Yourator is a Taiwanese start-up recruitment company. Unlike the traditional job-seeking platforms, Yourator posts work opportunities only from start-ups and small- to medium-sized businesses (SMB). Its goal is to offer job seekers interesting opportunities away from big companies, and to help the local start-up scene thrive. Founder Lydia Chen wants to play a part in building a new career path for young Taiwanese.

The News Lens International (TNLI): Can you briefly describe what the company does and how it makes money?

Lydia Chen: Yourator is a social recruiting website for start-ups and SMBs in the Internet and creative industries. Unlike large corporates, start-ups usually cannot afford to pay a high salary, so Yourator offers an interface that allows start-ups to exhibit their culture and better convey their vision to attract talent. Like many other recruiting websites, Yourator plans to generate revenue from job posting fees in the future.

TNLI: Why did you come up with the idea for Yourator?

Chen: I had worked for Internet companies in Japan for several years, and was fascinated by the energy circulating in Japan’s thriving internet industry and as well as inspired by many talented people I had worked with. Soon after I moved back to Taiwan in summer 2015, I found that while Taiwan’s start-up scene is becoming increasingly active, Taiwan still falls behind other international start-up locations by a great distance, especially in terms of people’s willingness to join start-up and explore a different career path than the ones defined by society. So I decided to start Youratorb — a recruiting platform that helps start-ups to hire better talent, and to convey the excitement of start-ups to job seekers.

TNLI: What is the current company status, including the scale, and number of employees and customers?

Chen: We currently have eight staff members, including interns, and as of August 2016, we have 170 start-ups hiring on our platform.

TNLI: What is the target market in terms of demographics and locations?

Chen: Our main target market is Taiwan. With most start-ups choosing to build their company in Taipei, more than 90 percent of the job openings on Yourator locates in the greater Taipei region.

TNLI: What have been the biggest challenges, both personally and professionally, of founding the company?

Chen: Building a strong team is definitely the number one challenge. Not only do we need people with the right skills and mindset to continue building a better product, but also only hiring people who truly believes in the company’s value and vision.

A start-up can succeed only if the entire team shares a common goal and vision. And that is also why I think Yourator’s service is valuable to Taiwan’s start-up community. We help start-ups deliver their vision and team culture in a way that a traditional job website cannot.

TNLI: What have been the biggest success stories to-date?

Chen: Nothing in particular, although there have been some small successes along the way. I believe there is much more we can do to help the start-up community, and we are simply not doing enough, so I won’t say we have really succeeded yet.

TNLI: What makes Yourator different from other existing job-searching platforms?

Chen: Yourator is a closed recruiting platform. Companies can’t just pay money to post their hiring information on our website. Job posting on Yourator is by invitation instead. We invite companies with good a culture and an interesting business model to become our client and try our best to deliver their story and visions to our users.

TNLI: Are there any exciting upcoming plans or partnerships people can expect?

Chen: Yourator has recently started to host offline events. So far, our effort in connecting companies and job seekers mainly occurs online. In the future, we would like to partner with our clients to host offline career fairs and networking events.

TNLI: What are your views on the rise of Taiwanese start-up industry?

Chen: Thanks to coverage by new and tech media, Taiwan’s start-up community is getting increasing attention from the public. However, more start-ups focus on the consumer segment and job seekers are usually more interested in B-to-C [business-to-customer] or C-to-C [customer-to-customer] start-ups and companies. Meanwhile, the B2B [business-to-business] segment remains relatively quiet. I believe that if we want Taiwan’s Internet/software industry to really take off and to transform our economy, we need more successful start-ups in the B2B segment as well. To achieve that, B2B companies need to acquire more recognition from the public and make their vision and stories more attractive to talent. In addition, there is a severe shortage of talent in the start-up industry. We need more start-ups and companies willing to train young people and also need to make start-up job opportunities more appealing to the public to attract experienced talent from other industries.

TNLI: What does Yourator hope to achieve in the long-run?

Chen: Yourator wants to become an evangelist of new business and different career opportunities. As Taiwanese, we were told to join big companies to seek for secure jobs. But Yourator wants to become the voice in society that tells the younger generation that they can actually make a difference by choosing "the road less traveled." We also want to become the website people first think of whenever they look for "different" career opportunities — a gateway to the new frontier.

First Editor: Edward White
Second Editor: J. Michael Cole