99math is an Estonian startup and math gaming platform with the aim of making math fun again. Founded in 2019, 99math has raised $3.6M in funding, with its primary market being the United States.
99math used MeetFrank to hire a:
✔ Front-End Engineer
✔ Mid- or Senior-level
✔ Located in Estonia (with remote being an option)
Using MeetFrank
To build a candidate shortlist, 99math took advantage of active sourcing features on MeetFrank. After posting their position, the algorithm showed them the most suitable candidates that are currently considering new opportunities.
In 6 minutes, 99math worked through the list of suitable talent, chose the top 20 most promising candidates, and sent out the initial pitch to all of them, essentially requesting to start a chat.
It didn’t take long for the responses to start coming in – the first candidate replied just 49 seconds after receiving the message. 2 hours after reaching out to talent, 99math already had ongoing chats with 7 candidates.
Overall, 99math achieved a 50% response rate from candidates on MeetFrank. Importantly, 9 out of 10 responses were positive, meaning the candidates were happy to chat about joining the company.
Results
⏰ Time spent to source candidates: 6 minutes
💬 Candidates sourced and contacted: 20
🏎 Time to the first positive response: 49 seconds
🙋 Number of chats started in the first 2 hours: 7
🤩 Overall response rate: 50%
✅ Overall number of positive responses: 9 out of 10
What they say
“MeetFrank is great for fast recruiting! You can see who is open to being hired – stuff you can’t do on LinkedIn. On MeetFrank, you can headhunt people who are actually open to moving.”
We have had the opportunity to interview a lot of great companies & people over the past year – each with their own unique story to tell. We’ve talked about remote hiring, building outstanding company culture, “spoiling the employees” with perks and many more interesting topics. ✌️
Here are the top 10 most popular articles from last year, ranked by the number of readers.
#10 – Ubiquiti
We start off the list with a conversation with Kristaps Rikans, Regional Managing Director at Ubiquiti. 🛠
Ubiquiti is a truly unique technology company globally, as there are no other companies that have shipped so many different IT products with such a small R&D team. We talked about how does Ubiquiti manage to keep its employees happy, motivated and so productive.
We chatted with Httpool a while back, in the summer of 2021, but the interview is as relevant and popular as ever, because Httpool’s global reach and direct access to the largest tech platforms in the world. 🌍
We interviewed Arnis Ozols, Regional Managing Director, about why talent should consider joining the journey. For a candid look into the company and its projects, we also chatted with four bright sales & marketing experts from Httpool about their experiences.
Our most read interview of the past year is still going strong and makes it to the Top 10 this year as well. 🔝
In addition to the insight into the company, Nikolai Kabatsikov, Head of Talent at Bolt, also offers timeless advice on building a LinkedIn profile and getting hired by a fast-growing tech company.
To get a glimpse of life in a truly global adtech company, we interviewed Karolina Baltuonytė, Global Platform Solutions Consultant at Adform.
The people filling the client-facing roles in Adform, work in a truly international environment with the biggest brand names in the world. We talked about NYC’s hustle and bustle, how to gain clients’ attention in a different cultural environment and how to step out of your comfort zone for a confidence boost. 🚀
We had great a chance to talk to their Head of Recruitment, Benjamin Moris, about their culture and what makes Printify unique for employees. ☀️
One of our all-time favourite interviews and a great inspiration boost for anybody looking for insights into remote hiring and creating an outstanding company culture.
Surfshark is a cybersecurity company with quite a story, for example, reaching one million paying customers faster than Netflix and becoming one of the most popular VPNs globally in just 30 months. Shortly after the interview, Surfshark joined forces with Nord Security to become 2nd Lithuanian tech unicorn. 🦄
We talked with Regimantas Urbanas, Chief Marketing Officer of Surfshark, about its most significant achievements, stellar growth, cybersecurity trends, and much more.
Katana, one of the most popular Estonian employers on MeetFrank, is well on its way to building the world’s leading manufacturing platform. Naturally, we had tonnes of questions for Priit Kaasik, its co-founder and CTO. 💡
The conversation went deep into their technological backbone, but also touched on lighter subjects, such as why is their office PS5 and barista-grade coffee so heavily underused.
The 3rd most popular interview is about something boring that just might make you a millionaire one day – share options. 💸
Vinted helped to explain it once and for all: How do they grant the options to the employees? How long is the vesting period? What is the potential upside? Are there any risks?
Every now and then, a start-up goes into hypergrowth. Kilo Health is the perfect example of this by more than doubling both the revenue and size of the team in a year. 🚀
This is why we were excited to interview Juste Vižinytė, Chief People Officer at Kilo Health. We asked her about the thinking behind “spoiling the employees” with perks and benefits, why they discarded all rules regarding the working location, and much more!
The most popular interview of the past year comes from the aviation industry. The speed, the stressful situations, the fun, and the ever-changing daily life is the normal for all those working in SmartLynx Airlines. ✈️
We talked with SmartLynx Airlines Chief of People & Culture, Mara Steinberga, about what does it mean to work in the aviation, what are the most exclusive things about working in this industry, and how does the average daily routine looks like at SmartLynx (spoiler: every day is unique).
We have interviewed a lot of great companies & people over the past year. Companies ranging from consultancies and corporations to unicorns, each of which has its unique story to tell. There has been an equally diverse set of interviewees, from CEOs to CTOs, and, of course, many people from Human Resources. ✌️
Which interview has been the most interesting? It’s hard to tell definitively, but here are the top 10 most popular articles, ranked by the number of readers.
#10 – Evolution
We kick off the list with one of the most technical interviews we’ve ever done – a conversation with Juris Krikis, Scala and JavaScript Department Lead. 🛠
If you are into software engineering, then the interview is a blast: We discuss the main benefits of using Scala, transitioning the codebase into a new language while the system remains in production, and the best way to learn a new programming language.
We chatted with Supermetrics in the autumn of 2020, right after they announced a blockbuster €40M Series B funding round. 💰
The interview with Viivi Marttinen, People Operations Manager, went deep into their recruiting process, including how they find the best candidates & convince them to join the company. Also, we touched on the set-up of the HR team and how remote work has changed the way they operate.
kevin. is a fast-growing fin-tech from Lithuania with the utmost flexibility in terms of working time and place. 🌍
Agnė Meškaitė, their Chief People Officer, explained how kevin. focuses on results, not on hours spent working, and how they set up their organization to fit every employee’s individual flow and peak productivity hours.
Jüri Tarkpea shared his 20-year career with us, culminating with the opening of brand new development centres in Tallinn and Tartu.
From using a soviet military map to track off-road vehicles to selling his company to Fleet Complete and becoming a Global VP of Engineering, this has been quite a ride. 🚗
A candid conversation with Hanna Kontinen, Head of Talent & Culture at Brella, about their progress in diversity and inclusion. 👣
By creating a diverse environment, they aim to unlock innovation and allow for more unique ideas. But what KPI-s to track? How to include these ideas in the hiring process? And why should companies stay humble while discussing D&I issues?
Nord Security began inside the Tesonet accelerator back in 2012. Now the company has nearly 700 employees and 15 million users worldwide. 🔥
In 2021, Nord Security stepped outside of Tesonet and started building separate company culture and employer brand. Karina Dirvonskienė, Head of HR, talked about the opportunities and challenges that followed this decision.
Tomas Unikauskis, CEO of Smart Brands Lab, opens the world of micro-brands for us. 🔎
We talk about their proprietary niche brand scoring algorithm that identifies the new target products and how they manage their five existing niche brands. Also, can a micro-brand sometimes be too micro?
In the summer of 2020, the news broke that Boku will acquire Fortumo for up to 40M euros. 🤝
Fortumo’s excellent team was mentioned as the main reason for the deal, so we naturally wanted to talk with their Head of HR, Signe Virolainen. How do you create a culture that is worth tens of millions?
The 2nd most popular interview is about something boring that just might make you a millionaire one day – share options. 💸
Vinted helped to explain it once and for all: How do they grant the options to the employees? How long is the vesting period? What is the potential upside? Are there any risks?
The most popular interview of the past year was written right when dark clouds caused by the pandemic started to clear for Bolt. ☀️
In addition to the insight into the company, Nikolai Kabatsikov, Head of Talent at Bolt, also offers timeless advice on building a LinkedIn profile and getting hired to a fast-growing tech company.
Introducing VNTRS Estonia – Startup Studio & a VC fund enriching Northern Europe’s start-up world. Founded in Sweden in 2016, they have invested in 24 companies and worked with hundreds of others. Now they have also settled in the Estonian start-up scene. Using the Sweat Equity model & their VEQ fund to help companies grow, VNTRS is well connected with start-up hubs in the Baltics.
VNTRS has an attractive career path to offer for people who are invested in growing tech companies. And by ‘invested’, we mean both personal and professional growth. An employee investment possibility also comes with working at VNTRS, of course. Morgan Vernay, Senior Javascript Developer at VNTRS, enlightened us on sweat equity and their vision of collaborating with start-ups.
The Interview
🔵 Let’s bring everyone up to date on how VNTRS came about and how you are making the world a better place?
Our vision is the world where good ideas become successful. We believe that too many good ideas, passionate entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs fall short due to the wrong reasons – we are here to change this.
We build digital products and services while also helping start-ups get to the market cost-effectively. If we believe in the people and the companies we work with, we are willing to reinvest part of our fee to equity, become shareholders and long-term tech partners. Our investment portfolio currently consists of 24 early-stage tech companies that we’ve helped to build, and we have also worked with hundreds of clients following VNTRS’ values.
As mentioned above, we risk and benefit together with our partners. This is what the concept of VNTRS – Sweat Equity is all about. In 2021, we also started the VNTRS VEQ investment company to expand our investment capabilities. VEQ will invest in pre-seed and seed rounds with a mandate all over Europe but focus on the Nordics and Baltics. VEQ does not have a traditional fund structure and thus can remain a long term active owner as long as it makes sense for both sides.
🔵 How has the startup scene welcomed you here in Estonia?
Since opening up the Estonian office in February 2021, we have seen a lot of interest from Estonian and Baltic startups. We focus on introducing the Sweat Equity concept to the founders as this model was not well-known in Estonia in the past. Nowadays, we deliver the message and spread the work through the benefits of this model, connecting ourselves to VC funds, incubators, and accelerators.
We screen about ten start-ups weekly, asking the best ones to pitch for our Investment Committee. Collaboration with local ecosystem players helps us to guarantee a stable flow of incoming leads.
Within those 4 months of operation, we landed our first Sweat Equity project in Estonia, helped several companies with consulting, and managed to work on one additional cash project. As things stand, there are several more investment projects in the pipeline. That’s one of the reasons we are looking for additions to our team.
🔵 The ever-changing work environment at startups can be challenging for developers. What would you say are the main distinctions in work-life between VNTRS and startups?
I would somewhat disagree here. I have been researching this topic, and according to my research, developers primarily seek to switch jobs as they get tired of the same product development; they feel a lack of impact in decision making rather than just completing the set tasks. Also, as a start-up is growing, the “romance” of the work nature is disappearing.
In VNTRS, we offer the developers various projects with 100% involvement and freedom to achieve technical tasks. Developers can finish one (long or short-term) project and choose to have some other tasks in hand for the next one. We always involve our developers in workshops, scoping sessions, MVP mapping process, etc. Coding is just one part of a developer’s job.
🔵 Could you elaborate on how VNTRS’ lifecycle management helps to relieve common pain points found at start-ups?
Very often you will find developers only completing tasks assigned to them while being micromanaged at the same time. We strongly believe that involvement is vital to solving this issue, and we enable it through different means. First and foremost, we want our engineers and developers to feel like they impact the whole process of working with start-ups. We also believe that start-ups lack diversity in developers’ daily tasks.
For our engineers and developers to find solutions for our clients, we believe that a deep understanding of the start-up and its product is key for everyone involved. Getting this knowledge enables our engineers and developers to provide valuable input to our clients during the whole process. This allows our employees to work with external clients and our start-ups to widen their skill sets.
Last but not least, we feel like having a foot in the game motivates you to give your best. That is why we run our company using sweat equity. Every employee in the company can invest in the project they are working on.
🔵 Working at VNTRS means collaborating with multiple start-ups at once instead of choosing only one. How does it manifest itself in daily life?
This means that while you could be in the “coding” phase of a product for one start-up, you could also have part of your time attributed to screening potential new start-ups or helping others in our portfolio to scope their MVP.
Working at VNTRS as a Javascript developer, you can expect a lot of diversity in your daily tasks. We believe that developers and engineers are more than just good at coding. We value their input regarding the whole lifecycle of the products. Our clients appreciate the fact that they can count on VNTRS at all stages of the partnership and always have insightful interlocutors to help them solve their problems using the talent and experience of the whole team. Both Swedish and Estonian.
🔵 VNTRS also has a ‘sweat equity’ system in place, aiming to raise employee engagement even further. Could you give a brief overview of what it is and how it works?
Sweat equity means investing ‘sweat’ instead of money. We are giving out our consultancy and seek equity of the client-company in return. This model came to light in the 1930s in California, US. Back then, immigrants had no place to live and no money to buy an apartment. Local real estate developers approached them and offered a deal, ‘help us to build houses, and in return, as an alternative to the salary, we will give you an apartment, where you could live.’
VNTRS is doing the same by not seeking monetary compensation for the services but asking for equity instead. We can reinvest part of our fee back into the start-up and thus become a minor shareholder. This takes the collaboration to a higher level as we are directly interested in growing the start-up’s valuation.
A ‘killer feature’ of our company is that all of the employees invest part of their salary into the VNTRS fund. This means that all of the workers are shareholders of the project they are working on. The given system allows our workers to get engaged and have direct motivation for success while clients see us as trustworthy partners. We are not an outsourcing company, where the more hours you spend on the project, the more money you will earn. Sweat Equity is about growing together with our startups, as only then can VNTRS be successful!
🔵 When and why did VNTRS choose to use sweat equity? How does it impact a company’s working life, people & operation wise?
This was the decision from day one. In the beginning, it is surely risky and challenging as you need to find the right balance to be able to cover all the running costs, but VNTRS did play this right from the start.
Our experience shows that the Sweat Equity model is efficient and great for founders. We are now applying all the know-how gathered in Sweden to the Estonian market.
🔵 What are some of the qualities you’re looking for in new developers joining the team?
When it comes to hiring new developers, we look for pragmatic and self-acting people with a drive to become experts in their field of work and at working with start-ups. We look for people willing to produce clean quality code using recent and relevant technologies to help the start-ups in our portfolio grow.
Httpool is a media company with a global reach and direct access to the largest tech platforms in the world. We talked with Arnis Ozols, their Regional Managing Director, about why talent should consider joining the journey. For a candid look into the company and its projects, we also chatted with four bright sales & marketing experts from Httpool.
The Interview
🔵 How would you describe Httpool to a regular person?
Httpool exclusively represents global media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Spotify and more, in markets where these platforms don’t have a local presence. We also strongly value and invest in the relationships with the advertisers who work with us using our partners’ platforms. In the end, our mission is to accelerate the business growth of advertisers in our region.
🔵 Why did you start hiring at such a high rate in the summer of 2021?
We bring value to the largest regional advertisers from different segments like startups, unicorns, SMEs or media agencies. Our business has been growing at an exponential rate over the past years, and we have become the most significant media holding company in the Baltics.
As we grow, we want to make sure that we can match the needs of our growing client database with a relevant and top-notch team. And so, we are constantly looking to increase and diversify our talent pool.
🔵 What are the main advantages of working for a global company like Httpool?
Httpool indeed went from being a local player to a truly global company. As a sales or digital marketing specialist, you will have an opportunity to work with a diverse set of advertisers and receive the most recent updates from all the well-known media platforms. Our employees are constantly trained and educated directly from the source (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Spotify, LinkedIn, etc.) and, when allowed, are travelling to various offices of Httpool and our partners across the world.
🔵 What could a person expect from working at Httpool?
You will work with diverse and very passionate teammates and get the opportunity for swift career development with a global aspect to your work. We have transparency in our decision-making process, flexibility in the workplace, an above-market remuneration model, and specific employee benefits.
🔵 What are the main qualities you look for in new people joining your team?
We are looking for passionate, self-driven experts. The most important qualities are high learning potential and the ability to work in a team. Currently we have almost 30 open positions in our region that require consultative sales or digital marketing background.
In 2020, we grew 10 times in terms of regional revenues, and we will continue our exponential growth in 2021. So the future is super exciting. We are not only growing in the number of employees, and with new and exciting clients, but we are also expanding media representations and adding in markets. Working with Httpool is never boring, business realities keep changing sometimes even daily, as the company continues expanding.
What projects have you worked on with Snap?
Marta: As Snapchat is a camera app, Augmented Reality (AR) is a big part of my everyday work. This technology field is developing rapidly, and I enjoy implementing these innovations for brands that haven’t used them before. It takes them to another level of advertising.
I have worked on AR projects for many international brands such as Samsung, McDonald’s, Pepsi. A recent example is an interactive campaign for a music documentary. We plan to create a custom lens for them and add a Snapcode on all the posters.
What is the most valuable experience that you‘ve gained working at Httpool?
Robin: One of the highlights is the PR activity around the Cyberpunk 2077 video game launch on Twitter. We activated our employees with the game, t-shirts and day-off as a reward for their hard work. People responded enthusiastically and joined in our activities.
As a result, we received amazing praise from our partner and also some employment CVs. We now have great new colleagues thanks to this!
What would you suggest to fellow marketers looking to improve their skills?
Pauls: Keep an open mind & be critical about the information you read. When it comes to the knowledge available online, there’s a lot of clutter. There’s usually not a one-size-fits-all solution, especially in marketing.
Follow relevant sources that have different angles on the topic & when possible, try to test the approaches in your everyday life. Find an organization that can support the development of your skills and lets you shine. Education is key to success.
What are some of the best reasons to work for Httpool in your opinion?
Dmitrijs: First of all, it is a substantial professional step up, as Httpool gives a chance to have a broader look at the digital marketing industry in the region and an opportunity to work with clients of various sizes and verticals.
Httpool believes in growing talents, so it is an excellent opportunity to gain knowledge from webinars, training and colleagues from all around the world who have unbelievable experience in the industry. Besides the professional side, Httpool organizes different events and activities for the employees to have fun. Work hard, play hard.
