Hirewell turns 25

I’ve hit a number of big milestones over the past few years (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.). Anyone who knows me knows that I prefer to let them come and go without much fanfare.  Or none at all, if possible. I’ve also gotten a bit more nostalgic as I’ve gotten older. And Hirewell turning 25 felt like something I had to discuss.

My first reaction? Uggh, I’m old. Once I get past that? I’m honestly in awe of what this team has accomplished. Growing a business is never easy. And growing a recruiting business is even harder. It takes a lot of luck and even more perseverance. But most of all, it takes surrounding yourself with smart, hardworking people who want to challenge the status quo. And for 25 years, that’s exactly what our clients and candidates have trusted us to do.

Founders learn a bunch of lessons while growing a business. And unfortunately, most are learned the hard way. But a strong team learns from the challenges and constantly evolves.

Here’s what the last 6ish years looked like from the inside:

• First, we saw explosive growth
• We took private equity money
• We invested heavily in technology and international expansion
• Then, the recruiting market tanked and we had to furiously dig ourselves out of the ditch
• We nixed the technology and international expansion. We got back to what we are good at: building a platform that attracts (and retains) the best recruiters and enables them to partner with the best clients
• The PE firm moved from majority owners to minority investors
• And the custom software we tried to buy/build five years ago, but eventually scrapped? Agentic AI makes it much more feasible today. 
• Since AI is a gigantic unknown, the next few years look both exhilarating and terrifying.

I choose to be exhilarated. There is a tremendous opportunity to leverage technology to further disrupt the talent space. While it is WAY too early to raise the Mission Accomplished banner, our results over the last few quarters show that the plan is working.

My role and the future

Twenty-five years in, my role looks a lot different than it did at the start. I’ve been reading about how a founder’s role evolves over time. A concept that resonated a few years ago is the evolution from Founder-Dominated to Founder-Led to Founder-Inspired. (I think) I moved from the Founder-Dominated to the Founder-Led phase a few years ago. Are we fully in the Founder-Inspired era? Ehh, depends who you ask. But I’m trying.

Through the ups and downs, what was the most important lesson I learned? Focus on what you are best at. And trust great people to do the rest.

Somewhere along the way, I realized my greatest strength: convincing great people to come work with me. A close second? Building a culture where great people want to stay. Let’s be real, sometimes it’s as simple as not being too much of a pain in the ass.

What does the future hold? I’ve learned enough not to make any big predictions. But we definitely have big plans. I’ve also learned what happens to your plans when you get punched in the mouth.

So thank you to everyone who has been part of the journey.

Thanks to the 2,306 clients that have partnered with us and the 12,453 candidates that entrusted us to take the next step in their careers.

And most of all, thanks to everyone at Hirewell (past and present) who helped us get to where we are today.

Here’s to another 25(+) years. Hopefully, I’m still around, and they still let me come by and say hi!

Matt Massucci