In Conversation with the co-founders of iHipo

Are you interested in the international jobs, internships and expatriate networking in a high quality level? iHipo is currently a Singaporean-based web 2.0 company specializing in the niche market of high quality global talent recruitment. As I am currently working with the founders of iHipo, I have decided to catch them to give an interview about how they started and what the road ahead is for them.

BL: Thank you for the interview with SG Entrepreneurs. Let’s begin by telling us your story. What made you three start iHipo? What’s your vision for iHipo?

iHipo Team: Hi Bernard, thanks for giving us the opportunity to introduce iHipo here. Well, all three of us have had a pretty international focus since our studies, having studied, worked and travelled across the globe. Our research prior to starting iHipo showed that there is a clear trend towards global recruitment, especially by multinationals. These companies increasingly want the best available global talent - no matter where it comes from. The rise of emerging economies (e.g in Asia) has also led to an increased demand in talent from abroad. So, due to our personal experiences and the research we did, we realized that there is a real market opportunity for a dedicated career portal which focuses on the niche: international jobs, internships and expatriate networking on a high quality level. At the same time Web 2.0 offers a whole new set of technologies which can add so much value to the recruitment process. So we hope to have created an innovative product by combining the typical features of a social network to a jobsite for international opportunities. Our vision for iHipo is to become the leader for international recruitment with a strong focus on incorporating web technologies which add value to the recruitment process.

BL: What are your backgrounds before engaging in your current start-up?

Arnout: I obtained my MSc in Development Economics in the Netherlands earlier this year. An international scope was very important for me during my university period. I completed three internships abroad in Yemen (Dutch Embassy), Syria (UN) and Singapore (brand consulting firm), and was determined to continue this international orientation as well. Entrepreneurship has been a passion for me since my youth, and iHipo now enables me to combine these two interests!

Cheng King: I graduated with a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at The University of Queensland, Australia, in 2004. My overseas education has allowed me to network with international peers, therefore giving me a good deal of international exposure. After that, I started working in an engineering firm as a Product/Test Engineer for almost 2 years before I joined Asia-Interns.com and later iHipo. I have always wanted to do something different in my career than being tied down to a 8-5 job. Running Asia-interns.com and iHipo is my dream, especially for iHipo where we bring together students and young professionals from around the globe.

Patrick: I completed my MBA last February in Germany. For my studies I spent time in Australia, Singapore and India for assignments in the Automotive and Outsourcing/IT sector. During my studies I created a number of websites to market publications and services for internships abroad. This quickly grew into a business and so I somehow naturally became a fulltime entrepreneur after the studies ended. Now Asia-Interns.com Pte Ltd (AI) is the leading information and placement
provider for professional internships for foreign students and graduates in Singapore and India. King heads the operations in Singapore for that business. All the experience and expertise we gathered in the recruitment service for entry-level positions through AI is now very beneficial for the development of iHipo.

BL:. What are the top 3 features of iHipo that made it different from any other conventional job portals?

iHipo Team:

• Quality: By focusing on the niche of international high potentials, we provide both candidates and recruiters with a valuable platform for both finding and offering high-quality jobs abroad.
• Technology: By using the latest web technologies to facilitate the platform we are providing features to our users which provide a wide range of communication and networking functionalities. For example, a candidate who is interested in finding employment in Hong Kong can use the search function to find and connect with peers and recruiters in his desired industry in that city.
• Content: Apart from jobs and internships, we will offer a range of resources which aid and inform our users about topics such as international careers, interview preparations, cultural differences etc. This is provided by our upcoming resources section which will feature whitepapers, case studies, country guides, interview tests etc. At the same time, we are encouraging users to share relevant experiences and information in the community section.

BL: What is the business model behind iHipo and why do you choose a niche market segment like the professional and high educated individuals type job market?

iHipo Team: Our business model will be based on four revenue channels: Premium Memberships (for extended user features), Advertisements, Job Advertisements and extended access for recruiters. We chose this segment as it resembles a niche which is so far not adequately catered for in the market. At the same time, it’s a very attractive niche due to the user demographics and the value they represent to advertisers and recruiters. By focusing on this niche, we create value for both candidates and recruiters because their efforts are not diluted in massive job boards and CV databases of mediocre quality.

BL: What are your progress so far? How well have you penetrated into the various market segmentation?

iHipo Team:iHipo has been met with very positive feedback from applicants as well as recruiters so far. After only 5 months since our launch now, career centres of almost 100 universities and colleges worldwide recommend our website to their students and graduates. We received good coverage in the blogosphere and press and now we see viral effects playing an increasingly important role in our growth. iHipo has attracted advertising clients such as UBS, Roland Berger, Societe Generale who find it useful to recruit on a site with that international high potential positioning. We are currently finalizing cooperation agreements with several organizations to provide premium career-related content on the site by January 2008. We currently have close to 1000 vacancies (with a concentration in Asia and Europe) and 5000 users from all over the world.

BL: Given that the job recruitment market is very competitive, just in Singapore, there are already four companies competing for the pie, how do you engage your other competitors?

iHipo Team: Our competition can be segmented into two fields: traditional jobsites around the world, not only in Singapore; and social networks such as LinkedIn and Xing which have a jobsite functionality as well. Our differentiation to both of these segments is that, out of the total bandwidth of jobs, we cut out the international high potential segment. By concentrating on this niche we achieve a very clear positioning. An additional differentiator to the traditional jobsites is our social networking concept. Traditional job boards are based on one-way communication: a vacancy is placed to which candidates respond, and that’s it. iHipo offers two-way communication: candidates can also contact recruiters themselves, increase their profile visibility by active participation in communities, and companies can for example create ‘talent pool communities’ to collect and keep an eye on potential hiring candidates.

BL: What do you think that a good job portal can do for her customers and clients?

iHipo Team: Eventually it’s all about offering the most efficient tool to find both jobs and employees. Going niche is the key! No recruiter wants to get 150 mediocre responses to his vacancy, he would prefer to get 10 top applications relevant to his requirements. The same goes for jobseekers – they don’t want to waste their time on a job board stuffed with volumes of irrelevant offers to their personal needs. The key here is personalization. Combine the niche positioning with personalization and networking features based on a social networking framework, and you get iHipo.

BL: Our favourite question to your team: What are the three most important attributes that an entrepreneur must have?

iHipo Team: There are quite a number of characteristics common to successful entrepreneurs. We think that the three most important ones can be summarized as: Unbending Belief, Will to Change the Status Quo, Ability to Execute. When you start a new venture, especially in the beginning before some level success becomes visible there will be lots of ups and downs, “authorities” which tell you why an idea won’t work, you see your friends making good money with regular jobs while you decided to survive on a shoestring budget…the key here is persistence. You have to absolutely believe in what you are doing to make that vision of yours a reality. As an entrepreneur you need to be willing to add value to the marketplace through your product or service by changing how things currently are which leads to a greater benefit to your customers. Execution is key to success in a startup, especially for a web business. Forget about all the hot air speeches, office politics and endless research to test a concept. After you identified a good idea and potential market, 90% of your success depends on getting things done fast. Concentrate on getting your prototype or beta version quickly into the market, claim your status as a pioneer (in case that’s applicable) by doing good PR work and iterate from then on. Finally, the key is to just get going! There’s no shortage of ideas - there’s a shortage of entrepreneurs.

BL: What are the interesting trends in online social networks and job markets? do you think that there will be some convergence at some point?

iHipo Team: It’s been interesting to see the exponential growth of social networks for all kinds of purposes, especially since the last half of 2007. We think that apart from the mainstream networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, also these smaller networks have good growth prospects as long as they target a niche which is large and monetizable enough and have a clear positioning. The trend goes towards integrating social networking aspects in recruitment. There might be a similar situation as with job advertisements in newspapers versus traditional jobsites, where one could observe a steady decline in most markets for the print version. We see a similar trend starting to happen in online recruitment where traditional jobsites lose out in favor of jobsites which incorporate social networking features/ social networks which incorporate jobsite features. The reaction of the traditional jobsites is most likely to be to expand into that segment through acquisitions or own developments. So convergence will happen.

BL: We wish you all the best in iHipo and hope to hear from you soon.

Author’s Declaration: BL is currently working with the iHipo team to secure their next round of funding for their start-up.

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