The domestic student employment application DING.jobs, which received 100 thousand euros in the preseed investment round from the first domestic VC fund Fil Rouge Capital, recently secured an additional 50 thousand euros from the same fund along with 150 thousand euros from SQ Capital for expansion into the German market.

DING was founded in 2021 by David Rey Hudeček and Tomislav Krišto, and the inspiration for launching the platform came from the desire to facilitate the search for first jobs for students and recent graduates and to bridge the gap between the education system and the labor market.

– At that time, we started launching native mobile applications for iOS and Android, and shortly before that, we were gathering the first early bird companies that would post ads. At that time, we only had a web application and a silent release (a non-significant period). The goal was to revolutionize the process of hiring young talents. To make it more fun, transparent, and easier to use – explained Krišto, co-founder and business development manager at DING.

Innovative fish in the sea of applications

The first funds, he adds, were secured back in 2019 from EU funds for innovations for small and medium-sized startups in the amount of approximately 200 thousand euros, with about 20 percent of their own participation. The purpose at that time was to develop mobile applications, expand the team, and strengthen marketing and PR, and they have come a long way since then.

– We differentiate ourselves from the competition with our personalized application that allows students and young talents easier and more intuitive access to jobs. Instead of the classic search through ‘What?’ and ‘Where?’ fields on any portal (solution), DING.jobs offers a personalized job feed that brings users relevant jobs in their field, jobs that are currently active (no expired jobs), eliminating the need for searching. Your job feed will match your interests. For example, an economist interested in marketing will have a job feed with those jobs prioritized, and if he scrolls long enough, he will encounter longer jobs (outside his interests) – added Krišto.

In-app messaging, 100 percent guarantee of feedback that eliminates unanswered job applications, a ‘polished’ design of the application that appeals to younger generations, and jobs related to the user’s profession are elements that Krišto highlighted as their unique selling points. As much as 85 percent of jobs on the application are relevant to the user’s field, he says, which is inversely proportional to other similar solutions.

Currently, over 950 companies operating in the Croatian market are registered on DING, of which we received a list of 87 that are currently paying for their services. It is evident that this approach is appealing to students, considering that over 30 thousand of them use the application to search for jobs.

Plans for the DACH region

Investors found it interesting how DING successfully sells its service to the strongest companies in Croatia, so they wanted them to test the scale abroad – as soon as possible. And why Germany? Besides the fact that it is a huge market, it is a country that counts almost four million students and about 3.5 million active companies. If they can prove that it makes sense in Munich, their goal is to raise investment from German investors in the next round and expand to the entire DACH region.

– We expect to prove product market fit, acquire a hundred companies and several tens of thousands of users, and see if DING makes sense for those companies and solves their problems as it does in Croatia. Currently, we are doing cold calling outreach with a partner company, talking to German companies about the idea of applying for the early bird program and starting to hire through DING at the moment we gather a user base. At the same time, clients whose parent companies are in Germany recommend us, investors help us through their contacts, and we are doing LinkedIn outreach. So, a shotgun approach. When we see how things are going, we will see how to organize the business and probably open an office there that will deal with sales and support for sales, or maybe we will go in some other direction… We will see – says Krišto.

For DING, 2023 was the first year of charging in which they achieved 100 thousand euros in revenue, and this year by the end of June,’we expect to surpass 100 thousand, and the goal is to exceed 200 thousand euros in 2024 from revenue in Croatia.’ The plan now, as Krišto says, is to achieve the first revenues in Germany, retain most companies, and increase sales in Croatia.

– Sales are not our goal yet, but it would be nice. Either that, or M&A with some global player – concludes Krišto.