SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
FinHIre Founder Needs to Solve Marketplace Problem but Won't Quit Full Time Job
11 Jan 2021
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Now look, I never want money to be the reason you can't listen to episodes. On the checkout page, you'll see an option to request free access. I grant 100% of those requests, no questions asked. Hello, everyone. My guest today is Antonis Gekas. He's a marketing professional with extensive experience in the e-commerce industry with a large presence in the Berlin startup scene.
He's had the privilege of working for Fortune 500 companies and other top brands in the US and Europe. And in 2020, he founded his second company, Finhire.me. Antonis, you ready to take us to the top? Yes. Thanks a lot for the invitation. You bet. What's Finhire doing? How do you guys make money? FinHire is still in progress, so we're planning to launch it after the coronavirus.
The whole lockdown situation pushed us a bit back because actually what FinHire is, it's a marketplace for job seekers and for recruiters and for the companies to find top talents within the fintech industry. So coming from the fintech industry, that's my main side project that I'm working on right now.
And coming from the fintech industry, we try to build one marketplace that is going to be focused only on the fintech talents and how the recruiters or how the companies can find these people easily. So just to be clear, you're pre-revenue today? We're not generating any revenue at this point in time because we We set up the company and we had to boost the launch.
Yeah, I understand COVID, obviously. It's a big deal. How much have you guys spent so far building the technology? So far, everything is in-house. So my co-founder is the CTO. So everything we have.
cost only the servers or cost from marketing wise we haven't run any marketing activity because in the past we just had to do the whole product roadmap and we had to test the users and the personas that we had in the time. And so that's how many co-founders are there? We are two, two people. Did you just split it 50-50? Yeah, exactly. It's a 50-50 split. That's great.
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Chapter 2: What is Finhire and what problem does it aim to solve?
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It was all with dumb data, so we didn't have any candidates. So we tested only the processes and only the services, what we can offer. So we didn't have any candidates. So at the end, they didn't recruit someone.
Chapter 3: How has COVID-19 impacted Finhire's launch timeline?
They just tested the whole services, how it works. I mean, isn't the candidate the critical piece to a recruiting process? Can you accurately test something you're building with dumb data or not real data and not real candidates? Yes, you can do this for sure. How? You have to go get all the candidates. I mean, how are you going to get candidates? This is a marketplace.
Your business doesn't work unless you build both sides of the marketplace at the same time. It's very challenging. How do you get candidates to sign up using your platform? For sure. I'm just saying how we base it from the recruitment side. So that's also our goal, to see how it works from the recruitment side. I understand that. That's one side. How do you get real candidates signed up?
That has to be part of a test. It's a marketplace. Yes, exactly. Still, we haven't tested this, as I said, because with this corona situation, we push everything back. As I mentioned earlier, we're two people, so also our manpower is not enough to go faster, but we haven't tested this product market fit within the supply, let's say. Why not, though?
I mean, wouldn't there be a lot of people right now in this space losing their job? Wouldn't there be a lot of candidates looking for work right now? Yes, it is. So why are you waiting to build that side of the marketplace? Unfortunately, that's the situation. But yeah, we need to push it. We didn't have the time, I would say. Are you doing something else? Yes. That's my side project.
So as a main job, I'm working within a digital bank. Anton, you're not a real entrepreneur until you quit. You've got to burn the bridges and go into this thing full time. Otherwise, you're never going to build it. You're probably making some cushy salary at the bank. Yeah, that's a problem. When do you quit your job at the bank? When? Yeah.
Let's say when we hit the first OKRs of this side project of FinHire. Why are you motivated to hit that, though, if you're happy with your job currently? Because I would like to do something on my own and I would like to bring something to the people, to help the people, you know, as you mentioned, like a lot of people are losing their job. So I think I bring some additional value here.
All right, fair enough. Well, we're rooting for you, man. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book? The favorite business book? I would say the C11 Lean Startup that everyone in the brand or every person within the startup environment. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? CEO following a study? Sorry, I didn't hear your question.
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Chapter 4: What technology costs has Finhire incurred so far?
A CEO that you like? A CEO that I like? Good question. Yeah. I like one CEO that I had in the past as my boss, the CEO of Trivago, part of Expedia, part of Shellmaker. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building the platform? So everything we try to do it on PHP, but what I like lately is the Webflow tool. So it makes some easiness to create landing pages.
And Denise, number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? I haven't slept in the night. How many, sorry? How many hours of sleep? A lot. I haven't slept, you said, sorry. How many hours do you sleep each night on average? On average? Five to seven, I would say. Okay. And what's your situation? Married? Single? Kids? No, I'm single. Okay.
And last question, what's something you wish you knew when you were 20? I wish I had the experience through the problems, through the mistakes that I have done through these 11 years. So right now I'm 31. So I wish I had this experience because before I started building this product, FinHire had been also another startup and unfortunately didn't go very well.
Well, you've got to live and you'll learn. Failure is part of the process.
Chapter 5: How many co-founders are involved in Finhire?
There you guys have it. Antonis, finhire.me. He's still on a cushy bank job, but if this thing takes off, who knows what will happen. He's hoping to help people in the Berlin, recruiters in the Berlin fintech scene find talent. Two-sided marketplace. We'll see if we can get it done. Antonis, thanks for taking us to the top. Thanks a lot for your time. Thanks for having me.