The day Bityond died
Although you may think this is a story full of sadness, anger, or despair, you couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, this short n’ sweet tale, is about the exact opposite. It is about hope.
In all its glory, Bityond 1.0 served its purpose and I couldn’t be more proud and honoured to serve as its captain for these past few years.
Still, at some point, we ought to let go and move on to better things. We never know if the decision was the right one, but press forward we must.
To understand why sometimes things must die, so that better things take their place, I’ll tell you my story.
My story is Bityond’s story. Being its founder means we are, in a sense, forever connected. At least until one of us disappears into oblivion. Therefore, you may be wondering why have I cut Bityond’s head, in a single swift, and decided to reshape the future of recruitment?
Why was burning it all down and restart from scratch the right solution to move things forward?
The path to enlightenment…
To fully understand why Bityond 1.0 had to go, let me start from the beginning.
Bityond was built for a single purpose, and a single purpose only. To help candidates finding better jobs and recruiters finding the right person, in a timely manner.
Simple stuff, right?
As much as one likes simplicity, coherence is quite tricky. Most of all, you could be wondering how hard can it be to build a recruitment portal. After all, there’s plenty of those going around the web.
From professional social networks, like Linkedin and Xing, to web-based job portals like Monster, ITjobs, Indeed and LandingJobs, or applicants tracking systems (ATS) like CatsOne or Recruitee, everything available was built to produce one outcome: to increase the number of applications per job.
However, that wasn’t Bityond’s goal.
Bityond 1.0 was, personally, my first attempt at building the next-gen recruitment portal. The team and I thought of some really cool features like:
- Jobs-to-Candidates matching, by skills and experience,
- Ability to create an organization and manage all jobs in one place,
- The possibility to create projects and manage teams,
- The distinction between internal candidates and external ones.
Still, that wasn’t enough to win.
Bityond lacked key features to reshape the future of recruitment and talent management.
… is a treacherous one
Bityond 1.0 was fully released in 2016. We got to have close to 3,000 registered candidates and just under 5 major brands. We weren’t making any money, however, users were indeed enjoying the platform.
Companies had the ability to recruit in the market, or internally instead. Matching between candidates and jobs happened instantly. The selection of the right person for the right job was smooth sailing.
Nonetheless, Bityond was incomplete.
It was, indeed, missing key functionality and the usability was far too complex. The technology was quickly getting outdated, as Microsoft released ASP.net Core 3.0. We couldn’t integrate with Google maps, our database was missing important logic, our design was lacking innovation and attractiveness, and worse, we hadn’t rightfully planned for future integrations.
When I got asked “how will Bityond integrate with other businesses?”, I just froze. I did not have the answer. However, I knew a simple web platform wasn’t enough. I personally realized that Bityond needed much more than just technical skills and a few new database entries, to achieve what it set out to be.
How could users have an easier time filling profiles for the first time? How could skills and experience be verified? How could we integrate an interviews module to make the entire hiring process holy?
Also, how could we link projects-to-jobs without compromising organizations privacy? This is, how could companies possess our technology privately, within their own environments? Would it be possible to make Bityond cloud-based SaaS? Could we make our software a white-label solution?
And of course… how could we ever provide enough incentives to our user-base, be it organizations or candidates? Would it ever be possible to shift the focus from us to them?
Bityond 2.0 — recruitment is reborn
Ultimately, there was no coming back from what had been done. The only options were either to stick to our guns and play with what we had available or… to get back to the drawing board.
There is always a price one must pay to fail. Monetary and emotional. Financial and personal. It’s not easy to put your head down and re-start from scratch.
I can promise you that.
Still, as they say, after the storm comes the sun, right? Fortunately, death was just the beginning.
What we did with Bityond 2.0 was a complete shift.
Instead of focusing on simply adding better technologies and enhanced features, we decided to spend huge amounts of time on improving the onboarding experience, to make it seamless for users. Candidates and organizations.
With a few clicks, candidates are able to create their profiles, add their skills, proficiency, experience and expertise and be immediately matched to open jobs with their skill-sets.
Organizations managers can quickly invite employees to be part of Bityond. They can then add projects and jobs, build interviews and integrate multiple hiring processes, manage all employees by skills and expertise, see cool charts with much useful information about their organization and applicants, among many other impressive features 👇
But we did not stop there. Hell, no.
It wasn’t enough to change our front-end and back-end to accommodate the most recent technology released by Microsoft. It wasn’t enough to bring recruitment sites, applicants tracking systems and talent management portals together. It wasn’t enough to build the best matching algorithm available on the web. And for sure it wasn’t enough to build a white label version for any organization who so desires.
Simply put, that wasn’t enough for us. We needed more.
To create a truly unique environment we had to shift the focus from us, product creators, to you guys, the Bityond user-base. Far too many startups make big claims without skin in the game. Hence, we put our money where our mouth is.
How could we ever give-away partially, or perhaps totally, the decision-making process? Would it be possible to give a voice to every single candidate and every single organization, who chose to build their businesses and profiles over Bityond?
In other words, could we build an incentive system attached to Bityond so that our users are also… stakeholders?
If change is what we seek, then change is what we propose.
Rebellions, rebel.
At the time of writing, the rulers of the web are not content creators. You put your blood, sweat and tears into a platform and at the end, you own nothing. Zero. Nada. Niente
The rulers of the web are the owners and decision-makers of all platforms to which we subscribe to. Don’t fool yourself: much like your money at the bank is not really yours, the content you produce on the platforms of today, does not really belong to you.
Google, Youtube, Facebook, Medium, Patreon, you name it. All these portals have one thing in common: your opinion matters nothing.
The rules are set by the man. And the man decides who participates, what you can say, and under which circumstances you’re allowed to remain. The man chooses what you see and when you see it. The man changes its policies at any time, without your consent. Ultimately, the man decides how the platform you use and put your effort into, develops into the future.
You know what? Fuck the man.
Bityond was built for its users and it’s its users who will make it, or break it.
In Bityond, you have a voice. And there’s nothing we can do to stop you from proposing any changes you wish to. Bityond aims at being 100% unstoppable at its core.
How? Thanks to the “magic internet money”.
Bityond token (BYT), powering your voice
What we’ve done was neither easy or simple. Essentially, we’ve integrated the blockchain technology into our product, in order to give out incentives to users, which translate into voting power.
We’ve built an Ethereum-based token that helps users expressing their preferences. The Bityond token (ticker: BYT), a cryptocurrency.
How cool is that?
Still, If “blockchain”, “Ethereum” or “cryptocurrency” sounds weird, or these technologies are not your cup of tea, let me put your mind at ease. These technologies won’t change the way you interact with Bityond, in any way. We just use them to empower you, the user.
Bityond is not dependent on any blockchain to properly function. The usefulness of open, public and transparent technology is to allow users to express preferences. Therefore, our back-end is implemented on Microsoft’s Azure, while the Bityond tokens operate in Ethereum.
After all, you don’t have to participate in Bityond’s governance. You can choose to participate.
Furthermore, the way governance will work in Bityond is fairly straightforward:
- You use the Bityond application to either find a job, recruit people or manage applicants.
- You get Bityond tokens into your in-built wallet, while you use the application.
- You can burn tokens to make new features/implementations proposals or,
- You can burn tokens to vote on ongoing proposals.
Hence, no user has to purchase Bityond tokens to vote.
The more time a user spends in the application, the greater the number of tokens received. The more actions a user does within Bityond, the greater the number of tokens received. The more reputation a user builds within the Bityond network, the greater the number of tokens received.
See a pattern?
To conclude, to truly be anti-fragile, we could never stop you from owning your assets. Want to sell your BYT? Do it. Want to buy BYT? Do it.
In fact, since the tokens belong to the users, we couldn’t do anything about it even if we wanted to. After all, over 90% of all the Bityond tokens supply is locked for you, the final user and future token holder.
Bityond 2.0 — make your way into the future
Remember when I told you this whole story was about hope?
This is it. The final piece that connects the whole thing together.
Bityond is our best attempt at improving the way candidates find a job, and companies recruit and manage people. We really want to achieve our goals, but we can’t do it alone.
Do you know what’s the key piece, the final driver, for any digital product? Strong network effects.
If you want to build your organization on top of the best SaaS recruitment engine ever made, you now can. If you want to build your projects, jobs and interviews quickly and effectively, you now can. If you want to manage people and teams, you now can.
If you want to find the best jobs for your skills and experience, you now can. If you want to contribute and be rewarded, you now can. If you want to voice your preferences, you now can.
Bityond 2.0 is locked and loaded. Deployed and open for business. Raging to be unleashed and to conquer the entire recruitment and talent management industries.
Drop us a message requesting a test account, or visit our newest website and signup directly with your email address.
We’re counting on all of you to make Bityond the greatest and most inclusive recruitment network, ever to be created.
“Please, help us build the future of recruitment and talent management.
You’re our only hope.”
— Pedro
Thank you for taking the time to read this piece and for supporting Bityond.
The team and I highly appreciate it.
/salute.
