VanHack founder Ilya says the company pivoted from an expensive in-person coding-and-relocation program to a recruiting business after 50 landing-page signups in one day.
Ilya quit Best Buy to run VanHack full time on December 31, 2015, after its English course out-earned his day job.
A 2018 SkipTheDishes hiring fair in São Paulo, where 72 of about 300 engineers were hired, was the product-market fit moment Ilya says turned VanHack into a recruiting business.
VanHack bootstrapped from an English course to engineer recruiting
VanHack grew from an English course for engineers into a recruiting business that moves tech talent abroad. A large community of engineers was the asset, and employers paid far more to hire from it than students paid to learn. Outbound sales, live events and revenue instead of venture money carried it, and one big hiring fair finally proved the fit.
Takeaways
A 90,000-person community was the real advantage. VanHack's Slack group held about 90,000 engineers. Posting a client's hiring need drew about ten replies within minutes. Engineers stayed around three and a half years, and Ilya says roughly ten times more engineers want to move to Canada than live there.
Placement fees dwarfed English course revenue. The first placement was a Java developer hired by Traction at a 100K salary, paying VanHack $15,000. The fee later moved from 15% to 20% of annual salary. One Thinkific hire earned more than the school's new recurring revenue that month.
Sales was entirely outbound. VanHack won customers through cold calling, cold email, LinkedIn and events, with no inbound engine. Article hired 20 people over the year after Ilya posted its needs to the community.
Leap events packed hiring into one week. Leap events flew engineers into a city for a week of recruiting fairs, pairing 10 to 15 Toronto startups with 10 to 15 engineers. One engineer from India left with five job offers.
One hiring fair delivered product-market fit. After Just Eat acquired SkipTheDishes in 2018, a São Paulo fair drew about 300 engineers over two days and 72 were hired. Ilya calls this VanHack's product-market fit, since customers then began asking for many engineers.
Revenue and cheap capital replaced big venture rounds. A bid to raise half a million euros after a Berlin demo day failed, so the team focused on revenue, which passed that amount in the last three months of the year. VanHack joined Techstars and equity-free programs such as Start-Up Chile. Golden Section later invested, and Ilya calls it much more capital efficient than Silicon Valley VCs.
From landing page to first placement
In 2014 Ilya launches a landing page for a program to learn to code and move to Vancouver. It gets 50 signups on day one, but flights and visas make the in-person model too expensive.
In January 2015 the official site launches with an English course for software engineers, teaching technical terms and interview answers. The first price is 500 Brazilian reais a year, and Ilya still works at Best Buy.
On December 31, 2015 he quits to go full time, because the course now earns more than his day job.
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On this episode 2
Show 1
He livestreams recruiting fairs to VanHackers, mostly in Brazil, and runs similar events in Dublin. Webinars offer discounts.
The first placement follows when a Java developer joins Traction, which pays a $15,000 fee.