hyrd

Why did you found your start-up, what problem are you addressing and how are you solving it?

Social background still plays a major role in individual career opportunities and leads to major inequalities in the application and recruiting process. Our goal at hyrd is to democratize access to career opportunities by ensuring a transparent, simple and fair application process for all graduates, no matter where they come from, who they know or what background their parents have.

hyrd accompanies students throughout their career path and helps them to find a well-fitting and targeted job. We make sure students don't miss out on any job opportunities and provide them with the tools and support they need throughout their career path, from job search to signing a contract.

How did you come up with the idea of founding your start-up?

In our previous jobs as bankers, we were particularly involved in the recruiting process of young talent. We noticed first-hand the inefficiencies and limitations in companies' recruiting processes. On the other hand, we learned what students find most difficult and troublesome when it comes to mastering the application process.

This also reminded us of our own situation at the time when we were faced with opaque, unfair and stressful application processes. The more we thought about the situation, the more we were convinced that technology had the potential to solve these problems and create a fair and efficient application process.

What is special about your business model, what do you do differently?

hyrd is the only platform that guides and supports students at every step of their career journey, from discovering the right job to signing the employment contract, without leaving our platform at any step. As the first career platform with a fully integrated and harmonized application process for all jobs, we provide students with smart tools to master the entire application process with the hyrd platform.

In addition, we provide students with a comprehensive and well-structured job market overview and ensure that they never miss an opportunity. With this integrated process, we are able to support each and every student in this incredibly important step of life and ensure equal career opportunities.

What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome in the beginning?

When founding a startup, one of the biggest challenges is finding the right balance between building a product and building a company. On the one hand, it's essential to create a great product that people love, but on the other hand, it's also important to create the foundation for a successfully operating and scalable company. This balance is of course not set in stone, but needs to be adjusted depending on the current state of the business.

What was the most valuable advice someone gave you during the start-up phase?

Talk to your customers/users: A lot of great people we've spoken to have encouraged us to reach out to our user base and get their feedback on our product. It's extremely important not to build an entire product based solely on your own assumptions. You won't get the best results if you build a product for your users, but with your users.

What has been your biggest success so far?

We worked intensively with students throughout the stealth phase to get first-hand feedback. After the release of the hyrd beta version, we received overwhelming feedback from the first users. It's a great success to hear that what we've built really adds value to students and makes a big difference to their career path, one of the most challenging and exciting journeys of their lives.

What would you recommend to other founders?

Talk to your customers/users. We believe that many companies fail to communicate effectively with their customers. We have worked very interactively with our users to get a better understanding of how we can best respond to their needs. Listening is a very powerful tool to find out what you can do better and how you as a company can make your customers happy; because in the end, that's all that matters.

Where did you meet as a team?

We worked together for a few years in our previous jobs - in different teams, but in the same department. During those years, we became good friends and spent a lot of time together. That's how we turned our idea of helping students get the right job into a concept and later into a company. Especially when you work as a company in a very small team, the dynamic between the founders is absolutely necessary for the success of the company.

What was the biggest rejection you ever received in a pitch?

We once spent a lot of time and effort preparing for a pitch. We tried to perfect every detail of the pitch book and the message we wanted to convey. Finally, we were extremely well prepared and ready to pitch. Then our scheduled 1-hour meeting turned into a 15-minute call, which didn't really give us the opportunity to get our message across. Sometimes these events feel very frustrating, but it's important to put them behind you and focus your energy on what's next.

Where do you see yourselves in 3 years?

We envision hyrd as a grown company, with a great culture, serving students and businesses with passion and market-leading technology.

Do you still have a real social life since founding the company?

We are both very passionate about our product and enjoy working hard to make it better and take it to the next level. That's why work doesn't really feel like work most of the time. We have a great team that we also spend a lot of time with and we love to enjoy a few after-work drinks every now and then, including sometimes a Frankfurt cider.

Do you have a role model and if so, who is it?

Hasso Plattner and Dietmar Hopp: They have created a great company that has completely changed the way companies interact internally and externally. They have seamlessly improved their customers' processes by offering "the" operating system for the hardware they already use. In our opinion, intelligent processes are the key to successful organizations, but they are also very important for every individual.

If an investor gave you 500,000 euros, what would you do with the money?

At the moment we are well financed, but in the long term we would like to make additional investments in new people to accelerate our growth and further improve our technology.