Nitin Shimpi, founder of Nitman Software, on TalentPool - a recruitment software that helps companies meet their hiring targets

TalentPool is a recruitment software that helps companies meet their hiring targets, reduce time to hire and lower recruitment costs. It is available in three versions, and can be used by companies that hire less than 5 people a month, as well as those hiring hundreds of people per month.

In a conversation with YourStory.in Founder of Nitman Software, Nitin Shimpi, talks about their flagship product TalentPool.

What is TalentPool?

We make Recruitment Software that helps HR Managers meet their hiring targets. Companies like Kotak Mahindra, Voltas and Geometric Software use our products to streamline their recruitment processes. Our focus is to build software that not only helps track recruitment progress and provide ready reports, but actually reduces the work load of the end user.

What is your market differentiator?

We are the best of breed Recruitment Software that has been made specifically for usage by Indian companies. Our Software integrates with all sources of resumes. It provides a ready employee portal to help employees refer their friends, a vendor portal to help external agencies submit and track their candidates and integration with the corporate website to process online applications. It also interacts differently with different kinds of users. For example, while recruiters have to log in and use the browser based application, all communication with project managers is routed via e-mail.

How did the idea for TalentPool come about? How much initial capital was required?

The idea for this product came out of our own need. I am also the co-founder of Talentica Software, an outsourced product development company. Way back in 2005, we were looking for a product to manage our recruitments, but could not find anything that suited our needs and budget. So we took this opportunity to use our experience in building world class products for others, to create our own software product that was made specifically for the Indian market. The total investment so far has been upwards of 2.5 crores.

Tell us about your background.

I have about 25 years experience founding, running and growing companies. I completed my B-Tech from IIT Mumbai and Masters from Marquette University in the US. Then, I worked in Marketing for about 10 years before co-founding my first software company in 1997. This company was acquired by a California based product company that wanted to setup a development center in India. After I completed my stint with them, I started Talentica Software, a company that is into Outsourced Product Development. Later, I founded Nitman Software in 2006 to develop software products for the Indian market.Tell us about any tie-ups that you have.

We don’t have any tie-ups. However, our list of customers is a testimony to acceptance of the product. Our customers include prestigious companies such as Voltas, Kotak, Reliance Power, Tata Housing, Geometric Software, Siemens and GMR. Apart from these large corporates, many mid and small sized companies also use our products to manage their recruitments. We also have another product that helps small and mid-sized staffing firms manage their businesses.

Where do you see your startup five years from now?

Five years from now, we want to be the de-facto choice companies make for managing their recruitments. By then, we should also have expanded our horizons to other fast growing economies. We want to be known as one of the most innovative products in the recruitment space.

What is your revenue model?

Product licenses, Professional Services and Support Contracts form a bulk of our revenue. We are a self funded company, with all funding being provided by the founders. We hope to break even this year and be profitable from the next year onwards.

As an entrepreneur, what are your joys? What are the challenges?

The joy is to be able to make a difference to people who use our product. Nothing is as satisfying as a user relating how our product helped him to do better at his work, or a business owner telling you how your product helped him grow. The challenge is of-course the perseverance required. Creating a product is like running a marathon. You have to believe that you can go the distance and keep chugging through tough times when things aren’t going your way.

How big is your team? Tell us a little bit about your team.

Today, we are a bunch of 15 highly charged up people working towards a single cause. We are split into four main functions – Sales, Marketing, Product Development and Support. At the top of every function, we have people with 10+ years experience setting the direction and meeting targets.

Let us know about your expansion plans.

Today, we have our own sales presence in the major cities. Our plan for the next two years is to setup a channel partner network that will help us expand our footprint to the smaller, but fast growing cities. We are also talking to other product companies who have complementary products for tie-ups so that we can provide our customers are much broader solution.

Anything else you want to share with us?

We have 200 customers so far.

Over 5 million candidates are being processed by our software every year

Market Size that we are trying to capture is 10,000+ companies just in India, less than 1% of whom currently use a recruitment software. Total market size is over 250 crores just for our existing products.

The trend is to move towards Saas. We are the only company offering our product on licensed as well as Saas basis. We think that in about 2-3 years time, the entire market will move towards the Saas model.

Do check out http://www.nitman.co.in for more details.