Incubator Helps Online Social-Recruitment Tool Take Off

The startup: RolePoint, an enterprise-level social-recruitment platform that helps companies find new talent through recommendations from current employees. The startup graduated in May 2012 from San Francisco accelerator AngelPad, which works mainly with web technology companies. AngelPad runs two sessions per year and accepts about 12 startups to each; the most recent program drew some 2,000 applicants.  
What it is: While working for a large investment bank in London, Chris Le Breton received an e-mail from a colleague seeking referrals for a new hire. Numerous messages on the subject went around internally, sparking Le Breton's "aha" moment: Companies aren't efficiently leveraging their own employee networks to fill job openings.
"Referrals are valued beyond any other hire in companies, and really not much work has been done around that to help the process or help people internally hire for their companies," says Le Breton, who now serves as RolePoint's CEO.
With RolePoint, companies circumvent time-consuming or expensive methods like recruitment agencies or traditional direct hiring. Instead, the online platform taps a company's employees to find candidates within their professional networks and refer them to the hiring manager.
Getting in: AngelPad was intrigued by RolePoint's technology and capacity for strong leadership among its four U.K.-based founders, but in large part the startup was accepted for what wasn't there. "We saw an incredible raw potential, and a big part of what was missing was this understanding of how to focus on building a really large company," says Thomas Korte, the AngelPad founder who mentored the RolePoint team. "Oftentimes for companies that have come from anywhere but Silicon Valley, business is very different. In the U.K., for example, there's a big focus on revenue very early, so it doesn't help founders look at the really big picture. [With RolePoint] we saw that if we help them see what they can do with this, it can be so much bigger."
The goods: AngelPad's 10-week program focuses on product development and market fit prior to launch, as well as fundraising. The small program's attention to detail was a draw for RolePoint. Le Breton appreciated the "focus on the quality rather than quantity," adding that many accelerators just push a gaggle of companies through and hope one takes off.
Lessons learned: Make sure your concept or company aims to solve a well-defined need or problem. "Be very clear on the value you're adding from day one," says Kes Thygesen, co-founder and head of product for RolePoint, which has relocated to Silicon Valley since completing the AngelPad program. "Really understand why a company would pay money for this; then you can concentrate on building a solution and validating that solution."
Adds Le Breton: "Demonstrate traction in the early stages, even if it's on a very small scale, and then let the investors extrapolate that."
Looking ahead: RolePoint closed a large seed round from Silicon Valley investors last October, and is working on scaling up the team and product.

How to Score an Advisor When Your Startup Has No Money

"If only I had an investor who would come on-board and throw in some money, I'd be able to do A, B, C and D. Then we'd really be off to the races."
Have you thought or said something like this before?
I have. And it's frustrating because you end up spending so much of your time and energy chasing after the investor as a result. And the next one. And the next one. Oops, that one was close, lost him at the last moment. And so the story goes.
Good news. You can eliminate at least half of this pain or more starting today.
First, though, we need to touch on the genome of what most early-stage investors are looking for in a startup:

• 50 percent strong team
• 30 percent week-over-week traction
• 20 percent revenue

The best way to strengthen these criteria early-on, especially when you're bootstrapping and have little to no funding, is to reach out to your personal network.
Before choosing an advisor, begin thinking about the weak areas for your startup. These days with services like oDesk and Elance anyone can pretty much find a way to build something. So while you think your weak spot might be on the tech-side of things, it's probably not, or it's only the tip of the iceberg. Tons of people are building things right now, but hardly anyone is building something novel and uncomplicated -- something that works and becomes integral to a target demographic.
Here are some types of advisors to focus on:

• A solid product manager in your niche
• Someone with lots of proven online marketing and user acquisition experience
• A well-connected PR person -- especially old-school offline PR
• A finance person with tons of corporate development experience

Here's why these types of people are super beneficial to you:

• The product manager knows how to build things that solve the correct problem.
• An online marketer knows how to bring people to your solution.
• A PR person can create great synergy by connecting you to brands they work with that have way more traction than you. Osmosis.
• Finance corporate development person -- a money person who knows investors

Ask these potential advisors for references from people they've previously worked with and follow-up on them. Let them know early-on that you want to increase their role from advisor to some type of paid role at your company. And here's a word to the wise -- if you have no intention of paying this person at some point for the value you think they can add to your startup, that says a lot about how valuable you think they really are. The best kind of advisor is the type of advisor who is interested in becoming part of your dedicated team at some point.
You will never find more of a selfless person at your startup beyond your advisor.
And what about the money? After bringing these people on, you still aren't going to have additional dollars in your startup's pocket, but you'll be well-on-your-way to a solid team that's dedicated to gaining your product traction, which is about 80 percent of what most early-stage investors look for in the first place.