Starting A $2.5M/Year Top-Tier Technical Talent Marketplace From Scratch
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey there, I'm David Stepania, the Founder of ThirstySprout. We connect top-tier remote technical talent with high-growth startups and enterprises.
We use AI and a database of over 100,000 pre-vetted candidates to help companies hire in a matter of days instead of months. That’s why big names like Mailchimp (Intuit), Rover.com, and Momentus Space, as well as many VC-backed startups, trust us to build their tech teams.
We’re a 40-60 person team of remote contractors that pulled in $2.5 million in gross revenue last year. We're just getting started and we're on track to double that over the next year or two while also incubating a couple of products that we’re building in stealth mode as we speak.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I've always been a wanderer at heart, born amidst the crumbling Soviet Union in the Republic of Georgia. With life taking me across borders and cultures, I found myself attending 13 different schools in numerous countries. What a whirlwind, right?
This experience, tough yet enriching, gifted me the ability to speak half a dozen languages. But the real lesson lay in resilience. There were days when textbooks were a luxury I couldn't afford. It was then that I learned to be resourceful, and to adopt a "make it work" attitude, and boy, did that come in handy!
This mindset saw me through the University of Washington, and it fueled the creation of two successful companies, generating over $100M in revenue. Each challenge became an opportunity, molding me into a '0 to 1 guy' in the startup realm.
So, how did @ThirstySprout come into existence? The seeds were sown on a Hawaiian beach, as I was taking a breather from my previous venture and nursing a few unsuccessful attempts at product-based startups.
A profound realization hit us - to build an extraordinary startup, we needed an extraordinary technical team. But we didn't have a product idea just yet. So, we decided to solve a problem we knew all too well - helping others who were struggling to find top technical talent they could trust to bring their vision to life.
The name? Well, we were thirsty - for growth, for success, starting at ground zero again. And thus, ThirstySprout was born, embodying the spirit of a startup that yearns to grow, just like a sprout.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
Our journey with ThirstySprout began as a humble product development agency with just a team of two. Admittedly, it was my first plunge into the agency model of building software products, and let's just say we had our fair share of hiccups.
We took on underbudgeted projects but over-delivered, just to earn client testimonials. After a few such experiences down the road, we knew we needed a more scalable model. A friend then suggested focusing on staffing remote technical talent.
Set clear goals and allow yourself a window of 6-12 months max to test various ideas & hypotheses to drive growth.
Call it luck or good timing, we landed our first big customer almost immediately after this pivot from a simple cold email outreach. In 2018, we began working with Rover.com during its hypergrowth phase. This was our first real success with ThirstySprout and it set the wheels in motion. A great client reference from a popular high-growth startup and 6 figure revenue helped us scale up our outreach and start winning new clients of similar magnitude.
Our quest led us to scout for countries where we could bolster our technical talent pool to meet the demand for new incoming clients. Interestingly, we found firm footing in the country of my birth: Georgia. The cultural fit and work ethic, especially within the tech sector, resonated with our vision.
Today, we're one of Georgia's top players in talent acquisition. We're standing tall, rubbing shoulders with big names like Toptal & Turing, as we vie for the best technical talent for our tech-enabled platform. It's been quite the adventure, and we're just getting started!
Describe the process of launching the business.
Despite being in business, we haven't had an official "launch" per se, but we're setting the stage for it in the next 3-6 months. Our priority was to have a strong foundation of 50-100 actively engaged freelancers before we ventured into building out technology to automate our operations. Until now, we've been leveraging existing tools to systemize and streamline our processes.
When it comes to our online presence, we kickstarted with a simple WordPress theme. Maintaining simplicity has been key to our strategy, and we've continued to embrace this principle with the use of low-code products like Webflow.
Funding ThirstySprout was a unique journey. I began this venture after a rejuvenating 1-3 year sabbatical in Hawaii, following the success of my previous startup. Starting ThirstySprout was a testament to resourcefulness, with minimal cash reserves (pretty close to $0 if I'm honest!). Not the typical route, and perhaps not the most advisable one either.
However, I was able to capitalize on my business development background and previous tech sector experience, which involved generating over $80 million in revenue. This equipped me to ramp up the lead flow for our company swiftly.
But the agency model was new terrain for me, leading to a fair share of missteps. I'd be lying if I said we weren't operating at a loss for the first 1-2 years. The deficit, peaking between $50-$100K, was covered by personal credit cards, all while I was without a regular salary.
ThirstySprout was more than just a business. It was a passion project, a vision held together by my sheer stubbornness to make it work. Consequently, some logical steps in business-building were blurred or altogether overlooked.
So, here's my advice for anyone embarking on a similar path: Set clear goals and allow yourself a window of 6-12 months max to test various hypotheses to drive growth.
Invest time in strategic planning, assessing if the startup aligns with your strengths as a founder. Reduce the risk of potential shortcomings by zeroing in on specific industries or verticals. Establishing yourself as a thought leader in your chosen niche will be a significant asset. And remember, every journey has its bumps, but it's the ride that counts!
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Trust is the cornerstone of our business. It's essential to be present where your customers are, both online and offline, as ultimately, word-of-mouth referrals become your most potent lead generator if you play your cards right. While the cost of customer acquisition via paid ads or SEO can be prohibitive, and doesn't always guarantee a competitive advantage, we found our sweet spot in community-building and participation.
We've curated our communities (like pitchbase.co and our Facebook community) and joined strategic ones such as Hampton and WeWork Labs (when it was operational), along with a few others. Building and fostering these communities has proven instrumental in cultivating trust, fostering relationships, and ultimately attracting and retaining customers.
But our growth strategy doesn't stop there. We've also harnessed the power of cold emailing. It's consistently been our primary channel for client acquisition, supplemented by our steadfast commitment to supporting founders on their startup journey. We stand by them, and assist them wherever possible, a philosophy that has resonated strongly within the founder community we're part of.
Back when we started we were doing a few hundred outbound emails a day with open rates in the high 50s.(%). Now we are doing 1000s per day with open rates in the low 20s and response rates around 2-3%.
As we continue to scale, we're also eyeing the untapped potential of social media content marketing to reach an even wider audience. Our primary focus will be Linkedin as that’s where our target audience hangs out. We’ll likely focus our content on all the nuances that go into hiring remote technical talent and how to attract top-tier talent when you’re just a little scrappy startup.
Let's talk numbers: our community now stands strong with around 6000 eager founders, from those building their first startup to those running category-defining scale-ups. On the cold email front, we're reaching out to about 1000 new contacts a day, encompassing both potential clients and talent acquisition.
Our journey so far underscores one clear truth: genuine relationships and community-building are incredibly powerful for attracting and retaining customers. Aspiring founders, take note!
If you can find a niche that you're passionate about or have expertise in, and then cater to it effectively, you're more likely to be successful.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We're proud to say that ThirstySprout has been growing exponentially since its inception, doubling in size and revenue every year. From a humble team of two, we've expanded to a dynamic squad of over 50 in 4-5 years. At present, we're generating around $2.5 million in revenue and setting ambitious targets to double that in the coming 12 months.
Our gross margins are competitive, aligning with similar businesses in our space. However, our lean approach and minimal overheads give us an edge, allowing us to pay our team higher than some of our competitors like Toptal and Turing. Simultaneously, we pass these savings to our customers by keeping our commission for freelancers reasonable.
In essence, we're offering top-tier service at a cost comparable to lower-tier freelancer platforms like Upwork. This unique value proposition is something we aim to leverage as we scale this year. Being a fully bootstrapped and profitable startup, we don't bear the growth pressure typical of ventures backed by external investors. Our driving force is doing right by our customers, and their interests take precedence over all else.
In terms of future aspirations, we're guided by the vision of expanding ThirstySprout to new heights, without losing sight of our commitment to delivering value to our clients. As we continue to thrive and grow, our focus remains on striking the right balance between expansion and maintaining the personalized touch that defines our services.
Remember, we may not have external investors, but every client and every team member is an integral part of our journey, shaping our story as we continue to sprout!
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
Starting ThirstySprout and steering its growth trajectory has been a journey filled with lessons, some learned the hard way. Reflecting on our journey, a few standout areas where we stumbled offer valuable insights:
- Staying focused on our North Star: In the whirlwind of scaling a startup, we occasionally lost sight of our guiding North Star metric and overarching company strategy. Maintaining a laser-sharp focus on our core goals is crucial, and we're rectifying this misstep by constantly realigning our initiatives with our strategic direction.
- Striking the right hiring balance: In our quest for growth, we slightly overhired, straying from our initial approach of running a lean operation. This taught us the importance of proper training for new hires to optimize their productivity and ensure seamless integration into our team.
- Balancing business development and delivery: We initially focused more on business development, sometimes at the expense of the supply side of our business. This occasionally resulted in a shortfall in the pipeline of top-tier tech talent we could place into jobs. We've since learned the importance of maintaining a balanced approach to both these critical areas.
- Implementing robust systems and processes: In the early days, we underestimated the role of systematic processes for scalability. We're now in the process of reinforcing our systems and processes to bolster our scalability and potentially double the company size in the near future.
These lessons are now etched in our company's growth narrative, and each one serves as a stepping stone on our path to continued success. We've learned to turn our setbacks into setups for future triumphs, and that, in itself, is perhaps the most valuable lesson of all.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
In our endeavor to build a robust and productive remote working environment, we've come to rely on a range of innovative platforms and tools. Each one has been instrumental in streamlining our operations, improving communication, and maintaining a seamless workflow across different time zones and continents.
For meetings and team interactions, we turn to Google Meets and Zoom. Slack has become our go-to platform for team communication and collaboration, while FB Messenger and WhatsApp serve as excellent tools for both internal communication and customer acquisition as we want to meet our clients wherever they are.
Gmail handles our email needs, and we've found Deel to be an absolute game-changer for hiring internationally (as of now, we have team members from around 14 different countries).
In terms of our customer relationship management, Pipedrive serves us well. For our cold emailing initiatives, we trust Uptics and Apollo to keep our prospect lists well-organized. Our Applicant Tracking System (ATS) of choice is Lever.
And let's not forget our own AI companion, ChatGPT, who's there to assist us with virtually everything, from brainstorming ideas to drafting messages.
Lastly, we're always on the lookout for innovative tools that can boost our productivity or streamline our processes. To this end, we often purchase tools from AppSumo, a platform known for its curated selection of tools for businesses. We can confidently say that these tools have played a crucial role in ThirstySprout's growth story, each contributing to the smooth sailing of our operations.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
I am a heavy user of Audible. I try to listen to at least 6 audiobooks a year. All of them have played some part in shaping my lifes direction. Here are just some of the few books that come to mind:
- How to Win Friends & Influence People
- Zero to one
- Lean startup
- Think and Grow Rich
- Everything from Tony Robbins
- The business of belonging
- Essentialism
- Deep work
- The leaders guide
- Atomic Habits
- Principles by Ray Dalio
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Embarking on an entrepreneurial journey is an exhilarating and often challenging endeavor. It's a path filled with uncertainty, countless nos, and an incessant barrage of reasons why something won't work. Developing a thick skin is crucial for enduring this phase, and remaining focused is key to navigating your way through it.
To start with, set clear, attainable goals. Know what you're working towards and devise a roadmap that gets you from point A to B as efficiently as possible. Time is one of the most precious resources in a startup, and strategic, focused efforts will help you grow quicker.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned, and this might not be as obvious, is that the riches truly are in the niches. If you can find a niche that you're passionate about or have expertise in, and then cater to it effectively, you're more likely to be successful. If I had to start over, I'd pick a niche that genuinely resonates with me or where I can leverage my knowledge. This strategy can provide a competitive edge that sets your business apart from others.
The journey of entrepreneurship also requires a data-driven approach. Test your hypotheses, experiment with different strategies, and be prepared to let go of ideas that aren't working. It's about being agile and adaptable, killing off what's not working quickly, and relentlessly pursuing what does.
Lastly, remember that each no brings you one step closer to a yes. Each obstacle is an opportunity to learn something new. So keep iterating, keep improving, and keep hustling. The entrepreneurial journey might be a roller coaster, but it's the most fulfilling ride you'll ever embark on.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
I’m looking to hire a marketer with some management experience or someone who wants to grow into a management role at some point. We’re looking for someone who can bring all our efforts up to this date together and help create a strategy and a game plan to help us reach our goal of doubling the company size & revenue.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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