Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I’ll just benchmark it by saying oDesk, for instance, charges 10% of the contract value. Tell me what the additional value is that you’re adding to the process.

Taso Du Val: We screen all of the individuals for you. Not only for our network but also for your specific request. There are many layers of screening. There are many individuals involved in that screening process. There’s very little automation in our screening processes. We’re able to not only look at our network and screen everyone so that they can get in, but we’re also finding the perfect individual and contracting them out to you in an on-demand style.

We only give you one or two people when you post a job. It’s almost always the right person every single time. Our average job post to client ratio is 1.7. That means for every 1.7 person that we give you, you’re going to accept them. That’s an incredible metric that no one in the world can match. World renowned staffing companies  probably have a ratio of eight to one. People don’t even believe it, but that’s actually what we do.

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in your story in terms of strategies that you would like to discuss in an entrepreneur journeys context? If you like, you could even say things that you’ve experimented with that didn’t work. That’s fine too.

Taso Du Val: When I look back, I think the underlying factor that made this all work is the fact that I had no money. My parents had no money. No one was going to give me any money. I was a high school dropout. I had no choice but to fight. You’ll do anything to try to win. I believe that’s what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. It’s literally do or die. It’s going to be ridiculously hard.

We had competitors every single week for the last four years. They’ve all fizzled out except us. There’s a reason for that. It’s because we have this scrappy ethos that you can’t take away from us. I believe that’s precisely what has made us successful.

Sramana Mitra: Let me be more specific in terms of some of the areas where I’d like to get a bit more clarity. What about customer acquisition? What’s your customer acquisition strategy? How do you find the enterprises for whom you do the staffing?

Taso Du Val: We’re not so open about how we do our marketing or any of the ways that we do customer acquisition. We have some of the most innovative and interesting customer acquisition techniques in the world, but we don’t share many of those. What I would say to a group of individuals trying to start a successful Internet company is don’t hire marketers to do marketing. Hire engineers, physicists, and people with engineering degrees. They will construct ways where you’re able to make much better decisions and get a much better result in any marketing medium whether it’s traditional or online. The innovative mind is much more powerful than the experienced mind in my opinion. We hire innovators.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal
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