“The key to a volume based business like ours, however, is to be the best at online and email marketing. As we improve this competency we intend to be able to “turn-on” any market, anywhere in the world.”

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Nathan Green isn’t exactly ‘green’ when it comes to being an entrepreneur, having been involved in numerous startups going all the way back to his days in college.  His latest venture Campus2Careers, perhaps somewhat ironically, aims to address the under-served market between recent college grads looking to enter the working world, and the small to medium sized businesses seeking to hire them but don’t have the budget for campus recruiting or expensive job board postings.

From its roots in Austin, Campus2Careers has built a strong foundation throughout Texas and is poised to make a big splash as they scale and expand the company into new markets.  Here Nathan elaborates on his plans for growing the business, and the importance of investing in partnerships and affiliations for long-term success. He also shares some important advice for small businesses looking to hire top talent at the entry level.

MO:
Is Campus2Careers the first venture you’ve been involved with as a start-up? Can you give us a bit of your background as an entrepreneur?

Nathan:
campus2careers is actually my fourth start-up, third in the college space.  My first tech start-up was in college (1997), I created an online used textbook business for college students.  We were up on a number of campuses across the Northeast.  When we were sued by the campus stores I learned my first lesson as an entrepreneur, you need to be able to adapt the business model quickly to survive in a crowded space.  To this day most students still buy their books at the campus stores or on Amazon, so perhaps no one has learned how to adapt the business model well enough.  About five years ago I learned my second lesson as an entrepreneur, easy come, easy go.  I joined a financial/tech start-up that raised $5M, was valued at $100M, and went out of business in the span of 18 months.   And with campus2careers I have learned my third and most valuable lesson, everyone’s job at a start-up is sales.

MO:
What does Campus2Careers provide that other job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder don’t?

Nathan:
Great question.  So unlike most national job boards, campus2careers has a niche – students and small businesses.  We specifically target the companies that don’t come to campus and help them recruit energetic and educated talent for internships and entry-level jobs.  This niche happens to include 28M companies under 1k employees and 19M students in college, but it’s still the largest underserved market in the recruiting industry.  In addition, our site “matches” the student with the job based on their preferences and skills, increasing retention and reducing the guesswork, time and cost to hire.  We have actually had companies hire candidates in the same day they posted a job.  Finally, our site is priced for the small business budget, competitive to Craigslist and at a fraction of the cost of the national job boards.

MO:
Would you say that Campus2Careers is doing for employment what sites like Match.com or eHarmony have done for online dating?  How accurate is this analogy?

Nathan:
We have gotten this reference a lot.  I think it does couch the site and experience nicely.  Our clients are confident in the matching technology, and have made interview and selection decisions based on it.

MO:
As you gain more notoriety, is it a concern that some of your larger competitors may try to follow suit and do what you’re doing?

Nathan:
This is the age old David vs. Goliath story.  The best part of being in a start-up is your ability to move more nimbly than your large competitors.  We have over eight months worth of new features planned for the site, most of which are currently not even in the marketplace today.  By the time a Monster catches up with us, we will be on to the next differentiator.  They key, however, in this industry is to move clients along with you and not offer too many new features at once.  Recruiting has been done the same way for hundreds of years and we are excited to evolve the industry but one bell or whistle at a time.

MO:
You have quite a network of partnerships, especially at the local level in Austin.  How valuable has this been for you as a start-up, and at what stage did you begin building these relationships?

Nathan:
As a start-up, partnerships provide a credibility you can’t pay for.  Because our site supports economic development (small business growth) and experienced-based learning (student internships and job placement) we were able to secure key partnerships even before the site was launched.  But partnerships with key influencers in a city, like a Chamber or nonprofit association, are long-term investments, not short-term windfalls.   You need to constantly develop these relationships so you don’t fall off their radar.

MO:
With your focus on the SMB market, what are your plans for expanding outside of Texas? How are you penetrating markets in other States and Cities?

Nathan:
Texas is big enough to keep us busy for the next 6-8 months, but we have already partnered with a couple of schools outside of the State and they will drive our expansion.  We have also talked with a number of national organizations that are interested in our site/service.  The key to a volume based business like ours, however, is to be the best at online and email marketing.  As we improve this competency we intend to be able to “turn-on” any market, anywhere in the world.

MO:
What advice would you give to small business owners about what not to do or look for when hiring young talent?

Nathan:
We often see small businesses trying to compete with the large employers for the same talent: the BBA or MBA from the top tier business school, the CS major with the highest GPA, the marketing rockstar who wants to go the big Agency route.  Why compete for these candidates when you can get a top Liberal Arts student who is interested in marketing or programming and have the ability to jump into sales, customer service, or any other task a small business needs that day.   As a small business owner you should be looking to pick the top player left in the draft and not a position player that fits into your onboarding process.  The rest can be learned, developed, or added later.

Editor’s Note:
Just as this interview is going to publication, Nathan has officially launched another new entrepreneurial initiative via campus2careers at www.InternInAustin.org, an online resource for local businesses to navigate the process of building student internship programs, including tools, templates, documentation and more. For those in the Austin area, InternInAustin will also be sponsoring a citywide Internship Fair for small businesses, start-ups, and students from eight Central Texas Colleges, to be held May 15th at the AT&T Conference Center. Further details are available from the website, and both Students and Employers can register for the event here.