The Modern Recruiter #77: Selling your recruiting company to Elon Musk, Chris Bakke, Founder at Laskie

Hey everyone,

This week on The Modern Recruiter, I had an amazing in-person conversation with Chris Bakke about his journey building and selling two successful recruiting companies - including one that was acquired by Elon Musk's Twitter/X!

Chris shared some of his insights on:

* Building a recruiting marketplace from scratch

Chris's company Laskie grew to $4.5 million in revenue in just 2.5 years by focusing on remote hiring during the pandemic boom. He shared their strategies for sourcing candidates and clients, including initially spending big on LinkedIn job slots and remote job boards.

* Content marketing as a growth strategy

Chris revealed how "shitposting” and memes on Twitter helped double Laskie's revenue. His approach of posting humorous, non-recruiting content actually is very counter-intuitive to me, as I often advocate for high-value, educative content. However, this worked wonders to attract his target audience of startup founders and tech leaders - to the extent that he credits the strategy with DOUBLING his revenue.

* The playbook for selling a recruiting company

Chris walked me through how he positioned Laskie for acquisition, including keeping potential acquirers updated via a monthly newsletter (smart - never heard of that one but it makes so much sense). He also explained how a single tweet about Twitter's recruiting potential caught Elon Musk's attention and led to the acquisition.

* Pricing and business model evolution

We discussed Laskie's shift from contingency to recurring revenue, and the challenges of innovating on pricing in a crowded market. Of course this reminded me of The Modern Recruiter #70: A Pricing & Value Masterclass for Recruiters, with Jon Brooks, Founder @ The Value Advantage

* Market analysis of the recruiting industry

Chris broke down the go-to-market strategies of major players like LinkedIn, Indeed, and ZipRecruiter, offering valuable insights for founders trying to carve out their niche - and how he did it himself. I liked his highly analytical and strategic approach.

This episode is packed with great advice for founders building in the recruiting space, people looking to build a personal brand online in order to drive more revenue, as well as 2 different fascinating insider stories about an M&A process.

What do you think about Chris's social media strategies? Have you tried any similar approaches in your own recruiting activity?

I'd love to hear your thoughts - just hit reply and let's chat!

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Robin