Friday, December 4, 2020
Interview with Darren Litt, MarketerHire
For our interview today, we spoke with Darren Litt, one of the co-founders of Los Angeles-based MarketerHire, an online marketplace focused on connecting companies with marketing talent.
What is MarketerHire?
Darren Litt: Simply put, we're a talent marketplace that makes it easy to hire the best marketers. We started MarketerHire two years ago, and all of our founders come from a background in and around the world of marketing. The challenge we found, again and again, is that it's really hard to hire the best marketing talent. That's why we built MarketerHire. It's a talent marketplace that connects marketers with customers, from big boys like Netflix, to startups like Allbirds, and all kinds of other companies.
What's different here from the many other services out there?
Darren Litt: There are a lot of marketplaces out there, but not a lot of vertical marketplaces. What we do, is we dive really deeply into the world of marketing. Marketing is a very confusing world, and a lot of people don't know what is behind the scenes. What we've built, is a talent marketplace to provide a really deep dive into the world of marketing.
What's your background?
Darren Lit: My background is as a tech entrepreneur. I've been around adtech and performance marketing for a number of years, and was CEO and co-founder of a company called GoLive. I grew that to around 200 people, and it was a two time, Inc. 500 business, and number one in the media category. We have a few co-founders at the company, all from the world of marketing. Chris, one of our co-founders, ran an agency for a number of years. Raaja was the former founder of BucketFeet, a direct-to-consumer business he sold to Threadless. Everyone on our team has been doing marketing for a number of years, and have seen the challenges that come from hiring the best talent.
How did you solve the problem that marketplaces have of supply and demand?
Darren Litt: The issue with marketplaces, is you always have a chicken and egg problem. What we found, though, is that we're solving such a real problem, it's been easy to grow both sides. First of all, all of our marketing talent is working remote, and they're all freelancers. That makes it easier for us to grow our marketplace, because we're not restricted by geography. On the customer side, there's been such a massive boom in and around e-commerce, with so many people looking for marketing talent, there's a huge ecosystem of customres and companies, which has allowed us to grow rather quickly.
How are you funding the business?
Darren Litt: We just closed a round of funding. We have a number of Southern California angels who have invested, and the founders and CEOs of companies like Zillow, who founded companies that really understand direct-to-consumer ecommerce marketplaces. We have a very cash efficient model, so we just raised around $4M, but, frankly, we could have raised a lot more. We have a low burn compared to other marketplace businesses.
Did you close this round during or before the pandemic really started to hit here?
Darren Litt: We closed the latest round during the pandemic. We were fortunate that a bunch of the trends started by the pandemic have been good for us. One of those trends has been the growth in remote work. The other has been the growth in e-commerce. When the pandemic first hit, a number of companies had the question of how it would impact their business, and it's turned out the pandemic has been great for our company.
Are there any lessons that you've learned so far that stand out for you, as an entrepreneur?
p> Darren Litt: We have been fortunate that we are surrounded with a really good team. We've made some great hires. We have a few different co-founders at the company, we've set the stage for growth with people we like to work with and who are fantastic about what they do, attracted people who are nice to work with, which has allowed us to grow really fast.Finally, what are you working on now?
Darren Litt: We just released a new matching technology, that improves the duration needed to hire a great marketer. Our mission is to make great marketing accessible to all kinds of companies out there. We're working on any and all things that can improve that process, and make it easier for companies and freelancers to connect with companies.
Thanks!