Industry
B2B SaaS
Location
Vancouver
Team Size
15
Funding
Bootstrapped
Invoice Simple: 3 senior hires for ultra niche roles
Invoice Simple saves small business owners time by enabling them to send invoices on-the-go directly from their mobile device. With over 100,000 customers, Invoice Simple is one of Canada’s fastest growing startups.
After more than a million downloads, the Invoice Simple team was ready to take their app to the next level. They struggled, however, to find a cost effective way to connect with qualified senior mobile engineering talent in Vancouver.
Filling a niche technical role in a small candidate pool
Like many startups outside of Silicon Valley, the Invoice Simple team had a hard time finding talented mobile engineers. Given the nature of the Invoice Simple app, the team needed someone who was willing to work with React Native, an increasingly popular technology for developing across iOS and Android. This drastically limited the number of eligible candidates.
Alex Black, the founder of Invoice Simple, anticipated the difficulty of filling this role in the Vancouver market. He considered using traditional agencies to locate the best talent, but quickly realized that their 20% contingency fees were excessive for what they were delivering. After waiting a few months to see if traditional recruiting methods (i.e. posting open roles on their website and job boards) would drum up any interest, Alex and his team knew they had to find a savvier, more time- and cost-effective approach.
Key #1: Dover brings technical expertise to the candidate search
Alex first heard about Dover while meeting with a friend and fellow co-founder. Upon reaching out to Dover, Alex was pleasantly surprised: he was greeted by Dover Recruiting Partners who would support Invoice Simple throughout the search process as their Recruiting Partner. From the start, Alex knew that Dover was different: he was able to have a high-level, technical conversation about ideal candidate profiles. Plus, he didn’t have to waste time sorting through candidates’ technical expertise one-by-one: Dover’s algorithmic vetting technology and technically experienced Recruiting Partner took care of building a pipeline of qualified candidates.
“As a founder, I'm balancing tens of things at a given time and it was a relief to hand off sourcing candidates to Dover Recruiting Partners. They ramped up instantly and helped steer us to great candidates for our React Native roles.”
Key #2: Dover swiftly revises search criteria as team zeros in on ideal candidate
Throughout the partnership, Dover Recruiting Partners worked closely with Alex and the Invoice Simple team to iterate on the search and identify the most critical skill sets the team needed. The Recruiting Partner organized a weekly update with Invoice Simple to get their feedback and ensure the algorithm's search criteria matched their evolving needs. For Invoice Simple, it felt like having another person on their team.
After Alex connected with a handful of candidates, he realized he was most interested in candidates who had experience with a larger portion of their tech stack. What began as a search for a mobile-only engineer, evolved into a quest for two candidates: one with frontend (React) experience, the other with backend expertise. The Recruiting Partner easily accommodated this shift, pivoting their recruiting strategy to match Invoice Simple’s needs.
Results: 2 engineers + marketing manager hired
In just three weeks, the Recruiting Partner generated 20 senior mobile engineer interviews for Alex and his team. After Alex decided to widen the search to include engineers with more frontend or backend experience, the Recruiting Partner consistently presented Alex with 10 new candidates each week. The Recruiting Partner took care of the heavy lifting, building a pipeline of candidates and scheduling the first interview within anyone who piqued Alex’s interest.
After just two months of working with Dover Recruiting Partners, Invoice Simple hired two engineers: one with a backend tilt and the other with frontend expertise. Alex also formed a valuable relationship with a third engineer that is likely to join the team in the future.
With remaining time left in their agreement, Invoice Simple asked the Recruiting Partner to help fill an open role on their marketing team. The Recruiting Partner brought in a different partnership manager with a go-to-market background to lead the search.
Once again, Dover Recruiting Partners swiftly developed an ideal candidate profile and began connecting Invoice Simple with qualified candidates. Within a month, Invoice Simple received 20 interested candidates, one of whom they ultimately hired as their marketing manager.