Minnesota Startup When I Work Raises $15M Series B Round

Some BIG news from When I Work today as the company announced a $15M Series B Round bringing total funding to $24M.

Last week the team found out during the company stand up… this is a photo of Chad Halvorson , CEO of When I Work, and Nick Solaro, Partner at Drive Capital, during lunch answering questions from the team.

The press release is below.

This news follows our recent 100 employee celebration from a few weeks ago:

 

BIG day at @wheniwork... celebrating our team going past 100 employees #StartupLife #WereHiring

A photo posted by Paul DeBettignies (@mnheadhunter) on May 12, 2016 at 7:34am PDT

 

We had an awesome morning of celebrating the 100 employee milestone today. Check out some of the pictures. (We're not done growing!)

A video posted by Life at When I Work (@wheniwork) on May 12, 2016 at 12:24pm PDT

Minnesota Cup 2016 Starts Today

The Minnesota Cup kicks off today and below is a press release with a bunch of information on this years competition.

For more information and to follow along click:

Minnesota Cup (web site)

Minnesota Cup (Facebook)

@MinnesotaCup

 

Press Release:

ENTREPRENEURS AND INNOVATORS - PUT YOUR NEW BUSINESS CONCEPT IN PLAY WITH THE 2016 MN CUP!

The nation’s largest statewide new venture competition is accepting applications beginning March 21—for a chance to win a share of nearly $400,000!

Minnesota Fastest Growing State For IT Jobs - Summer 2015

Since around the beginning of Q2 ‘15 I have been a part of many conversations with recruiters in town, startup and Fortune 500, about some trends we have been seeing including:

- Generally companies are in another hiring spree

- Companies seem to be loosening up their job requirements

- There seems to be a small inflow of IT pros from the west coast

This week from Dice.com:

Pop quiz: What’s the fastest-growing state for technology jobs?

You might be tempted to say California or New York, or even North Carolina. But according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it’s actually Minnesota, which saw the size of its tech workforce jump 8.36 percent over the past six months, to 37,600 workers.

Is Your State Losing Tech Jobs?

Let’s be clear… this is a percentage growth number NOT a total number of jobs created. Clearly other states would be doing better.

This is an important number as it shows the Minnesota tech community continues to grow. Some would have you believe that everyone is leaving for the West Coast.

It’s just not true.

Minnesota Morning… CoCo NE Open House, Blue Cross Blue Shield IT Layoffs And Gopher Football

With summer winding down (yes it hurts to type that) I have a lot of content and info that I need to get out of my brain so I can get working on some projects and one big event. I may be dropping a lot of random posts here the next week or two related to recruiting, technology, last moments of #LakeLife and because it starts soon… Gopher Football
 

CoCO Northeast Open House

Last week CoCo had an open house showing off their new space in Northeast Minneapolis. The space used to be the home of Sport Ngin who recently moved down the street into a much larger location.

All of the CoCo locations (Northeast, Downtown, Uptown and St Paul) have their own look and vibe to them. I already like Northeast because of how the space feels, the neighborhood with the arts, coffee shops and breweries and that from Downtown during rush hour I am driving against traffic.

There is also a small roof top patio that I have not used but know I will.

Here are some photos from a couple of weeks ago, days after the move in (not everything was moved in yet):

Event: How to Use Social Media Tools for Recruiting

Next month (August 13, 2015) I will be speaking at the Minnesota Magazine & Publishing Association on “How to Use Social Media Tools for Recruiting.

While most of my presentations and speaking engagements tend to be in front of Recruiter, HR, Tech groups and private companies the past months the number of inquiries from associations and professional groups is on the rise.

Accounting, finance, marketing are examples and yes magazine publishers too. I’m guessing that is in response to their membership asking for experts to talk with them about the “War for Talent” and the “Skills Shortage”… most companies to some degree are finding it difficult to hire who they are looking for.

I look forward to sharing the tools I use and how I am helping startups and small tech companies compete with the “big” companies in town.

Event: MinneDemo 20

Tonight 500+ Minnesota IT pros, startups, marketing, entrepreneurs, students and yes a few recruiters are gathering for MinneDemo 20 at The Depot in Minneapolis.

I plan on going early and staying late so if you are a Developer and looking for some career advice (or want to talk about jobs I am recruiting for with my clients) or growing your IT staff and having a difficult time… come find me so we can chat.

Or send me an email so we can schedule a phone call => paul@mnheadhunter.com

MinneDemo 20 pitches:

Minnesota IT Jobs: How Stiff Is The Recruiting Competition From Silicon Valley?

“There’s no way we can compete with Facebook.”

My reply:

“Who cares?”

That was part of an IM with CTO a couple of weeks ago after one of his senior developers gave his two weeks notice. He is leaving for Silicon Valley and Facebook.

With there being a number of these stories the past 24 months a lot of locals, from recruiters to CEO’s, are concerned with the “exodus” to the West Coast.

As I noted in my Minnesota IT Jobs Report (video posted below) we have had a number of Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Seattle tech companies recruiting here. This is a slide as an example of Amazon’s activity here (click to enlarge):

I don’t think Facebook, Amazon and other West Coast tech companies recruiting here are the big issue.

Minnesota IT Jobs: Do We Have Enough Talent In Minnesota?

I posted the Minnesota IT Jobs Report for 2015 yesterday (and below) and have already had a number of inquiries mostly from Minnesota startup and tech company (a few from San Francisco and Silicon Valley) CEO’s – CIO’s – CTO’s – Recruiters asking some version of this question:

Do we have enough IT pros in Minnesota?

That’s a loaded question because I already know they believe the answer is no. And the reason why is they are having a hard time with hiring.

This is my perspective and opinion, just want to get that out there before saying this…

YES there is.

And companies are proving it every day.

A large number of companies are growing their teams, some of them significantly and with little effort.

The question should be:

How big is the pool of people who want to work at this location, in this culture, with these benefits, on this product, with these people, for this CEO, with this manager, at this salary and do we have an effective recruiting strategy?

ToggleGreen Is Live… And Here Is An Invitation

ToggleGreen is live.

3 simple words… not so simple.

I’ve been sitting in the cheap seats as an advisor watching a bunch of dedicated, smart, sometimes frustrated people finally… FINALLY get here.

The ToggleGreen “Alpha” is live.

#whew

Sound the trumpets. Crack open the beers. Time to take a nap.

Of course… since I am typing this, tech gremlins could be messing with us and I have no clue. I can hear their voices yelling, “Dude, you should have waited!!!”

That’s the thing about life in a startup… it changes. All the time.

And sometimes you just have to go live and see what happens.

The hard part about being an advisor is other than advice, introductions and some cheerleading I’m not a lot of help. Not yet.

Saying “You’ve got this” only does so much.

Maybe now I can earn my title.

If you are an IT or Creative pro (Doer) in Minneapolis you should be using ToggleGreen.

This is not some bullshit hype thing… I’m convinced of it to my core.

Paul DeBettignies Speaking At Social Media Breakfast: Get Recruited

 

Next week… May 22nd, 2015 I will be making my 5th (I think appearance) at Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis St Paul. I always look forward to speaking to the group and once again did not let Mykl Roventine finish asking the question if I would be interested before I said yes.

These are my people.

And this is the group that took me in many years ago when the Recruiter and HR community was still anti Social Media. I knew it was going to matter and the SMB folks were speaking my language.