# Revenue Model
# Headlines
• Hitmarker has been run very efficiently since its inception, with every member of staff paid the national minimum wage here in the UK. The business operates from a high quality but competitively priced office in Newcastle upon Tyne, England and is able to keep other operating costs low by having an efficient web technology stack and doing a lot of organic marketing.
• Our website was run as a completely free service until January 2019, with revenue generated being limited to some test runs in the areas of Partnerships, Promoted Listings, and Candidate Services. These runs gave us solid indicators of where the business could achieve income, and has led to the creation of a "Monetisation Roadmap" for the remainder of the year and beyond.
• As of October 2019 our Partnerships, Promoted Listings and Display Advertising streams are active and generating solid revenue, whilst Candidate Services are scheduled to be monetised by December and Recruitment Services by January.
# How does Hitmarker operate efficiently?
Every member of staff (including the directors) is paid the national minimum wage according to their age. Until October 2018 the directors only took a nominal salary of £680 per month.
The efficiency of our technology stack keeps web hosting costs very low, and the effectiveness of our organic marketing efforts means our spend in this area is negligible (less than £150 per month).
There are no other significant costs associated with the business other than office rent, which is an extremely competitive rate given the size, location, and quality of the space (less than £1,150 per month).
# What revenue has been generated by the company so far?
Hitmarker was run as a free-to-use service for both candidates and companies since its inception and did not generate any significant revenue until the first month of 2019.
This was a considered decision by management, with our team’s initial mission being to establish the brand and build the user base to become the market leader.
Since January 2019 revenue from partnerships, promoted listings and advertising stands at over £45,000. This number will only multiply as our audience and user base grows.
# When and how will we monetise fully?
Monetisation features have been implemented from January 2019 onwards:
# PARTNERSHIPS
Our first route to revenue was through Partnerships with other companies in the space who recognise the value of our growing audience.
We have partnerships in place with The University of California, Irvine, Esports Insider and Gamer Advantage, three reputable companies operating in esports who put on esports business events, run online esports courses and sell gaming glasses, respectively.
We post information about these events, courses and products to our mailing list and social media accounts, and are paid per sale or per email lead.
# PROMOTED LISTINGS
Our second route to revenue was through Promoted Listings.
We currently offer a maximum of 10 concurrent Promoted Listings to all of the companies who use our service at a low introductory cost of £12/€12/$12 per day.
As of October 2019 our promoted listings are worth around £1,300 per month.
# DISPLAY ADVERTISING
We have recently signed a deal with an exclusive advertising network to host display advertisements on the website.
These advertisements are unobtrusive to the user and can be easily avoided through use of ad-blocking software.
As of October 2019 on-site display advertising is worth around £700 per month.
# CANDIDATE SERVICES
We currently offer cover letter/resume audits and candidate "spotlight" posts on social media to people for free, though we’ll soon begin to charge for them, as demand is increasing month-on-month and offering them pro bono is becoming too time-consuming to justify.
We anticipate that candidate services will be worth around £1,000 per month in 2020.
# RECRUITMENT SERVICES
As our candidate database continues to grow, offering paid access to broad recruitment companies will be an obvious and lucrative source of revenue for the company.
However, in the shorter-term we have the opportunity to partner with an executive-search recruitment company on an exclusive basis, charging a retainer in addition to a commission on each candidate placed.
We anticipate that recruitment services will be worth around £6,000 per month in 2020.
# Is there anything else on the horizon?
Further to these five revenue streams, positive discussions are ongoing with a leading international corporate services provider and a cutting-edge video interview platform for what could be two very lucrative revenue share deals.
Along with this and as we develop the product, we do believe that we'll be able to offer a software-as-a-service white label solution to non-competitive jobs platforms operating in other niche industries.