hello everyone marco montemagno here
digital domination summit 2013 and with
me founder and CEO of the muse Catherine
min show and when I tell your surname
I’m so embarrassed because my surname
montemagno is even more difficult so but
where is it from minchia is Russia like
that it’s a scotch irish actually um but
and there’s a number of men shoes in
Texas Alabama I think I just heard from
some in Idaho I actually grew up in the
Washington DC area but a lot of my
relatives are from the Dallas Fort Worth
hawkins texas area so that’s where it’s
from oh cool for my surname I certainly
couldn’t connect them they simply can’t
say montemagno so i created the
soundcloud with the how to pronounce my
surname in case you know yeah i like it
if I can always tell if someone’s
calling me and they don’t know me
because the last four you know Catherine
min shoe or something else that I’m like
yeah okay it’s a telemarketer for
example so Catherine um the muse for the
people watching this video and if you
don’t know the muse I think when I was
looking for for speakers for digital
domination summit I thought gosh one
topic very interesting is how to find
job you know and all this kind of stuff
and the interwebs is full of websites
about job and you know the big web
portals from the two thousand and so on
and and then I just found the muse and
by the way you passed through Y
Combinator or I’m wrong yes we were away
Combinator company right and and then I
saw the music and I thought gosh that
this is very interesting because the the
approach that these guys and these girls
they trying to to get it’s really
different so on one side tips on careers
on the other side you know show me how a
company’s you know the behind the scenes
of a company so if i want to to get a
job I don’t know in facebook I can go on
the muse and see how Facebook is really
looked like and try to figure out it is
it bright my perception
this is the way that you’re trying to go
absolutely and we have started from the
question of how do people figure out
what they want to do with their lives
and ultimately when you think about it
the sort of lack of a better word the
relationship that people have with the
company they work for it’s one of the
biggest in their life I mean other than
the relationship they might have with a
spouse or a parent with a child here you
spend so many hours a day with your job
it’s a huge predictor of your happiness
and so I started thinking why is it that
most job boards focus on the job that
you’ll be doing you know if you go to
any of the big sites you mentioned you
will kind of type in some keywords and
you’ll get this massive list and it’s
like the title the salary you know the
director of marketing will be
responsible for compiling annual reports
maalula like you know what a director of
marketing does that’s not really what
you’re trying to figure out you’re
trying to figure out is this position
for me and more broadly what would my
life be like if I applied to and we’re
accepted to work at this company and
that’s what we try and offer at the mews
right Catherine let me ask you obviously
I want to get your tips for for people
watching this video about this job war
that is so interesting especially in
this moment with recession depression
crisis unfortunately but on the other
side uncurious about the muse and the
story also i saw you mention it as
mentioned as a top 30 under 30 you know
this kind of rankings I I quit giving
all the titles of the speakers are wiser
I should do a digital domination summit
with all the reading all the titles and
the speaker so but obviously you
achieving a lot of results also offers
and results but let me understand how
when you launch the muse how did you
solve the famous problem you know chica
nag I mean how do you find people
looking for a job and how do you attract
company where did you start from yeah I
mean so I love that question because I
am very proud of our answer to it woman
and it’s interesting said something we
were actually criticized for early on
quite a bit but we actually started with
job search and coo
content and the content is is a really
critical part of our business and it’s
one that I think a lot of people with
undervalued for a really long time but
we realized no company is going to pay
to post job on a job site where there
are no job seekers and what’s more
companies they came up who who are the
job seekers you have so they want smart
people ideally people who are employed
or who have other options people who are
kind of aspirational about their careers
and we thought how are we going to get
these people we’re going to provide them
with the other thing they need which is
really great current content I went
through this myself I used to work at
mckinsey & company as a management
consultant and there were so many things
professionally that I had questions
about so you know how do you negotiate a
salary and when is the appropriate time
how do you deal with a boss who’s a
micromanager how would you even think of
setting up an informational interview
and how do you make sure that it’s you
know an appropriate experience for for
you that you’re learning that it’s a
great experience for the person you’re
interviewing I mean I didn’t go on as
you know and this is what I talked about
all day every day but ultimately we felt
like there was just a real lack of great
content about these career issues and
that if we built up a community around
answering some of those questions
fostering the discussion and made sure
that the quality of the content was
really high because people see through
you know people see through crack
content like that that we would create
an audience in a community and then we
get the job seekers on board so we
didn’t even have job postings on the
site for four months after we launched
just editorial content in beginning
mm-hmm and a lot of people really kind
of looked down on us for that we were
told you know you’re never going to get
anywhere you’re just a little bitch blog
like this isn’t the way to start and I I
thought they were all wrong I still
think they’re all wrong and it’s been
actually very satisfying as we’ve grown
and we now have almost a million job
seekers every month and this is with no
marketing budget you know we’d even have
somebody doing marketing or doing growth
up until about two or three months ago I
just really happened at an incredible
pace and I think it’s because we built
up the brand and the community of the
trust first and then let our users our
readers tell
friends and spread the word and so once
we did add job listings it was such a
natural fit basically you did reverse
what all the companies in the world are
trying to do now I mean I was at the
last social media were forum and I was
moderator one day and for one day I only
hear people saying are now all the
company or media company and now content
is king again after several years
yakhont risky game and so now we are we
need editorial content we have the
product but we don’t have the culture so
you started from editorial content to
arrive to to the offer and then how did
you approach companies to do to get you
know the posting and also i guess the
business is coming out from from the
companies to to put a job yeah so we
actually initially designed what we
wanted the company profile page to look
like and we knew we wanted it to be just
visually stunning so that when a company
saw it they looked at it and they
thought I want one of these I want my
company to be presented in this way and
we actually did a mock-up of a company
profile for Google based on publicly
available photos of the Google campus
just to give people an idea of what it
would look like and then the very first
exactly and then we approached five
companies there were all companies that
were local we did Kiva justin.tv clout
out in San Francisco and two others and
you know we basically said we’re going
to do this completely for free you’ll
have full control will work with you
we’re going to make it look amazing and
will you let us come in and all of them
said if you know absolutely and once we
have those horse five then it it almost
became easy we push them live on the
site and we include a button that said
you know do you want your company to be
featured click here for pricing and more
information we had a hundred companies
click within the first 24 hours yeah and
we knew at that point we deliberately
didn’t put a lot of resources into the
first launch because we wanted to test
if it was really solving what companies
needed and what users needed i’m a big
proponent of the lean startup that’s
oh gee and putting out a Minimum Viable
Product and so we really did that with
these company profiles in fact i wish i
could show you some of the early like
the landing page because it is ugly I
mean I’m not it is so it is really ugly
but at that point like the point was do
these companies profiles you know are
they attracted to they serve their
purpose and the answer was yes and so
once we saw that demand from companies
once we heard the feedback from users
then I made a list of the 30 most kind
of inspirational awesome attractive
companies that I wanted on the platform
and I just started calling them and 25
of them said yes okay Wow and most
reverent they paid for it to which was
great thank you one question Catherine
and then we go go further but um how do
you scale this kind of business this is
you know I try I normally never do this
question because I hate discussed in
what they do it to me but I have to do
you know this kind of question so the
business model is that you go to
companies and say look we create behind
the scenes about your company and we
created a amazing page on our website in
this way people looking for a job they
will you know see everything and they
would probably fall in love for your
company okay but to produce this
material I mean I guess you need to
maybe create a video collect information
is not something that you push a button
and get result right so it is a lot of
editorial angles in there how can you
scale this kind of business yeah so
first thing people is painted this
question I know well I oh no I you know
what I love it actually I love it I
think that there is a frequent
misconception and startups that what you
do in the beginning is what you do at
scale and when you dig deeper into the
stories some of the world’s best
startups like ebay for example you see
that that’s not the case when they first
launched they literally sent people with
cameras to take pictures
of an item so if you listed a great pair
of shoes it wasn’t necessarily common
yet for people to have their own camera
to take a picture to upload it so they
would actually send someone to your
house to take a picture of your shoes
and put it online so you could sell them
on eBay that doesn’t scale but you don’t
need to do that forever when we did our
first five I personally went into the
companies made them feel very
comfortable created the profile for them
the companies were floored when we did
the next 25 it was someone from our team
who we had hired now it’s a team of
freelancers we actually modeled it after
the Airbnb model where we connect with
great local photographers and dispatch
them to create the profile so I don’t
want to give away our secret sauce
because you know this interview may live
but I will just say it costs us very
little to produce the profiles and we
ultimately will turn it over to the
companies to DIY and to own their own
but while you’re still growing brand
your brand is of the utmost importance
and if someone goes right now to say
pinterest and they see an ugly board
they don’t say pinterest sucks they say
that person doesn’t know how to use
Pinterest when people come to the views
and see a company done badly and they
don’t think what’s the muse this site
sucks they think that company doesn’t
know how to use the muse and DIY away
but we have a little bit longer to get
there and actually think we’re getting
close but on the system we have right
now skills to the point at which we
could on board probably several hundred
companies a month and I think we’re
still in that middle phase before we
switch it to full DIY but I think it’s
absolutely scalable I love it Catherine
that because you know most of it i found
the phrase that you sit in beginning you
know that I hope is in Creative Commons
because I will steal it the fact that
you know a company start and the way
that you start is not the way that you
scale I totally agree with that and yeah
absolutely makes really sense and he’s a
good lesson for everyone you know
because if you can prove also that
that’s something you know with your
meb you prove that it works you get
traction and then you figure out how to
scale so excellent let’s go to people
looking for a job in this moment so many
people looking for a job I was talking
with Seth Godin the other day and he
punched me every two seconds you know
because when you speak with Seth good
and you say something you say no I don’t
think so uh sorry said you know it’s
great you know and my mind at the end of
the interview hood exploding yeah 11
kind of mantra that is pushing in this
moment is and peaking yourself so if no
one is picking you you just pick
yourself and you just basically go your
way in your experience I mean you you
see a lot of people looking for a job
number one how could you really find
your niche your passion everyone talked
about your passion in your experience on
the muse and your personal experience do
you have any tip on that yeah absolutely
i’m i mean it’s it’s certainly a
challenging topic it’s one that
preoccupies people often for a lot of
their 20s and you know many many times
into their 30s and 40s and be honest how
do you figure out what you’re passionate
about and then there’s a few kind of
broad strategies to do it obviously the
same thing doesn’t necessarily work for
everyone but we see a lot of people on
the move to do a combination of things
one is if you have if you currently
employ if you have a job you thinking
are there areas in your company outside
of your specific function that you can
get involved to test out these they
think one of the hardest things about
figuring out what you want to do with
your life is you feel like you have to
pick in you know one two three or blocks
take a job your stuff there and if you
don’t like it you have to wait an amount
of time and to pick again some of the
things I really I really really
encourage people to do informational
interviews and you know and to think is
well about volunteering or part-time
opportunities so for example we were
getting started with the mutants we were
dead broke I mean you know Roman broke
and we didn’t have enough money to hire
almost anybody to do anything but we
were approached by two really smart
women in
who said we love what you’re doing and
we would love to help out with social
media neither of them worked in social
media but they volunteered their skills
kind of 5 10 hours a week removing and
helped us get started and build of
social media and then use that
experience to decide if they want to
trim to transition into a career in
social media that’s one way people have
done it I think a lot of people also
used informational interviews which is
finding people who are doing something
that you think you might want to do but
you’re not sure and seeing if you can
buy them coffee and get you know 20
minutes of their time coming to pair
with a series of good questions about
what is a typical day in your life look
like how did you get to where you are
what are the great things about your job
and what look what’s really hard and
then to some extent we actually tried to
recreate that experience on the movies
with all of the people profiles so if
you go to the muse calm / people you
know you can look at hundreds of video
interviews with people who are in sales
marketing operations engineering HR
social media editorial and hear them
talk about you know how did they get to
where they are what do they do in the
day and I think that sort of exploration
is really helpful because ultimately
you’re going to be much more successful
in finding a passion and then finding a
job that pays you for the ashen the more
clear you are about what it is and the
more you understand about what are the
different paths that other people in
your field have taken to get there
because it’s there’s not one path to any
job anymore people are taking party yeah
winding circuitous routes what while you
were speaking wishful thinking that
another advantage that I see in the muse
and then I will finish and then I want
my free coffee paid you know for for
this spot for embedded advertising is
dead i was thinking i give you my
example I’m an entrepreneur I’m not
looking for a job okay so sometimes i
see on linkedin they suggest jobs but
i’m not interested in finding a job on
the other side I I I was reading maybe
articles on the muse and I can i can
come on the muse to read some condo
even if I’m not looking for a job but
you know it’s something that improved
maybe your skills or give you ideas or
tips or maybe suggest some interesting
people to contact so is a different
approach to job that I like the most is
more softest more maybe you don’t find a
job you not not looking for a job now
but in the future maybe something right
yeah I think of it as relationship-based
versus transactional so many job
products out there they are focused on
that transaction on oh you need a job I
will get you a job but that that’s only
I mean that’s such a I think shallow way
to look at the world many people these
days there are definitely people out
there who need to find a job right now
but many more they’re looking for
they’re looking for a job but they want
it to be the right job and they’re not
necessarily sure is this the right
direction of ours not the right Richard
or they have a job that’s fine and they
know they want anything different
eventually they don’t want Anna job
right now so how do you engage those
people and develop a relationship and as
you said I want people to come to the
views even when they have no intention
of finding a new job I would love for
people to be on the site and have their
boss you know walk in their office and
catch them and think oh you’re on the
news you’re probably reading about how
to be a better manager exactly cool okay
and I think that removing that stigma
and saying like look it’s no longer
about looking for new job you know once
every three or four years it’s about
constantly thinking about where you are
in your career where you might like to
go and also taking some of the stress
out of it as well I think a wonderful
thing of job search as this you know
sirable stressful process it is but it
should be I think it should be something
interesting where you get to sort of
explore a lot of different options and
and and take away some of the pressure
yeah Catherine I recently rewatched
again an interview to Steve Jobs and i
think was Charlie Rose interviewer said
Steve I mean you are so amazing you know
I started to do a lot of compliments to
Steve Johnson and in a moment Steve just
stop the interviewer and say
it is not about me you know just that I
create I created a great team and
delegation is so important and every
time you hear a great entrepreneur
speaking is always about how you’re good
in hiring great talents delegate and
obviously be the leader of this team but
hiring good people is so important so
what are your suggestions for companies
that are in this moment they looking for
talent in my experience I i got some
great teams and some horrible
experiences you know and when you have
an orrible experience is also your fault
that you didn’t high very well and so
what’s your take on it yeah well first
of all I think companies that need to
hire should sign up for the Moose com
but other other than you know other than
that yeah I think there’s a couple
things you in terms of there’s really
there’s two big questions here one is
attracting candidates and the other is
interviewing and vetting candidates in
terms of attracting candidates the best
things that companies can do is be
specific and what I mean by that is no
company is going to win and by trying to
appeal to everyone by trying to be you
know the best company on earth because
employees are very different they have
personalities their people and
ultimately companies are a collection of
those people and companies that I’ve
seen be most successful in attracting
passionate candidates who do we want to
work for them are the ones who say this
is who we are and this is who we are not
and we are going to be deliberate and
specific about creating a culture about
about the way things go down here in the
way the way that we operate and we’re
going to openly communicate that to
people and if some people don’t like it
that’s okay but other people are going
to love it i think that’s when you get
passion from people who want to join
your team and to work on what you’re
doing in terms of of interviewing and
that’s very challenging and to be honest
like we’re still working on it here at
the views we’re interviewing right now
for salespeople for a marketing intern
and it’s hard I think there’s a few
things we found that definitely reduce
the chance of making the state’s one is
asking people to do to do some pre-work
that
actually limit what they’ll be doing in
the in the role so for example we asked
sales people to prepare a little bit on
how they would approach the city of
Atlanta assuming that we have more
companies in Atlanta and we don’t know
anyone and then we have a new box sales
calls and things but how many people
prepare something ahead of time click to
future I was going to say pen to paper
but these days it’s more like fingers to
keyboard that gives you a clear a much
clearer sense than having people talk
through it of what their work product is
going to look like and to that to that
vein I also think my co-founder Alex
who’s our COO she ask the best questions
in interviews and I’ve gotten much
better at watching her at the mews we
don’t hire anyone that alex has approved
because i tend to empathize with people
i connect with them emotionally alice is
the one who’s like I’m gonna ask a
really hard question and I’m not I’m not
going to take PS you know I’m gonna
really get your answer and so it was
fascinating she will she’ll ask
questions about being tell me a time
when you were dealing with a client or
business partner who was really furious
at you and how you handled it and she’ll
follow up and ask questions and
understand and make them walk through do
they understand why this person was
anything how did they handle it what can
we learn about them based on how they
tell the situation and you know it’s not
it’s not perfect we’ve certainly made
mistakes but okay that once we started
getting to those sorts of questions or
you know open-ended questions why did
you decide to take that job you get very
interesting responses certain people
will say oh you know I know interested
exactly and other people will really
think critically and say well here’s how
I thought about it and you get this
insight into their decision-making
process that’s fascinating and very
helpful Kevin we went really really long
but I have a question that asked to all
the speakers a digital domination summit
and is I’m always curious of the best
three apps or three websites or three
digital tools that speakers use in their
everyday life because you know open
gives you an idea you know a speaker say
I have your angry birds but because he’s
kids what was installing it no but I’m
joking but very interesting i got so
many different answers on this and you
see how people decide to spend their
time and what kind of tools they used to
be more effective or productive do you
have a specific three tools that you
would recommend yeah that’s a great
question so the number one tool for me
is ben ryan i’m absolutely addicted to
it i don’t know if you’re familiar eula
extension is that my LG melted great i I
don’t even know how I would function
without go Ryan I’m constantly dealing
with this you know several hundred
emails I probably get 400 every day
exactly and so I go down through them
and I’m like boomerang them out to hear
it you know come in the back and I love
boomerang it’s absolutely just essential
for me in terms of how I process the
amount of information in a given day I
recently started using pocket and i love
it it’s an iphone app that basically you
people are always sending me interesting
articles to read or somebody will tweet
something and i’m like i wanna i want to
read that and i think part of being a
kind of building and maintaining a
really great network of people as a
start-up founder means that you
obviously are constantly conversing with
people and it’s important to me to be
more or less up to date on a lot of
what’s going on in the world but that
takes away from you know it’s easy for
you to get distracted so i love reading
the news so pocket it’s a it’s a chrome
plugin and a nap whereas I if someone
sends me to create article and I click
Save its pocket and then I have it on my
phone even if I’m in the subway and
there’s no Wi-Fi and I can read and it’s
actually beautiful interface actually
much easier to read the most websites
anyway fantastic and then I guess I
think the last is any list some list
making appt it’s CML it’s very very
basic but um tiny cluster all sorts of
things I
I’m probably going home to see my
parents soon i’m going to try make it
home for mothers day and I make a list
of things I need to bring home remember
otherwise I have lists of books I want
to read I have lists of things that I
want to do when I’m no longer making you
know a llama salary and I have a little
bit of disposable income I have look I
have a bucket list in there of things
I’d like to do with my life hold on wait
a mo up and open a restaurant Josh
gasser do you agree who was Sarah
Jessica Parker in the movie that she she
was doing list list list every day she
got the least you know and it’s funny I
don’t dumb I don’t like some of the you
know the ones that are farther out I
don’t necessarily use them all that
often but it’s nice like the other day I
was thinking about how much I enjoyed it
I got to take a flight and I get a
person crop Landry something I was
really neat I was thinking yeah I would
love to have my pilot’s license and so
anyway I’m not just adding that to my
list it was kind of nice like I could
just quickly put it in there and oh yeah
now it’s on my list Katherine thank you
so much the muse Katherine means you are
just guys just have a look at the
website and definitely is is the right
website if you’re looking for a job if
you want to hire or just if you want to
have some ideas about the your career is
definitely the website to go Katherine
thank you so much thank you had a great time we look forward
digital domination summit 2013 and with
me founder and CEO of the muse Catherine
min show and when I tell your surname
I’m so embarrassed because my surname
montemagno is even more difficult so but
where is it from minchia is Russia like
that it’s a scotch irish actually um but
and there’s a number of men shoes in
Texas Alabama I think I just heard from
some in Idaho I actually grew up in the
Washington DC area but a lot of my
relatives are from the Dallas Fort Worth
hawkins texas area so that’s where it’s
from oh cool for my surname I certainly
couldn’t connect them they simply can’t
say montemagno so i created the
soundcloud with the how to pronounce my
surname in case you know yeah i like it
if I can always tell if someone’s
calling me and they don’t know me
because the last four you know Catherine
min shoe or something else that I’m like
yeah okay it’s a telemarketer for
example so Catherine um the muse for the
people watching this video and if you
don’t know the muse I think when I was
looking for for speakers for digital
domination summit I thought gosh one
topic very interesting is how to find
job you know and all this kind of stuff
and the interwebs is full of websites
about job and you know the big web
portals from the two thousand and so on
and and then I just found the muse and
by the way you passed through Y
Combinator or I’m wrong yes we were away
Combinator company right and and then I
saw the music and I thought gosh that
this is very interesting because the the
approach that these guys and these girls
they trying to to get it’s really
different so on one side tips on careers
on the other side you know show me how a
company’s you know the behind the scenes
of a company so if i want to to get a
job I don’t know in facebook I can go on
the muse and see how Facebook is really
looked like and try to figure out it is
it bright my perception
this is the way that you’re trying to go
absolutely and we have started from the
question of how do people figure out
what they want to do with their lives
and ultimately when you think about it
the sort of lack of a better word the
relationship that people have with the
company they work for it’s one of the
biggest in their life I mean other than
the relationship they might have with a
spouse or a parent with a child here you
spend so many hours a day with your job
it’s a huge predictor of your happiness
and so I started thinking why is it that
most job boards focus on the job that
you’ll be doing you know if you go to
any of the big sites you mentioned you
will kind of type in some keywords and
you’ll get this massive list and it’s
like the title the salary you know the
director of marketing will be
responsible for compiling annual reports
maalula like you know what a director of
marketing does that’s not really what
you’re trying to figure out you’re
trying to figure out is this position
for me and more broadly what would my
life be like if I applied to and we’re
accepted to work at this company and
that’s what we try and offer at the mews
right Catherine let me ask you obviously
I want to get your tips for for people
watching this video about this job war
that is so interesting especially in
this moment with recession depression
crisis unfortunately but on the other
side uncurious about the muse and the
story also i saw you mention it as
mentioned as a top 30 under 30 you know
this kind of rankings I I quit giving
all the titles of the speakers are wiser
I should do a digital domination summit
with all the reading all the titles and
the speaker so but obviously you
achieving a lot of results also offers
and results but let me understand how
when you launch the muse how did you
solve the famous problem you know chica
nag I mean how do you find people
looking for a job and how do you attract
company where did you start from yeah I
mean so I love that question because I
am very proud of our answer to it woman
and it’s interesting said something we
were actually criticized for early on
quite a bit but we actually started with
job search and coo
content and the content is is a really
critical part of our business and it’s
one that I think a lot of people with
undervalued for a really long time but
we realized no company is going to pay
to post job on a job site where there
are no job seekers and what’s more
companies they came up who who are the
job seekers you have so they want smart
people ideally people who are employed
or who have other options people who are
kind of aspirational about their careers
and we thought how are we going to get
these people we’re going to provide them
with the other thing they need which is
really great current content I went
through this myself I used to work at
mckinsey & company as a management
consultant and there were so many things
professionally that I had questions
about so you know how do you negotiate a
salary and when is the appropriate time
how do you deal with a boss who’s a
micromanager how would you even think of
setting up an informational interview
and how do you make sure that it’s you
know an appropriate experience for for
you that you’re learning that it’s a
great experience for the person you’re
interviewing I mean I didn’t go on as
you know and this is what I talked about
all day every day but ultimately we felt
like there was just a real lack of great
content about these career issues and
that if we built up a community around
answering some of those questions
fostering the discussion and made sure
that the quality of the content was
really high because people see through
you know people see through crack
content like that that we would create
an audience in a community and then we
get the job seekers on board so we
didn’t even have job postings on the
site for four months after we launched
just editorial content in beginning
mm-hmm and a lot of people really kind
of looked down on us for that we were
told you know you’re never going to get
anywhere you’re just a little bitch blog
like this isn’t the way to start and I I
thought they were all wrong I still
think they’re all wrong and it’s been
actually very satisfying as we’ve grown
and we now have almost a million job
seekers every month and this is with no
marketing budget you know we’d even have
somebody doing marketing or doing growth
up until about two or three months ago I
just really happened at an incredible
pace and I think it’s because we built
up the brand and the community of the
trust first and then let our users our
readers tell
friends and spread the word and so once
we did add job listings it was such a
natural fit basically you did reverse
what all the companies in the world are
trying to do now I mean I was at the
last social media were forum and I was
moderator one day and for one day I only
hear people saying are now all the
company or media company and now content
is king again after several years
yakhont risky game and so now we are we
need editorial content we have the
product but we don’t have the culture so
you started from editorial content to
arrive to to the offer and then how did
you approach companies to do to get you
know the posting and also i guess the
business is coming out from from the
companies to to put a job yeah so we
actually initially designed what we
wanted the company profile page to look
like and we knew we wanted it to be just
visually stunning so that when a company
saw it they looked at it and they
thought I want one of these I want my
company to be presented in this way and
we actually did a mock-up of a company
profile for Google based on publicly
available photos of the Google campus
just to give people an idea of what it
would look like and then the very first
exactly and then we approached five
companies there were all companies that
were local we did Kiva justin.tv clout
out in San Francisco and two others and
you know we basically said we’re going
to do this completely for free you’ll
have full control will work with you
we’re going to make it look amazing and
will you let us come in and all of them
said if you know absolutely and once we
have those horse five then it it almost
became easy we push them live on the
site and we include a button that said
you know do you want your company to be
featured click here for pricing and more
information we had a hundred companies
click within the first 24 hours yeah and
we knew at that point we deliberately
didn’t put a lot of resources into the
first launch because we wanted to test
if it was really solving what companies
needed and what users needed i’m a big
proponent of the lean startup that’s
oh gee and putting out a Minimum Viable
Product and so we really did that with
these company profiles in fact i wish i
could show you some of the early like
the landing page because it is ugly I
mean I’m not it is so it is really ugly
but at that point like the point was do
these companies profiles you know are
they attracted to they serve their
purpose and the answer was yes and so
once we saw that demand from companies
once we heard the feedback from users
then I made a list of the 30 most kind
of inspirational awesome attractive
companies that I wanted on the platform
and I just started calling them and 25
of them said yes okay Wow and most
reverent they paid for it to which was
great thank you one question Catherine
and then we go go further but um how do
you scale this kind of business this is
you know I try I normally never do this
question because I hate discussed in
what they do it to me but I have to do
you know this kind of question so the
business model is that you go to
companies and say look we create behind
the scenes about your company and we
created a amazing page on our website in
this way people looking for a job they
will you know see everything and they
would probably fall in love for your
company okay but to produce this
material I mean I guess you need to
maybe create a video collect information
is not something that you push a button
and get result right so it is a lot of
editorial angles in there how can you
scale this kind of business yeah so
first thing people is painted this
question I know well I oh no I you know
what I love it actually I love it I
think that there is a frequent
misconception and startups that what you
do in the beginning is what you do at
scale and when you dig deeper into the
stories some of the world’s best
startups like ebay for example you see
that that’s not the case when they first
launched they literally sent people with
cameras to take pictures
of an item so if you listed a great pair
of shoes it wasn’t necessarily common
yet for people to have their own camera
to take a picture to upload it so they
would actually send someone to your
house to take a picture of your shoes
and put it online so you could sell them
on eBay that doesn’t scale but you don’t
need to do that forever when we did our
first five I personally went into the
companies made them feel very
comfortable created the profile for them
the companies were floored when we did
the next 25 it was someone from our team
who we had hired now it’s a team of
freelancers we actually modeled it after
the Airbnb model where we connect with
great local photographers and dispatch
them to create the profile so I don’t
want to give away our secret sauce
because you know this interview may live
but I will just say it costs us very
little to produce the profiles and we
ultimately will turn it over to the
companies to DIY and to own their own
but while you’re still growing brand
your brand is of the utmost importance
and if someone goes right now to say
pinterest and they see an ugly board
they don’t say pinterest sucks they say
that person doesn’t know how to use
Pinterest when people come to the views
and see a company done badly and they
don’t think what’s the muse this site
sucks they think that company doesn’t
know how to use the muse and DIY away
but we have a little bit longer to get
there and actually think we’re getting
close but on the system we have right
now skills to the point at which we
could on board probably several hundred
companies a month and I think we’re
still in that middle phase before we
switch it to full DIY but I think it’s
absolutely scalable I love it Catherine
that because you know most of it i found
the phrase that you sit in beginning you
know that I hope is in Creative Commons
because I will steal it the fact that
you know a company start and the way
that you start is not the way that you
scale I totally agree with that and yeah
absolutely makes really sense and he’s a
good lesson for everyone you know
because if you can prove also that
that’s something you know with your
meb you prove that it works you get
traction and then you figure out how to
scale so excellent let’s go to people
looking for a job in this moment so many
people looking for a job I was talking
with Seth Godin the other day and he
punched me every two seconds you know
because when you speak with Seth good
and you say something you say no I don’t
think so uh sorry said you know it’s
great you know and my mind at the end of
the interview hood exploding yeah 11
kind of mantra that is pushing in this
moment is and peaking yourself so if no
one is picking you you just pick
yourself and you just basically go your
way in your experience I mean you you
see a lot of people looking for a job
number one how could you really find
your niche your passion everyone talked
about your passion in your experience on
the muse and your personal experience do
you have any tip on that yeah absolutely
i’m i mean it’s it’s certainly a
challenging topic it’s one that
preoccupies people often for a lot of
their 20s and you know many many times
into their 30s and 40s and be honest how
do you figure out what you’re passionate
about and then there’s a few kind of
broad strategies to do it obviously the
same thing doesn’t necessarily work for
everyone but we see a lot of people on
the move to do a combination of things
one is if you have if you currently
employ if you have a job you thinking
are there areas in your company outside
of your specific function that you can
get involved to test out these they
think one of the hardest things about
figuring out what you want to do with
your life is you feel like you have to
pick in you know one two three or blocks
take a job your stuff there and if you
don’t like it you have to wait an amount
of time and to pick again some of the
things I really I really really
encourage people to do informational
interviews and you know and to think is
well about volunteering or part-time
opportunities so for example we were
getting started with the mutants we were
dead broke I mean you know Roman broke
and we didn’t have enough money to hire
almost anybody to do anything but we
were approached by two really smart
women in
who said we love what you’re doing and
we would love to help out with social
media neither of them worked in social
media but they volunteered their skills
kind of 5 10 hours a week removing and
helped us get started and build of
social media and then use that
experience to decide if they want to
trim to transition into a career in
social media that’s one way people have
done it I think a lot of people also
used informational interviews which is
finding people who are doing something
that you think you might want to do but
you’re not sure and seeing if you can
buy them coffee and get you know 20
minutes of their time coming to pair
with a series of good questions about
what is a typical day in your life look
like how did you get to where you are
what are the great things about your job
and what look what’s really hard and
then to some extent we actually tried to
recreate that experience on the movies
with all of the people profiles so if
you go to the muse calm / people you
know you can look at hundreds of video
interviews with people who are in sales
marketing operations engineering HR
social media editorial and hear them
talk about you know how did they get to
where they are what do they do in the
day and I think that sort of exploration
is really helpful because ultimately
you’re going to be much more successful
in finding a passion and then finding a
job that pays you for the ashen the more
clear you are about what it is and the
more you understand about what are the
different paths that other people in
your field have taken to get there
because it’s there’s not one path to any
job anymore people are taking party yeah
winding circuitous routes what while you
were speaking wishful thinking that
another advantage that I see in the muse
and then I will finish and then I want
my free coffee paid you know for for
this spot for embedded advertising is
dead i was thinking i give you my
example I’m an entrepreneur I’m not
looking for a job okay so sometimes i
see on linkedin they suggest jobs but
i’m not interested in finding a job on
the other side I I I was reading maybe
articles on the muse and I can i can
come on the muse to read some condo
even if I’m not looking for a job but
you know it’s something that improved
maybe your skills or give you ideas or
tips or maybe suggest some interesting
people to contact so is a different
approach to job that I like the most is
more softest more maybe you don’t find a
job you not not looking for a job now
but in the future maybe something right
yeah I think of it as relationship-based
versus transactional so many job
products out there they are focused on
that transaction on oh you need a job I
will get you a job but that that’s only
I mean that’s such a I think shallow way
to look at the world many people these
days there are definitely people out
there who need to find a job right now
but many more they’re looking for
they’re looking for a job but they want
it to be the right job and they’re not
necessarily sure is this the right
direction of ours not the right Richard
or they have a job that’s fine and they
know they want anything different
eventually they don’t want Anna job
right now so how do you engage those
people and develop a relationship and as
you said I want people to come to the
views even when they have no intention
of finding a new job I would love for
people to be on the site and have their
boss you know walk in their office and
catch them and think oh you’re on the
news you’re probably reading about how
to be a better manager exactly cool okay
and I think that removing that stigma
and saying like look it’s no longer
about looking for new job you know once
every three or four years it’s about
constantly thinking about where you are
in your career where you might like to
go and also taking some of the stress
out of it as well I think a wonderful
thing of job search as this you know
sirable stressful process it is but it
should be I think it should be something
interesting where you get to sort of
explore a lot of different options and
and and take away some of the pressure
yeah Catherine I recently rewatched
again an interview to Steve Jobs and i
think was Charlie Rose interviewer said
Steve I mean you are so amazing you know
I started to do a lot of compliments to
Steve Johnson and in a moment Steve just
stop the interviewer and say
it is not about me you know just that I
create I created a great team and
delegation is so important and every
time you hear a great entrepreneur
speaking is always about how you’re good
in hiring great talents delegate and
obviously be the leader of this team but
hiring good people is so important so
what are your suggestions for companies
that are in this moment they looking for
talent in my experience I i got some
great teams and some horrible
experiences you know and when you have
an orrible experience is also your fault
that you didn’t high very well and so
what’s your take on it yeah well first
of all I think companies that need to
hire should sign up for the Moose com
but other other than you know other than
that yeah I think there’s a couple
things you in terms of there’s really
there’s two big questions here one is
attracting candidates and the other is
interviewing and vetting candidates in
terms of attracting candidates the best
things that companies can do is be
specific and what I mean by that is no
company is going to win and by trying to
appeal to everyone by trying to be you
know the best company on earth because
employees are very different they have
personalities their people and
ultimately companies are a collection of
those people and companies that I’ve
seen be most successful in attracting
passionate candidates who do we want to
work for them are the ones who say this
is who we are and this is who we are not
and we are going to be deliberate and
specific about creating a culture about
about the way things go down here in the
way the way that we operate and we’re
going to openly communicate that to
people and if some people don’t like it
that’s okay but other people are going
to love it i think that’s when you get
passion from people who want to join
your team and to work on what you’re
doing in terms of of interviewing and
that’s very challenging and to be honest
like we’re still working on it here at
the views we’re interviewing right now
for salespeople for a marketing intern
and it’s hard I think there’s a few
things we found that definitely reduce
the chance of making the state’s one is
asking people to do to do some pre-work
that
actually limit what they’ll be doing in
the in the role so for example we asked
sales people to prepare a little bit on
how they would approach the city of
Atlanta assuming that we have more
companies in Atlanta and we don’t know
anyone and then we have a new box sales
calls and things but how many people
prepare something ahead of time click to
future I was going to say pen to paper
but these days it’s more like fingers to
keyboard that gives you a clear a much
clearer sense than having people talk
through it of what their work product is
going to look like and to that to that
vein I also think my co-founder Alex
who’s our COO she ask the best questions
in interviews and I’ve gotten much
better at watching her at the mews we
don’t hire anyone that alex has approved
because i tend to empathize with people
i connect with them emotionally alice is
the one who’s like I’m gonna ask a
really hard question and I’m not I’m not
going to take PS you know I’m gonna
really get your answer and so it was
fascinating she will she’ll ask
questions about being tell me a time
when you were dealing with a client or
business partner who was really furious
at you and how you handled it and she’ll
follow up and ask questions and
understand and make them walk through do
they understand why this person was
anything how did they handle it what can
we learn about them based on how they
tell the situation and you know it’s not
it’s not perfect we’ve certainly made
mistakes but okay that once we started
getting to those sorts of questions or
you know open-ended questions why did
you decide to take that job you get very
interesting responses certain people
will say oh you know I know interested
exactly and other people will really
think critically and say well here’s how
I thought about it and you get this
insight into their decision-making
process that’s fascinating and very
helpful Kevin we went really really long
but I have a question that asked to all
the speakers a digital domination summit
and is I’m always curious of the best
three apps or three websites or three
digital tools that speakers use in their
everyday life because you know open
gives you an idea you know a speaker say
I have your angry birds but because he’s
kids what was installing it no but I’m
joking but very interesting i got so
many different answers on this and you
see how people decide to spend their
time and what kind of tools they used to
be more effective or productive do you
have a specific three tools that you
would recommend yeah that’s a great
question so the number one tool for me
is ben ryan i’m absolutely addicted to
it i don’t know if you’re familiar eula
extension is that my LG melted great i I
don’t even know how I would function
without go Ryan I’m constantly dealing
with this you know several hundred
emails I probably get 400 every day
exactly and so I go down through them
and I’m like boomerang them out to hear
it you know come in the back and I love
boomerang it’s absolutely just essential
for me in terms of how I process the
amount of information in a given day I
recently started using pocket and i love
it it’s an iphone app that basically you
people are always sending me interesting
articles to read or somebody will tweet
something and i’m like i wanna i want to
read that and i think part of being a
kind of building and maintaining a
really great network of people as a
start-up founder means that you
obviously are constantly conversing with
people and it’s important to me to be
more or less up to date on a lot of
what’s going on in the world but that
takes away from you know it’s easy for
you to get distracted so i love reading
the news so pocket it’s a it’s a chrome
plugin and a nap whereas I if someone
sends me to create article and I click
Save its pocket and then I have it on my
phone even if I’m in the subway and
there’s no Wi-Fi and I can read and it’s
actually beautiful interface actually
much easier to read the most websites
anyway fantastic and then I guess I
think the last is any list some list
making appt it’s CML it’s very very
basic but um tiny cluster all sorts of
things I
I’m probably going home to see my
parents soon i’m going to try make it
home for mothers day and I make a list
of things I need to bring home remember
otherwise I have lists of books I want
to read I have lists of things that I
want to do when I’m no longer making you
know a llama salary and I have a little
bit of disposable income I have look I
have a bucket list in there of things
I’d like to do with my life hold on wait
a mo up and open a restaurant Josh
gasser do you agree who was Sarah
Jessica Parker in the movie that she she
was doing list list list every day she
got the least you know and it’s funny I
don’t dumb I don’t like some of the you
know the ones that are farther out I
don’t necessarily use them all that
often but it’s nice like the other day I
was thinking about how much I enjoyed it
I got to take a flight and I get a
person crop Landry something I was
really neat I was thinking yeah I would
love to have my pilot’s license and so
anyway I’m not just adding that to my
list it was kind of nice like I could
just quickly put it in there and oh yeah
now it’s on my list Katherine thank you
so much the muse Katherine means you are
just guys just have a look at the
website and definitely is is the right
website if you’re looking for a job if
you want to hire or just if you want to
have some ideas about the your career is
definitely the website to go Katherine
thank you so much thank you had a great time we look forward
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