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Employer branding · Startups

The person you are hiring has to explain your company to their father.

At pre-seed and seed stage, employer branding is what a candidate shows their family when asked to leave a salaried job for a company nobody has heard of.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

A mentor helps a new colleague get started at a shared worktable

In one paragraph

At pre-seed and seed stage, employer branding is what a candidate shows their family when asked to leave a salaried job for a company nobody has heard of. It covers the founders, the stage and the honest trade, and GullySales writes it with you rather than around you.

Also written for

Early-stage startups, Pre-seed startups, Seed-stage startups.

What we do not do

We do not recruit, supply candidates or run payroll. We help candidates see the employer you already are.

For early-stage startups

Where it usually goes wrong, and what we would do.

  • “The family asks and there is nothing to show them”

    Somebody leaving a stable job has to satisfy a parent or a spouse. All they have is a landing page written for customers and a founder profile last touched in 2022, and the answer at home comes back no.

  • “Below-market pay is fine and hiding it is not”

    Everybody at this stage pays less than the company the candidate is leaving. Written down with what comes alongside it, that filters out the wrong applicants in a day. Discovered in round three, it costs both sides a month.

  • “Options get offered and mentally valued at zero”

    Most candidates have heard a story about a grant that turned out worthless, and nobody explains the strike price, the cliff or what happens on a sale. An unexplained grant is not part of the offer as far as they are concerned.

  • “The founders are the entire employer brand”

    There is no culture page worth writing yet. What exists is who you are, what you did before and why you are doing this, and at this stage that is all a candidate has to go on.

What we do

What we deliver for early-stage startups.

Every deliverable, what it covers for you, and the result it is there to produce. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. One page a candidate can send their family

    What the company is building, who it is for, where it has got to and who is behind it, in language somebody outside your sector can follow.

    Result: The conversation at home goes better, which is where your offers are actually accepted.

  2. Founder profiles that are current

    Your real history, including the things that did not work, written from an hour of conversation and updated whenever the story changes.

    Result: Somebody researching you finds a person instead of a stale bio.

  3. The offer written honestly

    Pay, stage, what is built and what is not, and what the first six months will really be like. Nothing promised that depends on a round closing.

    Result: The people who say yes understood what they were saying yes to.

  4. An options explainer written with your advisers

    Cliff, vesting, strike price and exercise in plain words, drafted alongside your CA or company secretary. We write the explanation; the terms and their legal effect are theirs to confirm.

    Result: Candidates can value the grant instead of ignoring it.

  5. Accounts from your first hires

    What the first month here was like, from the two or three people who have already done it. Their words, lightly edited, published with their agreement.

    Result: Evidence from somebody who took the same risk.

How the result is measured

  • Applications received per open role
  • Careers page engagement and time on page
  • Candidate drop-off during the interview process
  • Referral hires as a share of total hires

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

Read the full employer branding page

How it works

How the work runs for early-stage startups

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Talk to current employees

    We interview a cross-section of staff honestly, including some who might raise uncomfortable points.

  2. 2

    Find the genuine reasons to join

    We identify what is actually true and attractive about working there, rather than generic claims that could apply anywhere.

  3. 3

    Build the careers content

    The careers page, job post templates and employee stories are written from what staff actually said.

  4. 4

    Review the candidate experience

    We check what happens between application and offer, since branding cannot fix a process that loses candidates through delay.

  5. 5

    Hand over and refresh periodically

    Content is handed over for ongoing use and revisited periodically as the team and roles change.

Before you hire anyone

The first thing to do yourself.

Read your company the way a good candidate would, before you change anything.

  1. Search for your company name with the word jobs, and read the first page of results as a candidate would.
  2. Read your last ten reviews and list the points that appear more than once.
  3. Ask your three newest joiners why they said yes, and what almost stopped them.

Judge any provider

What to ask any agency or ghost-writer.

Useful whoever you choose, including us.

  • Will you work from what our people actually say, or from a template?
  • Do you do recruiting or supply candidates, or only the employer-brand work?
  • Who approves anything that speaks for our staff?
  • Which of our existing job pages and profiles will you change, and which will you leave alone?
  • What do you count as a result, and what will you not promise?

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

GullySales builds every engagement from three pieces of sales work. This page is not one of them, but the same three steps apply to the business behind it.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
Should we tell candidates how much runway we have?
That is between you and your investors, and we will not put a figure on a page unless you give it to us and can stand behind it. What we will say is that somebody told nothing assumes the worst, and the people worth hiring ask anyway.
Do you help us hire, or handle offers and payroll?
None of it. GullySales does not recruit, has no candidates to send you, and plays no part in payroll, contracts or offers. We write what a candidate reads before they apply.
Money is tight. Is this the right thing to spend on?
Not if a salary has been late. Fix that first, because the first person paid a week late tells every founder in their group, and no writing survives it. If payroll is steady and you are hiring your first five, the founder pages and an honest offer buy you more than anything else at this stage, and we would tell you in the first conversation if that is your case.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
It depends on what is being changed and how many of the people who matter see it. After we have read your brief and spoken to you, we say what we would expect to move first and how it will be measured against the baseline. Nothing here is guaranteed.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
Your brief, and a conversation. After that, access to whatever the work touches, such as your profiles, your website or your accounts, and time with the people who can answer our questions.
What if we are not happy with the work?
Tell us and the plan changes. Everything is reported against the baseline, so a number that is not moving is visible to both sides. The term is in your written scope, and the refund and cancellation policy sets out the rest.

Startups

Employer branding for the rest of the startups.

Or start from employer branding.

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