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This month I had the opportunity to appear on Schwab Network live from the floor of the NYSE and share my POV on the October jobs report based on what we’re seeing on the front lines at Braintrust. We’re certainly seeing bright spots (particularly in AI – more on that below!) but we’re continuing to fight macroeconomic forces in order to remain flat MoM. I of course want to see us back on the exponential growth trajectory, and we’re doing everything we can to ensure we’re ready to capitalize when things turn back around. Modular Capital wrote a terrific piece on Braintrust which outlines the network growth so far and massive opportunity ahead of us. I would encourage you to give it a read.
Please feel free to share both - does a lot to help grow the network!
On to our updates:
Platform Improvements to increase efficiency & GSV growth:
- Automation: At a customer event a few weeks ago we gave a sneak peek into our new AI matching algorithm which uses proprietary platform data to surface top matches for a job based on skills, work history, location and other requirements, instantaneously. This is part of the “secret sauce” that makes Braintrust’s core value props to clients (speed of hire + quality of talent) continue to be improved and reinforced (literally via reinforcement learning).
- Search: This month we made search global across jobs, people and career help posts. Enabling clients to quickly find the right talent, and talent to discover the right jobs, people and posts.
- Referrals: Our referral engine, powered by the BTRST token, continues to be another unique competitive advantage. We’ve narrowed in on the qualities that make a successful connector: highly networked professionals that have advanced in their careers as well as talent that had success with our platform. We are working to target those users specifically to unlock growth beyond the 5X funnel optimizations we’ve achieved last quarter
Client (demand) side performance:
- AI: AI continues to defy all of the current marco norms. We’ve had one company, Scale AI, hire 76 talent from us over the past month, and we anticipate the same volume or more from them next month. On Braintrust, AI skills are commanding rates 50% higher than traditional engineering roles, and the Network has added many more talent with these skills to meet the seemingly insatiable demand
- Revenue: New GCV was up 29% MoM ($4.0M) and GSV was flat MoM. For November we’re forecasting another flat month, due to macro plus seasonality.
- Jobs: Clients posting jobs down 19% MoM, however job posts per client up 12% MoM (3.9 vs. 3.5 in Sept). This tells us that the few customers that are hiring are finding success with Braintrust, and coming to us with multiple roles. This is a great sign for when macro returns and hiring fires back up.
- Direct Hire: This month we also saw an increase in Direct Hire placements which accounted for $1.2M in GCV (up 226% from Sept)
- Events: This month we hosted a webinar for our customers to share platform data and insights to help inform their strategy in 2024 and beyond. One of our long time enterprise customers, Carole Pirozzi from Guardian Life shared how Braintrust helped transform their approach to talent.
- Positioning: We’re spending cycles to reposition ourselves from a “freelance marketplace” to the “ultimate workforce management solution” - many people don’t have a full understanding of our capabilities, and we’ll be working to update our message to more accurately reflect the breath and depth of our service offerings in an to capture more share of wallet.
Talent (supply) side performance:
- Talent: Braintrust just ticked past half a million (now 505k) talent members! We continue to acquire new talent at an unprecedented rate for no cost.
- Token: We’ve begun the massive user wallet migration to Base (Coinbase’s L2), starting with a small number of wallets to test and manually verify there are no issues before migrating all ~34k wallets to the new blockchain. Assuming there are no issues with the initial set of wallets, we should be able to complete this by the end of next week. In Q4+, we plan to validate ways users can use BTRST to enhance their experience on the marketplace + professional network.
- Events: We hosted our final community event of the 2023 season with Jacinda Shelly, co-founder at Apero Health (261 people joined + 67 questions about entrepreneurship posted in the Professional Network)
How you can help:
- Spread the Word: The Modular Capital piece and TV appearance (which I shared at the top of this letter and also linked here) are tremendous credentializers for Braintrust. We would welcome your amplification on social media, in newsletters, etc.
- Connector Program: While we have a great base of clients, many are still on hiring freezes through the end of the year. We could use your help with intros to anyone that may be actively hiring in tech, design, or marketing. As a reminder, we pay 2% of gross billings for each client referral in BTRST and our top referrers are earning 10k+ tokens per month right now just from making some easy intros!
As always, please don’t hesitate to reply with feedback or questions.
All the best,
Adam
Join Braintrust: https://app.usebraintrust.com/r/adam3/
Braintrust dashboard: https://info.braintrust.com
Podcast: www.adamjacksonshow.xyz