I can't remember what Madison Avenue Ad man (aka Mad Men) is responsible for the quote "in tits we trust". Ogilvy ? It's a tasteless quote, but I can think of many companies, like GoDaddy, that use this strategy shamelessly at first. The links above are by no means that extreme, but I suspect it did help your marketing success.

Thinking of my own marketing, I don't even have a photo of a human being using our product. I'll work on that.

edit: added Mad Men reference.

And we make sure that our jobbers not only upload high quality pictures but also write their personal experience in a targeted and concise format. For example we now started other verticals such as temporary chefs and on these pages you see mostly middle aged men with cooking experience:

https://www.instaff.jobs/koeche-mieten/frankfurt

edit: same content but better english

http://tryoldster.com/new-york/experienced-marketing-consult...

And on this landingpage you show some of our "oldsters" who are based in New Work and who have marketing experience. And in addition you show your platforms USP on this page and create Call-to-action button on how to get in contact with an "oldster". You obviously have to check yourself what kind of businesses are in your target group, what keywords they would search and what kind of landingpage could attract them.

edit: same content, but reworded my english

1.) The first CTA should be above-the-fold, visible to users right away without scrolling.

2.) If it is a longer page, the the page should contain multiple CTAs, so the user does not need to "scroll back" up.

3.) The CTAs should be visible and standing out from the rest of the content

The label of the CTA is very important. We use "Unverbindliche Buchungsanfrage" which can be roughly translated to "Non-binding booking request". We try to convey, that clicking on the button is risk-free and free-of-charge.

The first CTA on the page gets the most clicks, since a lot of customers do not scroll down.

As a European VC, this is not the kind of opportunity we are looking for. Please don't contact me again.

- Edit: see replies below.

I am adding this reply to make crystal-clear that the above is SATIRE about how hard it is for European companies to raise money from European investors. (I'm not a European VC.) You guys are killing it. I hope investors believe in you too.

Or did you not have too much trouble and got fair valuations, terms, could close quickly etc?

(If you don't mind sharing.)

This was our pitch deck by the way (not meant for marketing but for context): http://www.instaff.jobs/download/InStaff_Pitch_Deck.pdf

We don't need money, because we have been cashflow positive and growing for a while. And since fundraising was hyper time consuming we will not get back to fundraising again.

But I don't want to "rage" against the VC scene here. To each his own and I wish everybody who raises money successfully to grow his business all the best.

You don't have to follow up, but if you do: what valuation were you seeking and what's the highest low-ball offer you received?

For me the lowest valuation given your numbers and model would be $10m - but I am certain you were seeking a much lower valuation, and did not even get that. So what were you seeking and what offer did you get?

(By the way, the way I analyze your story it's not a social proof question: it's that you weren't in silicon valley.)

If you don't want to reply here you can email me at the address in my profile. Thanks.

Example: You book a promoter for 3 days. The promoters works 7 hours per day and earns 10 EUR per hour. Then his total gross wage is 210 EUR and our markup is 90,30 EUR (43 %) on top. So you as customer pay a total of 300,30 EUR to us.

We compete with traditional employment agencies who usually charge a markup of 50% to 200%.

> And if you book staff, you only pay the gross salary of the employee plus the InStaff service fee which ranges between 21 %(for Professionals) to 43 % (other Staff) - there are no additional costs.