Industry
Health tech
Location
SF
Team Size
10
Funding
Seed
Steady Health: Finding the "best possible person" for the job
Steady Health is a modern clinic for personalized and data-driven diabetes care. They leverage wearable technology and personalized coaching to help their patients live healthier lives. Steady was founded by Henrik Berggren, a serial entrepreneur who has lived with diabetes for two decades, and Bjorn Hansell, an MD with a background in innovative patient care.Based in downtown San Francisco, Steady was a small team of 8, with only two people on their engineering team. As they prepared to launch their new clinic, Steady quickly realized they were going to need more help on their engineering team to make it happen.
Time-consuming with low ROI: recruiting marketplaces prove unsuccessful
Like most early stage founders, Henrik hired his first two engineers by tapping into his professional network. Henrik knew both software engineers had experience from reputable engineering organizations and moreover, would be motivated by Steady’s mission.
When it came time to grow the team again, Henrik and his team quickly exhausted their professional networks, and began using recruiting marketplaces, such as Triplebyte and AngelList, to source engineering talent. While these platforms generated plenty of interviews, the candidates were shopping around at dozens of companies—primarily ones with big company benefits and compensation. As an early stage startup, Steady had trouble closing.
Furthermore, with such a small engineering team, interviewing and pitching candidates became a lengthy, labor-intensive process. With the launch of their new clinic rapidly approach, Steady needed to focus on their product; they couldn’t afford to lose time sorting through and interviewing inbound candidates.
Key #1: Dover does the heavy lifting, drafting a compelling pitch & coordinating outreach
After a month without much success, Henrik knew he needed to try something different. That’s when he decided to use Dover.
Straight away, Dover connected Henrik and his team with Dover Recruiting Partners who carefully analyzed the technical needs of Steady’s engineering team. The Recruiting Partner also took a deep dive into Steady’s company culture and mission, and found there was a lot of great material to work with. The Recruiting Partner then used this context to craft a compelling, mission-driven pitch.
Armed with the ideal candidate profile and pitch email, the Recruiting Partner began spearheading candidate sourcing and took the repetitive, nitty gritty tasks off of Henrik’s plate. By reaching out to passive candidates, the Recruiting Partner ensured that Steady’s top-of-funnel was filled with great folks who were interested in their mission. Finally, the engineering team could devote their time to genuinely qualified candidates.
“Throughout our collaboration,Dover Recruiting Partner's weekly updates and success metrics helped us closely monitor progress. We appreciated how quickly they responded to feedback and refined their candidate sourcing strategy.”
Key #2: Refining the strategy: Dover zeroes in on candidates with a passion for healthcare
After a few weeks of pitching a fairly generic pool of qualified candidates, the search results weren’t great. Steady’s mission-driven pitch just wasn’t resonating with the average full stack engineer.
Steady’s partnership manager then got the idea to reach out to engineers with healthcare experience, either in a professional or volunteer capacity. Responses began flowing in, and the quality of Steady’s conversations with candidates drastically improved. By methodically iterating on the search criteria, Dover pinpointed Steady’s ideal candidates. Dover found folks who not only had the desired level of technical expertise, but also fit in nicely with Steady’s company culture.
“Recruiting services like Triplebyte will find the first person for the job, but Dover finds the best person for the job.”
Results: Dover finds “the best possible person” for the job
After adjusting sourcing strategy, Steady received an average of 6 interested candidate responses per week. Within three months, Steady Health had conducted several second round interviews and extended an offer to a candidate who would ultimately join the team.
Unlike AngelList, Triplebyte and similar marketplaces, Dover successfully generated candidates who responded enthusiastically to Steady Health’s mission-drive pitch. During the interview process, many of the candidates mentioned how the mission resonated with them personally.
When asked to describe their full stack software engineer hire, Henrik says “he couldn’t be a better fit.” A wellness practitioner turned software engineer, the new hire has a personal connection to Steady’s mission and a professional interest in the healthcare field.