In this episode of the D2Z Podcast, join Brandon Amoroso and Parker Amoroso in a captivating discussion about SCALIS' recent acquisition, Apex. With over 200,000 subscribers, Apex provides internship and early career opportunities to individuals entering the workforce. Brandon and Parker delve into the strategic reasons behind this acquisition, highlighting the value of scale in talent acquisition and the unique revenue streams it offers.
Explore how Apex provides access to a vast pool of talent, aligning with SCALIS' mission to revolutionize talent acquisition. The conversation delves into the intersection of e-commerce and advertising within the newsletter, emphasizing its role in diversifying media spend and expanding brand outreach. Additionally, they examine the evolving landscape of job boards, emphasizing the importance of targeted advertising to reach specific demographics effectively.
Throughout the episode, Brandon and Parker share insights into the future of Apex, discussing plans for expansion and segmentation to cater to diverse industry needs. They also explore the symbiotic relationship between Apex and SCALIS, highlighting the opportunity for revenue generation and burn mitigation. With a focus on innovation and adaptation, they offer a glimpse into the exciting possibilities that lie ahead for both companies.
Timestamps:
🔍 Introduction of SCALIS' recent acquisition, Apex (00:00:29)
🎯 Strategic reasons behind the acquisition and the value of talent acquisition (00:01:16)
💼 Intersection of e-commerce and advertising within the newsletter (00:02:06)
🚀 Plans for expansion and segmentation of Apex (00:09:45)
📊 Benefits of targeted advertising on the Apex newsletter (00:10:14)
🔄 Insights into the evolving landscape of job boards (00:11:06)
💡 Future prospects and revenue generation strategies for Apex (00:14:03)
🛠️ Importance of product feedback and iteration in software development (00:17:06)
In this episode of the D2Z Podcast, join Brandon Amoroso and Parker Amoroso in a captivating discussion about SCALIS' recent acquisition, Apex. With over 200,000 subscribers, Apex provides internship and early career opportunities to individuals entering the workforce. Brandon and Parker delve into the strategic reasons behind this acquisition, highlighting the value of scale in talent acquisition and the unique revenue streams it offers.
Explore how Apex provides access to a vast pool of talent, aligning with SCALIS' mission to revolutionize talent acquisition. The conversation delves into the intersection of e-commerce and advertising within the newsletter, emphasizing its role in diversifying media spend and expanding brand outreach. Additionally, they examine the evolving landscape of job boards, emphasizing the importance of targeted advertising to reach specific demographics effectively.
Throughout the episode, Brandon and Parker share insights into the future of Apex, discussing plans for expansion and segmentation to cater to diverse industry needs. They also explore the symbiotic relationship between Apex and SCALIS, highlighting the opportunity for revenue generation and burn mitigation. With a focus on innovation and adaptation, they offer a glimpse into the exciting possibilities that lie ahead for both companies.
Timestamps:
🔍 Introduction of SCALIS' recent acquisition, Apex (00:00:29)
🎯 Strategic reasons behind the acquisition and the value of talent acquisition (00:01:16)
💼 Intersection of e-commerce and advertising within the newsletter (00:02:06)
🚀 Plans for expansion and segmentation of Apex (00:09:45)
📊 Benefits of targeted advertising on the Apex newsletter (00:10:14)
🔄 Insights into the evolving landscape of job boards (00:11:06)
💡 Future prospects and revenue generation strategies for Apex (00:14:03)
🛠️ Importance of product feedback and iteration in software development (00:17:06)
I'm Brandon Amoroso and this is the D2Z podcast building and growing your business from a Gen Z perspective. Hey, everyone thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast about using the Gen Z mindset to grow your business. I'm Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Retention as a Service Agency, electric, and also the co-founder of Scaleless. Today I'm joined by my brother and co-founder of Scaleless, parker, but today we're actually going to be talking about a recent acquisition that Scaleless made, which is called Apex. Can you give everybody some background on what Apex is?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so Apex is a newsletter that provides internship and early career opportunities to college students and individuals who have just entered the workforce, and it currently services individuals across the nation. We've got over 200,000 subscribers and two subsidiary newsletters focusing on specific markets and verticals, which we plan to continue to expand.
Speaker 1:
So what, I guess, pre-launch with your current business. What was one of the reasons or what were some of the things that you thought made this a strategic acquisition for the company? Because typically, most businesses don't acquire another business pre-launch.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think that's fair to say, but for us, I think the core value of Scaleless stems not from the ATS itself or the tools we're providing to businesses, though those are substantially better than what is currently on the market. The core value of Scaleless comes from the talent acquisition component, which is a revenue stream that current ATS solutions have not been able to unlock because of the way they're set up. So, for us, acquiring Apex gave us access to a really large group of individuals who are very hungry for job opportunities and looking for the right fit for them, and it's a great time to introduce people to the platform, as they're just entering the workforce and getting used to and getting exposure to tools that are used to help find the right career, and so this was an immediate gateway to start getting some of that exposure and start bringing those individuals into the fold.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, there's quite an intersection as well between the e-commerce ecosystem, especially brands, and the opportunities that present themselves within the newsletter itself just from a diversification of media spend, whether it's brand like Warby Parker, who we ran ads with last month, or new and upcoming DTC brands who want to get access to that type of demographic. It's a good stepping stone for us as well, just to get our feet wet with the advertising side of things, which is ultimately what the business's main revenue stream is.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. I think the early sort of exposure to brands looking to Put themselves in front of this specific Demographic is has been really strong so far. We're going to continue to pursue that.
Speaker 1:
What do you think of? You know the intersection of media and you know software, because there are some businesses that you know they might have a software product and they don't really spend much time or attention on no content, marketing or building out a newsletter list. But then you have others who are able to, you know, sort of successfully, build out a little bit of a media arm and, you know, create that content and use that as a funnel into other components of their business. How do you see, you know apex growing and evolving over the next year, three years, five years? How will that support? You know the core scaleless plated platform and product.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I think scaleless is a very unique software product in the sense that we're not just providing a service to Businesses, right. So it's not a self-contained Product in that sense. For us, because of that talent acquisition piece, we need to value engagement much more than any other Platform would value it from individuals who actually won't be using sort of the core software offering. So obviously, job seekers won't be using the ATS. They will be using the job board side of things, though that wouldn't really. We wouldn't really consider that as sort of the the core product of scaleless. But by driving that engagement right, we're continuing to create that ecosystem for our business users to tap into, while also still providing a benefit to our job seekers by helping them find the the right opportunities.
Speaker 2:
So it's not the typical situation where you have a software product that runs maybe a blog to help sort of Educate users on how to use the software. You know topics related to the industry within which the software product is situated, right, those are blogs designed to either help current users or bring in new users of the you know the core software offering. This is a little different, right, this is designed to bring Individuals into sort the ecosystem and the platform at large, but not sort of the, the core software offering which is for businesses.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think. Do you think at some point, you know, there will be a component to the business that is targeting those end business users versus the jobseeker?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, but it won't be under the apex brand, right? I think the the apex brand is designed to Provide a benefit to the job seekers themselves, specifically that early careers and internship Market where you know, people are just beginning their first journey into to having a career.
Speaker 1:
What are some of the benefits that you've seen with the DTC brands or companies that have advertised on the apex newsletter, and how are you thinking about, you know, growing that component of the business?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, well, I think, for starters, we have a really high engagement rate just because People are so eager to find internships. Right, our open rate is around 50%. Our click-through rate is, you know, almost almost 30% often. So we have a really great audience that continues to to engage with the newsletter because of you know how, how desirable jobs are right now. Right, it's very much an employer's market at this time. They're receiving more applications and they can possibly sort of manage and sort through, and so people have to be very proactive about Searching for opportunities, especially at that stage of your career.
Speaker 2:
So, you know, if you're a young job seeker, right, that's, that's the part of your career where the employers hold more of the, the power, so to speak.
Speaker 2:
Right there You're trying to present yourself to them, as opposed to later in your career when you likely have some sort of established track record, and so now you're being sort of actively recruited. And so because of that, right, it's for businesses, you know, in direct-to-consumer space or wherever it may be, putting themselves on the newsletter is Automatically getting a lot of attention, and it's a really cost-effective way to do so, since we really are not not charging a whole lot for that. I think we're industry low in terms of where what we're charging. So I think it's a really awesome way to to get in front of a lot, a lot of young people very quickly and even if you're not necessarily making a conversion in that moment and you know, having them click on a link and actually buy something you're still making an impression on a group of people who are primed to go on and have, you know, very successful careers and make Considerable amount of money. So we'll have the opportunity and the sort of discretionary income needed to eventually purchase your products.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely a great awareness play as well as conversion opportunity for for brands and, and you know, through the work that we do on the on the e-com side With the agency, there's quite a few businesses that are looking for other, you know, means to advertising.
Speaker 1:
New channels to test and try, whether it's connected TV or direct mail, or you know things like newsletter advertising, and Because Facebook isn't as effective or as easy as it used to be, and so you know there's a need in the market as well for this.
Speaker 1:
It helps a lot that it's so hyper specific around you know the demographic, because obviously you know if you're a company that sells to Middle-aged woman, you're not going to advertise on our newsletter, whereas if we had a very broad set of subscribers It'd be a little bit more difficult to, you know, have alignment with the types of advertisers that we want on the newsletter. But it's pretty clear what types of brands should be advertising on the newsletter, given the demographic that is on it, as well as just how, how engaged they are, and so there's a lot of opportunity to spin up other you know newsletters, other components within apex that are even more specific, and it doesn't always have to be consumer products either, in terms of like a you know a Shopify brand. If it's a you know apex finance newsletter, perhaps there's some sort of a you know finance software that's advertising within the newsletter. So it'll be interesting to see how, how that evolves over time.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think we've and we've already started to explore those different verticals and different opportunities for subsidiary newsletters that target specific verticals and industries and Certain job seekers, and so we'll continue to build that out over time.
Speaker 1:
When putting together these partnerships. You know, since we've acquired it, we've probably run about four or five different brand advertisements on the newsletter. What is stood out to you in terms of what works really well and what doesn't?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it just comes down to the, the creativity of the ad, right. I think Something that stands out and grabs people, people's attention or attention, is really important and fortunately we have a really great creative team to handle the ads. So we saw early on when we first started running some ads that we that we took from the, from the advertiser themselves, that you know the results weren't as great with, with some of them just based on sort of the Look of the advertisement. But now that we've kind of taken it over and really taken Sort of a you might even say Gen Z mindset to how the ad looks and how it behaves, you know I think it's getting a lot more traction and that's been sealed really good results for us Over the last couple weeks as we've been running those ads.
Speaker 1:
I appreciate the inclusion of the Gen Z mindset. It is a Gen Z target audience as well too. It is indeed. You talk a little bit about how job boards are not a zero sum game. It isn't a winner. Take all environment and how Apex is just one example of how we can leverage the scaleless technology to enter into new verticals in a specialized fashion.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I mean to start, job boards aren't a zero sum game, because as an employer you can push to any job board and oftentimes you're looking for very specific jobs or specific types of candidates on specific job boards. I think, as you talk to different recruiters and HR leadership across a wide array of companies, one of the things I've found is that they often have sort of go to job boards for different purposes, for different types of candidates, which they've seen, you know, certain success on. Indeed, for example, for maybe software developers or maybe you know, on LinkedIn they saw a certain success rate for placing business management individuals. So it really comes down to just sort of understanding the job board ecosystem and which ones make sense for which purposes, which is actually one of the functions of an ATS right is to be able to track your sources of candidates and be able to sort of narrow in on where you're getting the most bang for your buck. So are you mostly hiring from LinkedIn? Are you mostly hiring from Zip recruiter, whatever it may be?
Speaker 2:
So I think Apex is a unique opportunity here for us to really understand sort of who's on the job board and you know what the what the profiles look like within a very specific array of candidates, particularly right that early career segment, and then provide employers the opportunity to more to hyper target essentially certain types of candidates that they want to bring into their company.
Speaker 2:
I know right now we're running women in tech newsletter that we just started. That's one of the harder aspects to, or demographics to recruit for, and we've talked to some HR leaders who are always looking for for female candidates who are in the tech space to bring them into the company and that's been something that's been very popular, as we kind of let people know about that newsletter as a way to to bring people of a specific background into their company. So that's that's kind of how we see Apex is, you know, a very specific target market for employers to draw from and then even within that additional segmentation so that they can push their jobs to the right or to the candidates that they're looking for.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So last question I have for you pertains to going through the software development process, specifically bootstrapping it, and trying to leverage other channels and other revenue sources to be able to sort of mitigate the burn. You talked to that strategy a bit and why you know that route versus going and raising a traditional VC run.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I think for us, you know we see Apex as an opportunity to monetize much faster than if we were just focusing on the scaleless revenue stream, especially because we're not really interested in making any money off the scaleless ATS, though that is really a product that will be released. So the path to monetization on the scaleless platform is a longer term play that will take time to develop and mature, whereas Apex is really a here and now opportunity. There's a lot of long term plays that come out of Apex that you know we're exploring and which we're excited about, but which will keep the details under wraps for the next few years. But there's a lot of really exciting verticals and things we can do stemming off a platform that has that kind of traction with young job seekers. But I think there's an opportunity here and now, in terms of the advertising play, to generate a lot of revenue for scaleless at large to help sort of offset some of the burn that's taking place on the platform side of things.
Speaker 1:
That makes sense Well before we have. What's one thing that you're really excited about going into this year. It's almost been three months. What's the rest of the year having stored? What are you most looking forward to?
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So I'm really looking forward to, first of all, just launching the product and getting all the businesses that are waiting to use it on board so that they can start experiencing it, so that we can start using that feedback to continue to iterate.
Speaker 2:
But I think, outside of that, I think the most exciting thing is just all the possibilities that will be unlocked once we've finished the core product, because I think early on here, the big challenge we've been facing is that this first version is very the platform is highly integrated and there's a lot of things going on. Each action on an employer side, because of the fact that the job board exists, has a lot of edge cases, has a lot of things spinning off of it that have to work properly. But once that is done, moving forward things will start to get, I think, a lot simpler from a development standpoint because we'll be adding things on in more of a piecemeal fashion, so there won't be as many roadblockers or dependencies that have to take place or have to be accounted for, since I think we're really establishing the core product right now, and so I think moving forward things will start to really accelerate for us once we launch this first iteration.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it'll be exciting to get it in the hands of some customers and start that feedback and iteration process that we've already been doing. But it's a lot different when they're using it in their day to day and we can start to dive into it much deeper with them and be very product focused and product development oriented organization. So we're almost there. It's just a matter of weeks at this point. Indeed, well, thank you for coming on For everybody that's listening.
Speaker 1:
If you are interested in advertising on the Apex newsletter or you're just curious about how to potentially diversify your media spend in general, whether it's through newsletter or via direct mail or connected TV or other channels, feel free to reach out at electricmarketingcom or scalelessai. We're going to start publishing some case studies over the next couple of weeks here as well from the results that we've had with brands like Warby, parker and whatnot and overall just really excited to bring this vision to market and also get to connect brands with this very hyper targeted audience and demographic. So thanks for coming on, parker, and thanks everybody for listening. I'll see you next time.