Jane Bianchini 3:31
The hardest part was, I kept getting asked, you know, what’s your moat? What’s, you know, how are you going to protect this because I had no IP protection, I chose intentionally not to go down to protect the IP of the business. And it was I was kind of caught in the very first round, I was caught between a rock and a hard place, because I wasn’t quite yet big enough for, for VC, but yet too big for seed rounds. So I think it was trying to get my groove, right and get the pitch right to the audience. So I did that. But yeah, it was, it was quite a battle, doing it on my own, rather than, as I say, using a broker, or anyone like that.
Jeremy Weisz 4:10
So do the type of clients who served in the beginning, did it change from the beginning till now or did you were you always looking were the types of clients that you were serving the beginning and compared to now?
Jane Bianchini 4:22
Yeah, so actually, I intentionally started to serve the enterprise market, I was very particular about not serving SMBs because it’s all about volume in in my game, the volume of candidates that go through and so I needed large organizations who hired a lot of people and also had a number of candidates applying for jobs, which is where the technology helps solve some problems by reducing the amount of time an organization would spend screening a candidate. So you know, the early clients, which I would pick up anywhere, anyone who wants to use my technology, I would, I would obviously give it to the enterprise. I suppose and I remember my first government client was a very large T one Australian Government. Body. And I was on the dance floor. She said, What do you do? And I told her what I did and gave him my card and rang her up the next day said, Hey, let’s get this show on the road. So, so that was early when but
Jeremy Weisz 5:20
right master your pitch, if you can get it down on the dance floor? Yeah, 100%.
Jane Bianchini 5:23
And then, you know, right the way through to most recently, we’ve just secured NBC Universal globally. And they really liked what we were doing in that diversity, equity inclusion space to make the recruitment process more fair and equitable for candidates with a lot of built in feature functionality to help candidates who are both diverse and neuro diverse, physically able and limited. But as well as helping minimize biases for the, the evaluators on the client side as well, we got a lot of special tech there that caught their eye. And, yeah, a very proud moment to as a founder to secure a company of the size of NBC Universal,
Jeremy Weisz 6:06
so yeah, me, I was just at Universal a couple of months. That’s incredible. Congratulations. Talk about the process. So what’s the pain points they were experiencing? Like? Jane, we need what you have?
Jane Bianchini 6:17
Yeah, it was, they were taking 2030 minutes per phone screen. So you can imagine NBCUniversal have a significant volume of candidates that would be applying for roles. And so to enhance their process to not only become more efficient internally, but to really have a very rich brand. And most digital experience was what they really loved about the technology. So we solved an efficiency problem for them. Number one, number two, again, we have world first and we’ll only still D and I diversity, equity inclusion features. So for instance, that was really important to them. So for instance, a candidate who perhaps has limited fine motor skills, they can go through the video interview just using their keyboard. Or for visually impaired, we have feature functionality built in there to help them recognize the countdown timer, but also the we’ve got video and audio questions rather than just text questions on the screen. So it was a Yeah, miraj of, of those things that really caught their eye. Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz 7:23
your journey is really amazing. And what makes it even more amazing, you are a non technical founder. So talk about some of the advantages and maybe the struggles of being a non technical founder. What’s What’s some advantages? Maybe first? Well,
Jane Bianchini 7:38
I guess the advantages, I didn’t have any preconceived notions about what was right or wrong. But again, that proved actually to be quite a struggle in itself as well, because I hired a tech director who had selected the technology they wanted to use, which was a very niche programming language called closure. And
Jeremy Weisz 8:02
locked into that. Yeah,
Jane Bianchini 8:03
definitely locked into that, but it was it’s an industrious language. So it, it had its benefits. But um, literally the day before I was about to receive all of my funding, I was gonna give this tech director 10% of my company as well, he resigned. And
Jeremy Weisz 8:22
so I just made sweats thinking.
Jane Bianchini 8:25
I’ve just getting anxiety just for believing that the actual situation so my background before I started, this is in recruitment, so was in recruitment. So I literally put my recruitment hat on and just went deep trying to source another senior engineer who had closure experience. So net worked my way through, found someone that I really liked. But unfortunately, he had just accepted another role. He referred me to somebody else. This person was not going to be taking my calls. I’m accepting a coffee invitation nothing he was happy. well looked after first child on his way that he just went I there’s I’m not moving. So I said to my, my friend, please just get I just want to buy him a takeaway coffee. Just give me two minutes. That’s all I want.
Jeremy Weisz 9:14
Like I did this on the dance floor. Yeah, like.
Jane Bianchini 9:17
So. Anyway, he agreed to take away coffee. And four hours later of us talking, he agreed to go through the recruitment process. And now my my technical director, so yeah, everything happens for a reason. But the day before I was about to receive the money and having to go back through to my shareholders, or investors at the time, they weren’t shareholders and say, Oh, by the way, I’m, remember I’m non tech, and we’ve just lost our tech director. So we’re in a bit of pain, but let me instill confidence in you. I’m the product visionary. I’m the one that has a deep connection to the problem. This is just execution over here with the tech director. I’ll find somebody else.
Jeremy Weisz 9:55
What did you say to him too, because again, totally how He was not planning on leaving was doing it probably to favor their friend. What did you say to him that ultimately think convinced him to come on board?
Jane Bianchini 10:09
I had? Gosh, I don’t know if there was one thing that I said, but I, I do remember being so passionate about the journey and the vision and how we really changing the world for the better in the recruitment space to make hiring more fair and equitable for all. And also the points of difference in this DNI space. And I think he really liked the idea of a challenge. I think he was in middle management, and but just an a tremendously talented engineer. So I think the idea to create rather than manage, was, I think, what got him over the line?
Jeremy Weisz 10:46
Because I mean, oftentimes we think money is a big motivator, but that may be far on the list, because if he’s with a secure company, you know, it seemed like that wasn’t like in the top couple of his decision to come to you.
Jane Bianchini 11:00
Yeah, correct. And, I mean, the interesting thing on money is, I paid all of my engineers 20% over market. And that was intentional, again, because it’s cheaper than recruiter fees. Cheaper. Yeah, I know that well. But also, if they’re having a bad day, or if they feeling a bit stuck, or we had a disagreement about something, then they would have adjusted their lifestyle, to their earnings and protecting that from being poached by other startups or other corporates. So they’re also with me today.
Jeremy Weisz 11:34
That’s a good lesson right there. Where can people check out more about your company? Where should they go online?
Jane Bianchini 11:39
Yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn. It’s Jane Jane and my surname Bianchini Bianchini. And I. Yeah, you can find me there.
Jeremy Weisz 11:50
And what’s the website for the company?
Jane Bianchini 11:51
So the company was called alchemy interactive, but now with our new owners, it is Criteria Corp.
Jeremy Weisz 12:00
Check it out. Thanks live from GLC.
