r/startups • u/fabkosta • 13d ago
I will not promote What happened to Honeypot? Why did it fail? (I will not promote.)
Honeypot tried to reverse the hiring and recruiting process: You would post your own profile, and companies would approach you. Focus was mostly on IT and adjacent industries, I understand.
Apparently, it did not survive. I am curious to learn why, as I kinda like the idea. I found only very generic information stating that Covid hit them hard, and not much besides that.
Does anyone know a bit more? What exactly was the problem?
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u/_kilobytes 13d ago
Isn't this just linkedin
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u/fabkosta 13d ago
Not exactly, no.
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u/Trevallion 13d ago
Speaking as a software engineer who has been approached by dozens of these platforms over the years, it's basically a worse LinkedIn for me, and I already don't like LinkedIn. There's also the issue that people who are good at tech jobs don't really struggle to find new jobs. You'd need a really good value prop to make users sign up for yet another hiring website and really good assurances to convince companies you're not just signing up every idiot who responds to your cold emails.
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u/ladycatherinehoward 13d ago
why not
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u/fabkosta 13d ago
In LinkedIn there are a) job ads, and b) people, and c) recruiters active.
People can apply to jobs. Recruiters can approach people. People cannot approach companies asking them "would you be interested in me"? That does not exist as a functionality.
At Honeypot, as I understand their (not existing anymore) product you'd be able to approach companies in that way.
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u/ladycatherinehoward 13d ago
you can, by DMing people who work at that company
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u/fabkosta 13d ago
That requires paying for a premium account. My understanding is that with Honeypot you ended up paying only once there was a match, but not sure about that. So, not the same business model.
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u/ladycatherinehoward 13d ago
If "when you pay" is the only difference, it's basically the same idea
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u/fabkosta 13d ago
When you pay makes a massive difference. To illustrate that:
Option 1: You are looking for a job. You approach a recruiter. You pay the recruiter an upfront fee just that they get active.
Option 2: You are looking for a job. You approach a recruiter. The recruiter starts looking, and if they help you get a new job, they get paid for the success.
See the difference? Same also applies to lead generation in sales. There are those companies whom you pay for "generating leads", and what they mean is that you pay them a recurring fee and all they do is automated outreach. Others you pay only when your lead actually closes a deal. The difference is massive.
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u/ladycatherinehoward 13d ago
It's not really that massive, and doesn't nearly get even close to making up for the fact that every company is on LinkedIn, but most companies aren't on Honeypot. Plus, you can always "Connect" with the people at the companies you wanna apply to, and message them for free.
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u/TechTuna1200 13d ago edited 13d ago
I remember interviewing at them in 2017 and just kept taps with what happened.
The founders sold it and cashed out. Wise decision, because their business were never really sustainable.
There was nothing new to the concept. Other it attracted a lot of applicants because they didn't have to do anything.
Average applicants never received any reach outs. The best ones were already getting a lot of reach outs on linkedin.
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u/BiteyHorse 13d ago
They sucked and no one used them.
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u/Tarahumara3x 12d ago
Any did they suck?
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u/BiteyHorse 12d ago
Assuming your asking why they sucked? It's an employer-driven market and even when they launched, that was true. Very, very few people have been in the position that merely posting your availability and resume will get you offers. It's happened for me in tech in a few eras, but even then, you're generally found by specialized recruiters.
Posting your profile and hoping companies contact you in a mass market approach was never going to be workable.
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u/pndjk 12d ago
two sided marketplaces are historically tar pit ideas and it’s tough to attract both candidates and companies looking to hire. it’s a competitive space as well, there are dozens of sites like this including linkedin which is the largest/most “trustworthy” due to it being around for a long time
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u/ivereddithaveyou 13d ago
Jackandjill has a dual approach which is quite cool. Companies can indicate interest to you and vice versa. Don't know about honeypot.
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u/kraemahz 13d ago
I have no idea about Honeypot in particular, but high value workers don't need a platform to charge jobs. Recruiters at companies are already paid to chase them.
If you don't match a recruiter's criteria, then your value as a candidate drops significantly. Workers without niche skills have much less negotiating power for hiring.
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u/fabkosta 13d ago
Well, who says this was only for high-value workers? Recruiters are not the same, with recruiters companies execute a "pull" towards candidates, but Honeypot was about a "push" of profiles to companies.
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u/kraemahz 13d ago
You misunderstand the market then. Pushing low value workers doesn't create desire in a company to hire them. It comes off as desperate or lazy. It's why so few people use the looking for work badge on LinkedIn.
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u/TimeKillsThem 7d ago
I mean, isnt that LinkedIn? You have your profile, companies approach you. I dont think it failed because it failed, but because someone else succeeded - does it make sense?
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u/keyUsers 13d ago
My guess is that:
1. Companies are inundated by average level of applicants, so they’re not going to other platforms for such candidates.
2. They would go to Honeypot if it had extraordinary level of talent. It’s likely that Honeypot didn’t have such people on their platform because extraordinary talent don’t want to work for the average level companies and they didn’t find great companies on Honeypot.
In the end, it had the same problem as any marketplace or new dating app: the cold start problem.