
Multiplier's a buy. All right. The gig economy is hot and this space is hot too. Competitors like Deal, Remote and Employment Hero have all raised over a hundred million dollars in this sort of remote management space. As companies go remote and more global, they need solutions to dot the I's and cross the T's of all those things that you wax poetically sucks so much from a `fundraising perspective, Multiplier is putting itself in a good place. I think making it a more digestible acquisition than all the competition that's raised a hundred million plus dollars. I think these guys are going to be acquired pretty soon.
Joel (29m 36s):
I can't believe they're only a year old.
Chad (29m 40s):
Yeah.
Joel (29m 41s):
Multiplier's a buy for me as well. When I Work.
Chad (29m 45s):
Let's talk about that.
Joel (29m 46s):
Do you, the interesting company with a funny name, Minneapolis based
Chad (29m 52s):
Joel uses the app when I nap.
Joel (29m 55s):
When I nap. That one's on speed dial for me.
Chad (29m 58s):
It's good.
Joel (29m 58s):
All right. Minneapolis based when I work a SAAS employee scheduling time tracking and team messaging platform this week announced it has secured a $200 million growth investment from Bain Capital. The funding will enable When I Work to rapidly expand its suite of software solutions, pursue acquisitions and enhance its market position. Since its founding in 2010, more than 10 million hourly employees have used the platform and view and swap shifts, clock in, view hours worked, request time off and communicate with managers and coworkers.
Joel (30m 37s):
Today more than 200,000 workplaces, including Hickory Farms, Siemens and healthcare providers are using the, When I Work platform. Chad, When I Work buy or sell?
Chad (30m 47s):
Will it automate? Yes. Will it actually scale or help your workforce scale? Yes. Right? The CEO was a Ultimate Software was at Ultimate Software for over six years and has a background in our space. This one is kind of close to my heart cause I have practical experience with this app. I love this app. When I was working as a kickboxing instructor, a couple of years ago, we used, When I Work to manage schedules, trade shifts and just do the basic hard bullshit of shift work, it was amazing, intuitive, and effective. And knowing that's exactly what managers and shift workers need.
Chad (31m 27s):
This is an easy buy for me.
Joel (31m 31s):
I'm going to say, this is the first start-up on buyer sell that you've actually used. Like we actually have real-world experience and hands-on experience with. All right. I love these stories. While we talk incessantly about chat bots, AI, and the Metaverse. There are companies that quietly provide products and services that positively impact industries like kickboxing or whatever the fuck you were doing that we rarely notice. This isn't some three month old startup getting $200 million. This is a decades old organization doing the hard work of getting and keeping clients. The pandemic and the ubiquity says their time is now.
Joel (32m 12s):
When I Work solid buy for me as well.
Chad (32m 17s):
Too easy.
Joel (32m 17s):
Let's talk about Ladder. No, not the Ladders, Ladder. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to name a company in the same space, the same name, but anyway, Ladder a San Fran-based professional community platform, Hello, LinkedIn want to be, has raised 3.7 million in seed funding. Notable angels include the CEO of Door Dash NBA scrub Matthew Dellavedova, former Cleveland Cav and executives from Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Uber, and Robinhood. On Ladder "members can join professional communities, consume high-quality career content, engage in fun discussions, land their dream job and form meaningful relationships with peers and mentor."
Joel (33m 4s):
That's according to their press release. The platform aims to become the go-to professional social network for gen Z. Chad as a card-carrying gen Xer are you buying or selling Ladder?
Chad (33m 17s):
So you get the feeling right out of the gate when creating a Ladder profile, which I did, that it was created just for college students. The experience sucks. I used Google. I, well, I used my Google profile to start creating my Ladder profile. What's your most recent education?
sfx (33m 39s):
Oh, hell no.
Chad (33m 40s):
Bootcamp, grads, dropouts, and students of any kind are encouraged, but the drop-downs are hyper-focused on degrees, ran out of the gate, which doesn't make any damn sense when we're moving toward an experience and skills based market, it feels like Ladder would have been a great idea 10 years ago. Will, the automate no. Will it scale? No. Does the founder have experienced in this space? He's 12 years old for God's sakes. No, he doesn't. So what we have here is an incredibly smart and well connected to Sequoia, kid who has no clue what's happening in the market and the market is so fucking frothy right now that they will throw money at anything that relates to jobs and workforce.
Chad (34m 28s):
This to me is an easy and big sell.
Joel (34m 33s):
Alright. Facebook is losing users to Snap and TikTok. For some reason people think the same thing will happen with LinkedIn, but what's the purpose of a professional network. It's not about cool or dancing or karaoke, it's about connecting with those who can actually help you professionally. i.e. sell some shit, get a job, find a mentor, et cetera. If I had joined a professional network in my twenties that was full of other 20 year olds aside from getting laid, I'm not sure it would have done anything for me until about 20, 10, 20 years after joining.
Chad (35m 5s):
Unless there was a getting laid network, right?
Joel (35m 10s):
That's that's called Tinder, that exists. All right. So LinkedIn, would have plugged me into everyone I needed to know instantly. Young and old LinkedIn will not be TikToked. A ladder much like the Ladders for me is a sell. And that brings us to the end of another buy or sell. Chad, are you a member of Sam's Club or Costco?
Chad (35m 34s):
Yes.
Joel (35m 35s):
Yes. Which one? I feel like they're kind of like West Side Story. You're either one of the other.
Chad (35m 43s):
Costco.
Joel (35m 43s):
Costco. Okay. I'm a Costco guy too. Well Sam's Club was in the news recently basically saying what labor shortage? Sam's Club CEO says it has reached full employment at the Yahoo finances, all market summit. That sounds like a party. Sam's Club CEO Catherine McClay said Sam's has been at full staffing for probably over three months in their roughly 600 stores. McClay said the secret sauce for Sam's Club has been a combination of higher wages and a clear pathway for career advancement. They're at $15 an hour at minimum wage, but the average wage is actually around $17.30 an hour.
Joel (36m 24s):
70% of Sam's Club leaders have worked their way up from the frontline. The recipe for keeping workers happy, appears to be working for Sam's Club who's same-store sales rose 7.7% in the second quarter, on top of a 13.3% gain a year ago. Second quarter operating profits, rose 11 and a half percent from a year ago, Chad, everyone's bitching about, I can't hire anybody. And then you get a story like this from Sam's Club. What do you make of it?
Chad (36m 56s):
What I'd like to see research around retention for companies that are run by female CEOs. I think there's more empathy, more authenticity, but I mean, we're seeing that possibly at Sam's Club, they started with the $15 minimum wage. I think a couple of years ago, they tried to actually ratchet up to that and they've gotten there. Their average, which really don't know what that means, you don't know, you know what they're meaning if that's just frontline average, you know, it's over seven, $17. I'm still having a hard time praising organizations for finally paying a fucking living wage.
Chad (37m 37s):
But that's where we're at. I really think though I would love to see research on how female led companies and even teams within organizations are doing from an attrition standpoint versus their male counterparts.
Joel (37m 49s):
And I want to say some research around megalomaniacs and penis rockets, running companies and how that's going. Yeah. Most, any company, most, any company can move wages higher and provide bonuses, benefits, et cetera. And we're starting to see that finally with organizations. Where I think Sam's Club gets it right as the culture, you can't just switch culture on and off, right? You can't just say, we're going to give you more money. That's a culture has takes decades in this case to grow. I think there's immense benefit to being a new employee, talking to your boss that was actually in your shoes five or 10 years ago. It gives you something to look at as terms of where I'll be in five to 10 years.
Joel (38m 32s):
I think that's really important. I think that we discount that a lot of times. It says the company values you and wants you to grow within the company. Amazon in contrast, doesn't seem to have that kind of culture whatsoever. Treating people is a good move. Unlike Amazon, where there's actually been stories where they feel like they're getting pushed out at a certain point, because they're going to an another level of salary and Amazon, would rather not pay you salary and they'd rather bring in somebody else to take your spot. So props to Sam's Club and I think it's been paying dividends. It's a successful business. I think we could probably say the same about Costco. And I know that we've talked, was it the Costco TikToker that was talking about the benefits of the workplace and how much they love Costco.
Joel (39m 16s):
I mean, that's the kind of thing that you get with culture. And most companies, the majority of companies aren't willing to put in the time investment to create a culture, like the one that we see at Sam's Club. So hats off to them, the investment is paying off.
Chad (39m 45s):
That's right. And anybody out there who has a research on female CEOs versus male CEOs, and attrition in their organization, I'd like to see that.
Joel (39m 57s):
Let's take a quick break And we'll talk about addition on PornHub. Yes. All right Chad, another week, another porn hub story. Wow. Popular porn destination porn hub, which none of our listeners are familiar with serves up 2.4 billion visits on average each month. It's a top down site that they don't really talk about because it's porn. That's a lot of visitors Chad. Marketers are always looking for large numbers of potential customers and they're always looking for ways to cut through the clutter, enter a math teacher named Chang ??? Who noticed something was missing amidst all the TNA goodness.
Joel (40m 39s):
Math.
Chad (40m 39s):
Calculus.
Joel (40m 39s):
The Taiwanese math teacher provides online math lessons and fully clothed and safe for work videos at pornhub.com. The teacher said quote, "since very few people teach math on adult video platforms" like are there more than one? "And since there are so many people who watch videos on them, I thought that if I uploaded my videos there, a lot of people would see them" end quote. He has tried taking his lessons to other adult platforms like X videos, but those sites apparently don't allow non adult clips. They have too much, too much morale, I guess, or too much morality.
Joel (41m 19s):
PornHub is much more welcoming. Under the handle ChangSUmath666. I'm not sure why he put the sign of the devil there in his name, the 34 year old math teacher is verified account has netted him over 1.7 million views and features the slogan play hard, study hard. Yeah. I bet that gets some searches. The goal is for viewers to sign up for Chang Su's online course, which nets him over $250,000 a year, which he uses to pay his staff and produce the math videos. You said staff. I said, staff, I don't know how he is at teaching math, but he's a hell of a marketer. Chad, what's your take?
Chad (41m 59s):
Okay. So I haven't performed the demographic research on this one, but I would assume most of the clicks on his videos are people who are looking for naughty teacher fantasies and not learning calculus. I could totally be wrong. And if I am that makes this guy a fucking marketing genius, but I'm going to play the skeptic here and say that for the most part, all the clicks that he's, he's getting a thereby they're not by accident. They're really looking for teacher fantasy.
Joel (42m 33s):
Yeah. Well, Chad, we've, been debating whether or not to go video for this podcast. And I think that this insight just may have given us enough ammo to say, we should be publishing videos on porn hub. What could be more on-brand than that? And with that, another one is in the books
sfx (42m 51s):
But they aren't who we thought they were and we let them off the hook.
Joel and Chad (42m 53s):
We out.
OUTRO (42m 53s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode.
OUTRO (43m 34s):
And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out
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