Recruitment site so quick it had to slow down and reload
FIFObids - a website where resource workers can advertise their skills to companies looking for staff - hit the ground running when it launched in April last year. It registered 30,000 unique visits on its first day of trading.
But the launch hit a snag when founders Mike Haywood and Antonluigi Gozzi realised their business model could not handle the customer numbers.
Within the first two weeks of opening for business, the pair was forced back to the drawing board. And within four weeks, Haywood, based in Perth, and Gozzi, based in Melbourne, had rewritten their business plan and were back.
Under their previous model, companies searched the FIFObids database and made bids or "connection requests" for suitable candidates.
Workers would review the bids and, if they accepted, FIFObids sent the worker's personal details including age, sex and hourly rate to the company making the job offer.
With FIFObids acting as middleman between the prospective worker and the company, the time between a job offer and a job being accepted or rejected was too long.
Haywood and Gozzi revisited the bidding model and decided to let workers accept or refuse job offers without FIFObids interfering.
"As soon as a company sends a connection request, the worker gets it via SMS or email and can click 'accept' or 'reject'," Haywood says.
"As soon as we did that, the amount of connection requests went up by 700 each month."
FIFObids has since been on the rise. Haywood says the site is now matching 500 workers to jobs each month. Some of those matches occur within minutes.
"The Friday after Anzac Day I saw a new company register at 8.08am and by 8.22am they had sent a connection request to an engineering technician," Haywood says. "By 8.26am that connection request was accepted. That's recruitment in 18 minutes."
Previously FIFObids made revenue by charging companies for each successful connection request. But two months ago a subscription model was introduced, with companies paying either $199 a month to contact 50 prospective workers or $499 a month for 100 workers. The company also makes revenue from selling up-to-the-minute market data reports. FIFObids is free for workers.
Haywood and Gozzi now want to expand across other industries.
They plan in June to launch livehire.me, an online marketplace for workers across all industries which will absorb FIFObids by the end of the year.
Frequently Asked Questions about this Article…
FIFObids is an online recruitment site where resource workers advertise their skills and companies search for candidates. Companies send 'connection requests' to workers, and workers receive them via SMS or email and can click 'accept' or 'reject', allowing direct, fast matches without FIFObids acting as an intermediary.
FIFObids had 30,000 unique visits on its first day. After changing its process so workers accept offers directly, connection requests increased by 700 per month, and the site now matches about 500 workers to jobs each month, with some matches happening within minutes (one example was an 18-minute hire).
The founders discovered within weeks that the original model — where FIFObids acted as the middleman and passed personal details after a worker accepted a bid — couldn’t handle the volume and caused long delays between offers and responses. They rewrote the business plan to let workers accept or refuse directly, which sped up matching.
FIFObids previously charged companies per successful connection but introduced a subscription model. Companies can pay $199 a month to contact 50 prospective workers or $499 a month for 100 workers. The company also sells up-to-the-minute market data reports. FIFObids remains free for workers.
Employers can choose a subscription that costs $199 per month to contact up to 50 prospective workers or $499 per month to contact up to 100 workers. These subscriptions replaced the earlier per-connection fee model.
Matches can be extremely fast. The article gives an example where a company registered at 8:08am, sent a connection request at 8:22am to an engineering technician, and the request was accepted by 8:26am — recruitment completed in 18 minutes. The site reports many matches occurring within minutes.
The founders plan to expand across other industries. In June they planned to launch livehire.me, an online marketplace for workers across all industries, and livehire.me is expected to absorb FIFObids by the end of the year.
Investors should note that FIFObids initially hit scalability limits at launch and responded by changing its process and business plan to speed up matches. The company has shifted revenue from per-connection fees to subscriptions and market data sales, is matching hundreds of workers each month, and is planning a broader marketplace rollout via livehire.me.
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