John Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Paraform: $5 Million Raised to Build the Future of Recruiting with a Marketplace for Specialized Talent

Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with John Kim, Co-Founder & CEO of Paraform, a recruiting platform that's raised $5 Million in funding.

Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:

• Unplanned Fundraising Success: Paraform's $5 million seed round was closed in a single day, driven by the success of a key hire for a major client, which led to a warm introduction to investors.


• Innovative Recruiting Marketplace: Paraform connects companies with specialized recruiters to fill difficult roles, leveraging the recruiters' deep networks and experience in niche areas.


• Pivoting to Professional Recruiters: The company initially experimented with a bounty-based referral system but pivoted to a professional recruiter model to scale more effectively and align incentives better.


• Effective Outbound Strategy: Paraform's growth is fueled by a strong outbound engine, inspired by Retool's operator playbook, which emphasizes quality in prospecting and targeted messaging.


• Growth Metrics: The company has seen significant growth, including a 10x increase in revenue year-over-year and thousands of recruiters joining the platform, with 200+ companies served so far.


• Future Vision: John envisions Paraform expanding globally, moving upmarket to serve larger enterprises, and diversifying its product lines and supply-side offerings beyond just recruiters.

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