New Recruit self-service event staffing platform puts KC’s PopBookings in the big game
February 18, 2019 | Austin Barnes
While the Kansas City Chiefs might have narrowly missed their shot at the 2019 Super Bowl, the city was well represented as a source for event staffing at the game, revealed Erika Klotz, noting the power of Recruit, a new product from KC-based PopBookings.
A client used the self-service platform to book 288 shifts for the event, the PopBookings co-founder told Startland ahead of Recruit’s national debut and official launch this week.
PopBookings By the Numbers
Founded: 2014
Founders: Erika Klotz and Scott Hanson
Number of employees: 20
Capital raised to date: Just under $5 million
Designed with the unique needs of startups in mind, Recruit is a marketplace tool that allows companies to book talent — using a format similar to service booking platforms such as Airbnb, said Klotz, CEO of PopBookings.
“We saw a market that was extremely fragmented and we wanted to start with the most painful problem,” she said of the development process for Recruit. “Helping [companies] streamline that process was a big step toward that.”
Recruit’s tailor-made setup helps smaller scale startups and legacy companies find and recruit talent without paying a monthly fee, Klotz noted.
“It’s completely self service. You can create a job, post it for free, and pay only when you book someone,” she said.
Recruit also offers companies a nationwide talent pool with expansion into Canada, she added.
Click here to explore using Recruit.
With the launch of Recruit, PopBookings will — for the first time since it was founded by Klotz and Scott Hanson — explore new territory, Klotz said.
“We’ve been kind of a one product company — more of a management tool like Quickbooks — where you can manage your event staffing efforts,” she said. “[Recruit] is really good for kind of a broader market need where event staffing really isn’t the core of your business, but it might be a need of of your business.”
Recruit has emerged at a time of increased momentum for PopBookings, Klotz said.
It has helped connect more than 200,000 users in 8,600 cities with $23 million worth of jobs since March 2016, she said.
Such metropolitan areas as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago continue to be top markets for Pop Bookings, but the event staffing space holds wide appeal as tourism grows nationwide, Klotz said.
“We feel very confident that any company, in any city, needing staff — they can find it!” she said.
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