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Ansaro

by Sam StoneLaunched 2016-12via Failory

Ansaro was a HR-focused SaaS that aimed to use AI and data science to improve hiring and interviewing processes. Despite raising $3M and growing to 6 team members, they failed to achieve product-market fit after 2 years and multiple pivots, earning only $100K total revenue against $70K monthly expenses before shutting down.

Key Takeaways

  • Used cold email as primary growth channel
  • Got first customer via Personalized outbound cold emails to CHROs and Heads of Recruiting via LinkedIn and Hunter.io
  • Most effective channel: Cold email outreach
  • Monetizes with subscription pricing
  • Built initial product in 2 years

Revenue

Initial Investment$3.0M
Pricing Modelsubscription

Traction

First Customer ChannelPersonalized outbound cold emails to CHROs and Heads of Recruiting via LinkedIn and Hunter.io
Most Effective ChannelCold email outreach
Outreach MethodPersonalized cold emails to CHROs and Heads of Recruiting sourced via LinkedIn, using Hunter.io for email addresses and HubSpot for drip campaigns
Traction Patterncold-email

Tech

AI ModelAI notetaker
Dev Duration2 years
Tools Used
LinkedInHunter.ioHubSpotLeverGreenhouseHiredAngelListQuora

Why They Built It

Frustrated by how subjective hiring was at Bain, wanted to use data science to improve hiring by mapping performance records back to job applications and looking for correlations.

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