SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
1172 How He Pivoted to $30m in Funding, 10,000+ Jobs Placed with Recruiting AI Tool
09 Oct 2018
Chapter 1: What inspired Eyal Grayevsky to pivot to an AI recruiting tool?
focus on solving a problem, not building a solution. Back in 2016, he pivoted his prior company into Maya, which is essentially recruiting with a lot of AI behind it to bring about a lot of efficiencies. He's since scaled the company. They've raised about 33 million bucks. And while funding is an important metric, it's one I, not I, I tend to prefer and like to look at customers.
He's scaling there as well. 50 customers today. They've placed tens of thousands of jobs so far, hoping to break, you know, hundreds of thousands here in 2018. On these customers, you know, call it about 100 bucks per job they place. And these enterprise customers are buying in chunks of 10,000, 20,000 or more, 100,000 sometimes jobs placed.
So healthy business, healthy economics, 14 month payback period currently as they look to start scaling more rapidly with their team of 40 folks. This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn.
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Chapter 2: How has Mya Systems scaled since its founding?
We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million. I had no money when I started the company. It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs. We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers. With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes.
I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode. Hello everyone, my guest today is Eyal Grajevski. He's the co-founder and CEO of a company called Maya Systems. It was formerly named FirstJob. He's the creators of Maya, the industry leading AI recruiter. So again, applying AI to the recruiting space.
His 12 plus years of managing or co-managing his family's recruiting agency and operating FirstJob inspired him to solve the major inefficiencies in the recruiting space. Prior to Maya Systems, he founded First Job, a job site for companies looking to attract, engage, and hire qualified early career talent from the company's network of over 11 million active millennial job seekers.
He's also a founding partner at Double Tap Ventures, a community of startup founders that provides an environment for entrepreneurs to share advice. He received his bachelor's degree in finance from the University of Colorado. Y'all, you're ready to take us to the top.
Yes, sir.
All right. It takes a special kind of person to get excited about recruiting. What excites you about recruiting?
It's a broken industry and a huge opportunity to solve some big problems that impact a lot of people.
Okay, and many people would argue recruiting is by nature a people's sport. How do you believe you can solve this with AI?
Well, yeah, people are a critical element of the process, but we think there are ways to automate some of the repetitive work to create a lot of efficiencies to enhance the experience for the candidate and get people in jobs a lot more quickly.
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Chapter 3: What is the business model behind Mya's AI recruiting tool?
What is the upside if you can perform?
So if we're able to generate more hires than the minimum commitment, then we're able to true up that subscription.
You mean drive expansion revenue or just get a renewal and make sure churn stays low?
So they pay per hire. So that's per successful outcome. and they commit to a minimum level of hires, say a customer commits to 10,000 hires, and we end up generating 15,000 hires, then they ultimately pay for the 15,000. So the minimum commitment is 10, and if we generate 15,000, then they're actually paying, they're truing up on that subscription within that term.
If I commit to 10,000 hires, when do you actually receive the cash? Do they pay for 10,000 all up front, or they pay as you land those jobs?
Yeah, typically the minimum commitment is paid up front as part of the terms of the agreement. And then we're able to true up once we exceed that minimum commitment, then we're able to true up on a monthly basis.
Okay, got it. And so tell me more about the kinds, like the size of companies that you like working with. I mean, we get a little bit of a hint because you use an example of 10,000 jobs. So I assume you're really focused on enterprise.
We are. So we work with large enterprises and some of the largest global staffing companies in the world. We support 12% of the Fortune 100 today. So these are very large enterprises with very high volume recruiting challenges. And the types of jobs really depend on the account, but often high volume hourly job opportunities. More recently, we've moved into professional staffing as well.
Okay, great. And give me a general sense. So 12% of Fortune 100 total customers or total logos you're working with today is about what?
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Chapter 4: What are the challenges in the recruiting industry that AI can address?
You know, our largest customers committed to 200,000 hires. So, you know, again, these are very high volume, very large enterprises and large agencies. But, you know, the goal is how do we move downstream? How do we create a solution that's very easy to implement that everyone can adopt? And so that's really the big push moving into 2019.
Yep. If you have a minimum of six figures on 5,000 hires, I mean, that's at least 20 bucks per hire. I mean, that's actually incredibly low considering most people would pay a recruiter 10, 20% of first year salary. I mean, what about your AI? I mean, what about your whole system allows you to deliver that quality product at such a low price point?
Yeah, and just to clarify, the numbers that you're sharing aren't accurate in terms of the per hire cost. So it would be well north of that.
Well, just to be clear though, sorry, I must have gotten one of your numbers wrong. You said 5,000 is like a typical size you work with and you said no deals, none are less than six figures, right? So a minimum would be 20 bucks, right?
Yeah. So when I say no less than six figures, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars for a typical minimum commitment.
Oh, I see. The minimum is not $100,000. It might be $300,000, $400,000.
Exactly. Got it.
Got it. Do you have any... I mean, still though, just to give you yourself some credit here, I mean, even if it was $400,000, right?
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Chapter 5: How does Mya automate the recruiting process?
That's what? What is that? Like $80? That's still... a win compared to what people currently pay?
It's a huge win. And when you talk about, you know, the conversion, you know, we're seeing about two and a half X conversion from a typical process where you're using phone calls and emails to try to reach out to candidates. You know, we're seeing upwards of 80% cost savings at top of funnel recruiting operations.
We're seeing a dramatic improvement in candidate experience, which can translate into massive impact on the business when you're talking about some of these consumer brands where candidates have poor experiences. Maybe they won't be a customer down the road.
And in terms of time to fill, we're seeing about a 79% increase in time to fill simply by applying this technology to the first interaction with the candidate.
79% better than what?
Yeah.
better than the traditional methodology. So I can give you an example.
Which is what though, like a person, like a recruiter?
It's a manual phone call typically to an applicant to try to get them on a call. So you're chasing folks down. And then once you get them on a call, you're having a 20, 25 minute phone screen to ultimately determine if this person's eligible for say an onsite interview. Got it. Example. So all that legwork, all that manual work
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Chapter 6: What types of companies benefit most from Mya's services?
Married, single, you have kiddos? I am engaged. Oh, good, very good, so no kids yet. No kids yet. Or maybe you can, I don't know. But okay, no kids. So engaged, no kids. When's the wedding? April of 2019. Okay, you have some time. That's a long sprint, right? All right, and how old are you, Yael?
I'm 30 years old.
All right, last question. What do you wish your 20-year-old self knew?
Well, starting my first business, probably focus on solving a problem rather than building a solution. because that solution is going to change. And it's so important just to focus on how to solve, not build.
Guys, there you have it from Eyal. Focus on solving a problem, not building a solution. Back in 2016, he pivoted his prior company into Maya, which is essentially recruiting with a lot of AI behind it to bring about a lot of efficiencies. He's since scaled the company. They've raised about 33 million bucks. And while funding is an important metric, it's
One, I tend to prefer and like to look at customers. He's scaling there as well. 50 customers today. They've placed tens of thousands of jobs so far, hoping to break, you know, hundreds of thousands here in 2018. On these customers, you know, call it about 100 bucks per job they place. And these enterprise customers are buying in chunks of 10,000, 20,000 or more, 100,000 sometimes jobs placed.
So healthy business, healthy economics, 14 month payback period currently as they look to start scaling more rapidly with their team of 40 folks. Y'all, thanks for taking us to the top.
Hey, thank you, Nathan.
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