As the old Spanish proverb goes “Work improves the harvest better than the field itself”, and one company made sure no field remains unreaped.

Over 47% of US citizens remain unemployed; energy wasted seeking jobs can be cleverly used to flourish in the work field.

In a time when there’s a job for anyone, it has never been harder to find suitable work for just about everyone.

To help employees find their calling, four Santa Monica visionaries Ian, Joe, Ward, and Will created an AI algorithm that will connect employees to an adequate employer. By launching ZipRecruit, they ensured no employee feels misplaced in the workspace.

ZipRecruiter would become the biggest AI-powered employee marketplace, matching eager employees with seeker employers, with extreme precision. In the decade of its existence, ZipRecruiter has helped 430 million employees locate their dream job.

Continue reading to learn the story of how four California spirits partnered with Facebook and helped over 1.5 million businesses connect with employees.

Bright Start

Ian Siegel was born in Santa Monica, California in 1976. Growing up in the mid-70s to 80s, Ian was a boy accustomed to change.

Growing up in sunny California did not always mean sunshine and rainbows, and Ian learned this the hard way. His parents granted within him great morals and values, and their child was raised to be a good person first.

Ian had a talent for leadership, and his ideas deserved all the attention and praise. Ian was told to reach for the stars, and that’s where he would see himself in the future. He would enroll at the Oberlin University in Santa Monica, to pursue a B.A. in sociology. Before his great passion for technology, came his great admiration and humanism towards other people.

Joe Edmonds was another California native, born in the early 1980s. His early life went through soul searching and locating his true calling later in life.

Joe wanted to join the likes of Hollywood and not just stare at the sign. His goals were prospering into the tech sphere, and he showed true knacks since childhood. Except for being fascinated by the computer, Joe was absolutely bamboozled by the sudden appearance of the internet. This is why his talents would lead him to enter Brown University and leave with a diploma in computer sciences.

Ward Poulos was born in Los Angeles, California in the late 1980s. His growing up was much more focused on entertainment rather than technological improvement, and Ward exemplified talent. He had multiple ideas swirling around his mind all the time, and it was extremely difficult for him to find a field to stick to. Ward could decide between business, marketing, or political sciences so he enrolled at the Wabash College in 1992 to study liberal arts.

Will Redd is another California native that had a lot to do with how businesses connect with job-enthusiasts in the future. He was born in LA in the late 1980s and had a keen eye for technology since his early days. Everything around Will revolved around his great passion for technological progress, so he moved to Chicago, Illinois to study technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Down the Road

Following their excelled years in college, all four inventors could be found scattered across the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Ian worked a little with digital marketing, as well as some web developing, but his grades and gifts got him a spot as a Web Producer at the globally-known Warner Bros.

All of the four inventors crossed the Metropolitan area but never met face to face until the early 1990s. Ian and Joe encountered each other in 1998 when both worked for one of the greatest companies in the world - Warner Brothers. After finishing Brown University, Joe had also scored a job at Warner Bros as a tech consultant.

After leaving college with a BA in Liberal Arts, Ward got a few jobs here and there, most usually filling an advisor position. He worked a little at PactSafe in Indianapolis but later on wanted to pursue more challenging career paths like roles in business.

Will did not stay behind much longer either, as he too strived to enter the world of business but through his personal development in the technology industry. Next, he would be brainstorming about establishing his own AI software but was not sure if he was ready to make the step forward.

Key Steps

Ian Siegel had built up a potent resume for himself over the years, and more entrepreneurs looked for his only counsel. Joe was also beside Ian, following in every step. Where Ian did the web development, Joe dedicated himself to design. They both shared work hours in Stamps.com and Rent.com, and both were slowly getting sick of it.

Will worked on multiple projects, with the Rubicon Project being the most notable of his accomplishments. There he showed true mentorship and skill and was able to prove his ability to thrive in the technological sphere. Ward would build up his extensive knowledge and become an even greater advisor than he was at PactSafe when he decided to venture on his own.

Although Ian and Joe knew each other, they did not encounter Ward or Will until the late 2000s. It is an inside joke among coworkers, who passed their lives in California but never their paths.

Upward Spiral

The idea of a self-made start-up sounded very appealing to Ian and Joe, especially since they grew tired of skipping job after job. Ian decided that his mention from then on would be to build their own establishment, according to their rules.

Ian came up with the idea for ZipRecruit while sitting at his kitchen desk and brainstorming about what’s been keeping him back. As he noticed the heaps of paperwork piling up in his inbox, Ian figured that the internet can prevent such things from constantly happening.

Networking and the Internet are here to make paperwork and connecting much easier, so together with logistic advisor Ward and mentor Will, Ian and Joe launched ZipRecruiter into the working sphere. The groundbreaking employee-employer connecting software was established in 2010, like beginner’s luck for the upcoming decade.

Zipping Chances

Once ZipRecruiter entered the employment orb, there was no stopping it. Ian was clever to focus more on less-large enterprises rather than large companies. This brought the guys more sincere job seekers and establishments that meant proper business. This meant working with medium-sized corporations, but with more effective results.

Penetrating the vast market of employers seeking employees, ZipRecruiter was faced with some serious competition coming from companies like the Goliath of networking - LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, and Glassdoor, among others.

ZipRecruiter noticed its first sign of recognition when it raised a whopping $63M in a Series A funding round from Institutional Venture Partners. Until the mid-2010s, ZipRecruiter had garnered over a million job-searchers and has served more than thousands of applications.

By 2015, ZipRecruiter had even started spreading offices, especially in power cities like Tel Aviv in Israel as well as an R&D center. Two years later, the global phenomenon that is Facebook asked the ZipRecruit platform to partner up and integrate within the social medium.

In October of 2018, ZipRecruiter experienced another milestone, this time in the form of $156M from Institutional Venture in a Series B round.

A little later in 2018, Ian and Joe, with a little help from Will developed an artificial engine that will easily link up employees and employers with similar interests. By the end of the year, ZipRecruiter had over 430 active job-lookers and 1.5 million businesses under their wing.

This was a ground-breaking moment for both technology, and the employment industry as ZipRecruiter easily climbed to the top of 5% Top companies in California. By 2018, ZipRecruiter’s revenue nearly doubled compared to 2016.

Darker Moment

By Christmas time 2019, ZipRecruiter encountered another bug, a bug that revealed all the company’s data in a breach. After this glitch, the issue was settled within hours.

In the spring of 2019, ZipRecruiter expanded to Canada and it plans on moving forward from there. By 2021, the company filed for a direct listing and later offered an IPO in May.

By helping people locate their ideal job, Ian, Will, Joe, and Ward found a way to make a profit. However, with time comes challenges, and now ZipRecruiter has signed a one-year deal with UFC for a low figure fee.

ZipRecruiter Today

ZipRecruiter today has over 700 employees who work tirelessly on connecting the right applicant with the right job opportunity.

Today, Ian serves as the founder and CEO of the company, Joe is the co-founder, Ward is the co-founder and Chief Design Officer, and Will is the company’s co-founder.

The company’s total funding over the years has varied, but it’s a tally of $219M. Their headquarters are still in Santa Monica, California but have spread offices to Canada and Israel.

Four visionary recruiters from California managed to bring every lazy job-seeker their job with just a click of a mouse.

With ZipRecruiter, Ian, Joe, Will, and Ward recreated the job-hunt for the average worker into one of certainty.

Thanks to ZipRecruiter no worker will feel misplaced in their position, ever again!