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Updated: June 29th, 2022

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Show me the money

Did you hear the news? Major changes are coming to the HR space…

Microsoft will include pay ranges in all U.S. job postings and the EU is working towards making all salary information transparent.

Until now, a job’s salary was usually only revealed to a few candidates after going through several stages. And once you’re in, the only way to know how much your colleagues are being paid is… by asking them.

I think that Microsoft is embracing this early to be competitive in the job market, as startups have been using their retribution policies to attract talent for years. Some examples:

#1. ConvertKit’s founder has paid $3.9M in profit sharing to his team in the last 5 years, and tweets about it publicly (a great way to attract talent).

#2. This company raised employee salaries across the board by 21%, then used it as a press event to attract more talent. Read how they reached 6 figures in ARR without any investment.

#3. This agency took some creative measures to keep employees happy.

#4. This cybersecurity company spends all their revenue growth on improving salaries and benefits.

Why all this matters to you:

Talent is in high demand. Finding it is hard. And once companies find it, they don’t want to lose it because they can’t offer a raise or a clear career path.

Any solution that helps companies find and retain talent is going to make lots of money. Most small startups don’t have an HR department, so there’s a big opportunity for tools that take that burden off the founders’ shoulders.

Some numbers for you:

$15.59B -> HR software market size
$28.68B -> online recruitment market size
$12M -> yearly revenue of this HR tool

No experience required

Think you need a lot of experience to build a successful startup?

Nope.

Some of the most successful founders started out in completely different fields or had little experience running a business. Notorious examples include Steve Jobs -video game designer-, Mark Zuckerberg -college student- or the Airbnd co-founder -bodybuilder-.

More examples from our case studies database:

Experience is good, of course, but when you’re new to something you aren’t biased and face everything with a fresh look. You think outside the box by default, because you don’t know nothing about the box. That can be an advantage.

Learn how to build a successful business

Would you learn to play the guitar by composing your own songs? Or how to cook by creating your own recipes?

No, you wouldn't. You'd use the internet to find step-by-step guides and learn by copying from the best.

Starting a business is the same. You don't need to figure out everything on your own. You can learn how others already did it (and successfully).

There are no secrets to building a profitable business. Everything it takes can be learned from others.

Join us today and get access to 3,000+ real-life case studies that show you exactly how to build a business with thousands of customers.

Less than the cost of 99% of online courses out there. Starter Story is a no-brainer investment in your future.

Quick hitters

(1) This guy makes $60K/year writing about something that nobody talks about. What started as a side project during college is now a very lucrative business. Takeaway: Niche down to win.

Another example: this woman blogs about an extremely rare topic and generates $72K/year.

(2) This business makes $1.2M/year by providing a very specific service to trans people. An awesome story at all levels.

To celebrate Pride Month, here are some other successful businesses in the LGBT+ community that we’d like to highlight: This founder makes $120K/year helping startups with their marketing (only 1 employee); this website generates $156K/year by helping people start a family and these friends make $720K/year with their memes.

Thanks for reading!

meet the author

Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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