Round 1 : Challenges & Plans

What are the challenges you faced while starting up?

The greatest challenge is simultaneously balancing the big and small picture. I believe we are not just creating a company, but an industry which will be called something along the lines of unsocial or incentive based networking. Facebook pioneered social networking, allowing one to meaningfully connect with your peers, and their peers. I see Round One pioneering incentivized networking, which meaningfully allows one to connect with practically anyone by replacing social capital(the currency of favors) with a monetary incentive.

Share your expansion plans for Round One with us.

We plan to working more closely with HR departments and develop partnerships with job portals and other recruitment firms to scale roundone.in as a value added service for their clients and job seekers. As a system, Round One is extremely scalable and we are planning to launch it in the UK, Singapore, and US in 2012. We are working on the larger goal of using this model to create interactions where none are currently possible by expanding to industries outside of recruitment such as education and business. Stay tuned for updates on that!

How do you make money?

We charge applicants for each phone-interview. We are launching a free corporate module which allows HR to monitor and control all activities on Round One Reviewrelated to their firm and there will be value added services for that. We are also launching a subscription for recruiters to tap our database of resumes and screening results for customers that opt to share the data.

Share a few of your success stories at Round One.

Our confidentiality agreements do not allow us to name people or companies, but several customers have used our service to open doors towards their dream jobs which were otherwise shut. Round One has been most valuable to those that didn’t want to ask long lost friends for favors out of the blue, those changing industries or geographies, and those in fragmented industries with loose networks.

Are you looking for investors?

Currently, we are financially sound but as we expand internationally we will seek investment from firms that can also provide non-financial benefits. We are also seeking partnerships with job portals.