Any early-stage founder would agree that building a startup is a balancing act.
Sharing key responsibilities within your fledgling business – from fundraising and accounting to product development, marketing, serving customers and winning new business – is essential until you can reach scale and begin to build dedicated teams for each of these functions.
Yet it is also crucial to balance the bigger picture, argues Screenloop co-founder Anton Boner. “You have to remain adaptable, listen closely to the market and customer needs, but also be decisive in your focus,” he tells TechBlast.
“Building a successful startup requires balancing flexibility with a clear vision – ensuring every team member is aligned and motivated towards common goals.”
He advises: “Stay flexible to the market conditions and needs of your customers and then when the time is right, have laser focus and clear outcomes for each team member to get to where you need to be as fast as physically possible.”
Pivots
Founded in 2021, Screenloop was born from the shared frustrations and poor hiring experiences of its founding team whilst working as senior operators at fast-growth tech businesses – including Stack Overflow, Talkdesk, Revolut, Reachdesk and ClearScore.
The firm, which raised £5.7 million seed investment in 2022 – its second round of funding – aims to enhance the recruitment experience for candidates, interviewers and businesses.
Boner and the team showed this adaptability when its first product – an AI notetaker – didn’t gain the expected traction in the talent acquisition market three years ago.
“The market wasn’t quite ready to adopt this type of tech for interviews,” he acknowledges. “The same tech which has been widely accepted in the sales industry just didn’t sit right with TA – in the masses at least.
“We decided to focus on other pain points for TA and quickly rolled out our Reference and NPS modules.”
The notetaker, still part of its offering, empowers interviewers to fully engage with candidates without the distraction of note-taking. Reference allows for smooth background checks while the Candidate and Hiring Manager NPS is an advanced way of collecting feedback efficiently, whilst at the same time strengthening the employer brand by positively influencing public perceptions on platforms such as Glassdoor.
When the market downturn hit, they realised businesses were no longer hiring but still needed to train up their teams – and Screenloop responded accordingly by building an interview training portal.
“These small pivots meant that what we have today is a weatherproof and well-rounded platform and ATS (applicant tracking system) to cater for all hiring needs,” says Boner.
Global footprint
Screenloop, second on our sister publication BusinessCloud’s TalentTech 50 ranking last year, now employs 25 people spread across five countries – the UK, Portugal, Brazil, Ukraine and India – and has clients spanning Europe, APAC, South Africa and South America.
Boner describes its early expansion to the United States as a “natural progression”.
“It was driven by the global footprint of our customer base, and the tight-knit TA community’s word-of-mouth,” he explains. “Unlike a traditional market entry, our ‘launch’ was more of an organic growth facilitated by the strong referrals from our existing clients.
“Our immediate focus remains on deepening our footprint in Europe and the US, leveraging our successes in these regions to guide our expansion strategies. The global nature of talent acquisition challenges ensures our solutions have universal appeal, and we are continuously exploring opportunities to enter new markets where our technology can make a significant impact.”
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Football
Originally from Liverpool and a former technology teacher at a sixth form in East London, Boner went on to become country manager for the European, APAC and South American markets at Stack Overflow where he spent seven years learning from “thousands of TA leaders”.
After more than a decade working closely with talent and people teams – “listening and learning what makes them tick” – he places strong emphasis on the collective.
“I actively play football every week and there’s actually a beautiful parallel between the dynamics of football and the ethos at Screenloop,” he says.
“Both require teamwork, a clear gameplan, the flexibility to adapt, and a united effort to achieve our goals. Whether navigating a startup or playing a match, it’s the strength of the team that is key to our success.”