How Replit overcame sales and operations constraints using Listo talent
"Bringing on talent from Listo has been one of our best investments as a team... We had an offsite 2 days after [our hire] joined and he was already managing one of our core sales flows. He's crushing it."
Replit is an online, AI-powered developer environment that allows you to code on any device with a browser. With over 22M registered users, Replit is one of the largest and fastest-growing developer platforms. In April 2023, they announced a Series B extension round with $97.4M raised at a $1.16B valuation to fuel the growth of their cloud and AI products.
In November 2023, Replit launched the Bounties marketplace – a freelance marketplace where anyone can contract members of the Replit community to complete software tasks. The product has been a massive success and has become one of the primary ways for Replit users around the world to earn money on Replit.
The Replit Bounties team was intentionally small to start. But as demand and number of active projects grew on the marketplace, the team quickly started to become overwhelmed on customer success, sales, operations.
Horacio Lopez, the business lead for Bounties, knew that the team needed another addition or they would risk losing important customer success and sales conversations. He was familiar with the advantages of hiring overseas and he knew it would be the fastest option for filling the Bounties team needs. Finding someone with a technical background, similar time zone to the US, and fluency in English were important qualifications.
The Bounties team conducted the hiring process concurrently with several staffing firms. However, they were particularly impressed with the caliber of talent presented by Listo, especially those with technical backgrounds. Just five days after engaging Listo's services, Replit received a pool of five candidates, out of which three progressed to the interview stage.
Eventually, the team decided to proceed with an operations and sales manager based in Colombia. This candidate had a computer science background and had accumulated over three years of experience in technical customer support and software staffing services. He proved to be an ideal match for the team
Prior to the hire's start date, Listo and the Replit Bounties team collaborated to establish a repeatable daily task and operating procedure for the hire to start with on day one. One of these tasks involved moderating Bounty applications from unverified users.
Subsequently, Horacio and the Bounties team were able to assign him more complex and comprehensive responsibilities. Within one week of joining, the hire seamlessly integrated into a client-facing sales onboarding process. Remarkably, this occurred during a team offsite, yet sales emails and follow-ups were diligently sent to prospects even while the core Bounties team was away.
This achievement surpassed the team's expectations and was a significant operations milestone for the team. As the marketplace and Replit's growth continue, the new hire will further evolve with the Bounties team, with Listo being the go-to choice for any future operations or sales contracting needs."
