# Traction
# Headlines
• As of 1st October 2019 there have been a total of 7,853 unique esports industry jobs posted by 1,146 different companies from 50 countries on Hitmarker this year, the most of any jobs website in the world. These are increases of 94%, 22% and 16% on the same period of 2018, respectively.
• Our website has attracted 261,677 unique users so far this year, with over 17,947 candidates and company representatives signing up to become members, making Hitmarker the largest esports jobs board online. These are increases of 163% and 117% on the same period of 2018, respectively.
• Our platform is still growing month-on-month across all key metrics (jobs posted, unique visitors, company and candidate signups, and social media impressions) and our company has also made a small profit in each of the last three months.
• Hitmarker is already working with a number of strong partners both inside and outside of esports, and has attracted a number of significant clients to the website (Amazon, BenQ, FaZe Clan, HP, GIGABYTE, Immortals, Team Liquid, Logitech, NRG Esports, OpTic Gaming and many more).
• The brand is viewed very favourably by our users, with five star reviews across platforms like TrustPilot and Google. In addition to this, we were recently named "Service Provider of the Year" at the 2019 UK Esports Awards and are a finalist in the "Supporting Agency of the Year" category of the upcoming global Esports Awards 2019.
# Where is Hitmarker at this point in time?
We created this infographic in July 2019 to give those involved in the esports industry a top-down look at the state of hiring in the scene. Some of the key takeaways for the purposes of this business plan are as follows:
- We posted 4,638 esports jobs on Hitmarker in the first half of 2019, an annual growth of 86%.
- 86% were paid | 14% unpaid
- 75% were full-time | 4% part-time | 7% freelance | 4% internship | 10% volunteer
- 56% came from the USA | 17% were remote-based | 7% came from the UK
- 824 companies had an esports job advertised on Hitmarker in this period.
- Over 500 of them are signed up to the website
- We had 163,073 unique users in the first six months of 2019.
- They sent 46,369 applications through the website
- 86% are male | 14% female
- 37% are aged 18-24 | 52% aged 25-34 | 11% aged 35+
In the three months since this infographic was released:
- We have posted a further 3,215 esports jobs on Hitmarker, an annual growth of 105%.
- 89% were paid | 11% unpaid
- 75% were full-time | 4% part-time | 9% freelance | 4% internship | 8% volunteer
- 58% came from the USA | 15% were remote-based | 5% came from the UK
- 630 companies had an esports job advertised on Hitmarker in this period.
- Over 320 of them are signed up to the website
- We had 109,399 unique users in the last three months.
- They sent 26,000 applications through the website
- 83% are male | 17% female
- 33% are aged 18-24 | 52% aged 25-34 | 15% aged 35+
# How has the business grown to date?
We set ourselves a target of growing in all four of our key metrics each month, meaning that we always seek to post more jobs from one month to the next, to attract more unique visitors from one month to the next, to garner more signups from one month to the next, and to reach more people through social media from one month to the next.
This is how we have performed across these four metrics in the past 12 months:
NB: October 2019 is already on track to be our best ever month in all four of these key metrics.
# Do we have relationships with any significant companies?
We have formal partnerships in place with a number of reputable companies in the esports industry, ranging from world-renowned unversities, to best-in-class events companies, to manufacturers of top-quality consumer products.
We also have a large number of notable companies who have signed up to the website to hire for esports jobs. Some of them even use Hitmarker exclusively and have accounts for multiple hiring managers:
# Where are we in terms of product development?
Hitmarker is the only custom-built jobs board in esports, and our feature set has grown significantly throughout 2019.
With a few more key website developments we believe we will achieve feature equivalency with the likes of Indeed and LinkedIn. From there our mission will be to outmatch all of our competitors with a best-in-class feature set, including expanding our in-built applicant tracking system to offer scheduling and video interview capability.
Alongside the obvious benefit to Hitmarker and our users, this also opens up the possibility of licensing the technology behind the website to other companies who operate in non-competitive industries to create a further revenue stream in the future.
# How is the Hitmarker brand viewed by people?
We have a rating of 4.6/5 on TrustPilot and 15 five-star reviews on Google, in addition to a full testimonials page on our website where we showcase Tweets about us from our satisfied users. There have been 158 in 2019 so far.
In general, Hitmarker’s standing in the esports industry is extremely strong, as it is seen as “doing good” for the scene, being transparent, and being incredibly positive in its brand voice.
More and more companies in esports are beginning to recognise the value of Hitmarker’s audience, too, as it captures people from every individual segment of the industry and does not just serve one game, like many other platforms in the space do.
All of this led to us being named "Service Provider of the Year" at the 2019 UK Esports Awards in London in August, and as a finalist in the "Supporting Agency of the Year" category of the upcoming global Esports Awards 2019, which will take place in Texas in November.
# Have there been any press mentions of note?
A guest post of ours highlighting the esports jobs scene was published by VentureBeat in August 2018 and we were covered organically by them in July 2019, their story about Hitmarker reaching the top of the esports section of Apple News for 24 hours. Company news is also covered semi-regularly on large industry websites like Dexerto and Esports Insider.
Both our 2018 and mid-2019 esports jobs infographics were picked up and backlinked by multiple online media outlets across the globe.