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.

2019 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Innovation Stockyard selects first St. Joe startup for Digital Sandbox
A curbside recycling service is expected to be the first startup to receive Digital Sandbox KC proof-of-concept funding through the Innovation Stockyard incubator. Toss it Curbside, a service with which customers place unwanted items on their curbs to be recycled or donated, plans to use the funds and the St. Joseph-based incubator program to optimize…
Applications open: Sprint Accelerator dialing into ag tech, IoT with 2018 cohort
Investing in startups isn’t just about providing needed capital, Doug Dresslaer said. As the Sprint Accelerator gears up for its fifth year, Dresslaer, managing director of the program, said the accelerator’s 2017 cohort — the first since its move toward establishing corporate partnerships and pivot away from Techstars — proved industry relationships themselves create tremendous value.…
Entrepreneurial inspiration: How a wheelchair freed Wesley Hamilton
Editor’s note: Kansas City fitness and community advocate Wesley Hamilton offered four inspirational tips for entrepreneurs, illustrated by his own remarkable experiences overcoming adversity. Two bullets pierced Wesley Hamilton’s back, confining him to a wheelchair, but freeing his mind, the Kansas City adaptive athlete said. “I found that being shot by someone I never knew…
Show ’em KC hustle! 1 Million Cups needs you to beat Fargo (Video)
Nice shirts. Clever designs. The perfect mix of whimsy and irreverent wordplay. They’d fit in well among the Kansas City apparel scene. Except for one glaring snag: They’re brewed in Fargo. Yeah. That Fargo. And if you don’t want to see them on the backs of KC’s 1 Million Cups team, you’ll make plans to…
