Benjamin Encz

Ashby Culture

When the Ashby team met for the first time, we took a moment to reflect on and codify the attributes we value most in those we hire, and on the operating principles that guide our work. We'd like to share that with you here.

Ashby’s Operating Principles

aronow.io

Assured is a claims automation insurtech backed by leading Silicon Valley investors.

Assured

Astronomer

Attentive

Aurora Solar

Aven

Our camps give kids both a place to start and plenty of room to grow outdoors as they build skills in a wide range adventure sports, including mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, rock climbing and paddling.

Avid4 Adventure

Benchling

iPaaS integration platform with a worldwide reach

Boomi

Boulevard

Brightline brings virtual behavioral and mental health care to kids and teens, with a focus on also supporting families. 

Brightline

The Browser Company

Calm

Census

Character.AI

Clever

CloudTrucks

Coder is a remote infrastructure development platform that makes working with code easier than ever. Coder enables everyone from industry rookies to experts to develop code faster than ever before, using templatized starting points and ultra-secure workspaces.

Coder

Cohere

Cointracker

Color

Convictional uses technology to make logistics easier for retailers and their suppliers by automating supplier integration, onboarding, and merchandising.

Convictional

Costanoa Ventures

Enterprise-grade accounting, audit, and tax software for your digital assets

Cryptio

Decimal

Deel is payroll for modern business. No matter where you're hiring, Deel helps customers run payroll, supporting 150+ countries with hundreds of worldwide experts. Deel helps their customers know that hiring, paying, and managing stayed compliant and easy in their all-in-one platform.

Deel

Deepnote

Deliveroo

Docker

Dune

Duolingo

EightSleep is more than a mattress company - it's a suite of products devoted to sleep fitness. Their goal is to make sure that your sleep is as high-performing as you are, helping you meet and exceed the bar for excellence in your waking life. Athletes and scientists alike love their range of highly customizable sleep tech because it helps them live healthier.

EightSleep

Flock Safety

Form Energy

Format One

FullStory is an insight platform that aims to create a more perfect web experience by capturing website data to give clients like GNC, Carvana, and Lowe’s greater insight into how users access their websites.

FullStory

Galileo

Gorgias

GrowthAssistant

HackerOne

Help Scout

Infinite Lambda

Ironclad

January transforms the lives of borrowers by bringing humanity to consumer finance. Their data-driven products empower financial institutions to streamline collections, providing borrowers with straightforward and compassionate solutions to regain financial stability and control over their lives. 

January

Juni

Kustomer

Leapsome

Lemonade

Linear

Linktree

Machinify

Marqeta is a modern card issuing platform dedicated to empowering innovators to launch their products to the world. They have over a decade of experience as a trusted, high-tech solution for builders who need simple, scalable payment solutions.

Marqeta

Mastodon

Mercury

Metaview

Modern Treasury

Monte Carlo is a Series D data observability company helping its customers accelerate the adoption of data to eliminate downtime. 

Monte Carlo

Multiverse

Notion is the go-to for notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, blending everyday work apps into one. It serves as an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, task management, and project management. 

Notion

Compensation software that offers 5,000+ companies clarity for every pay decision.

OpenComp

Opendoor

Plato

PostHog

PostHog is an open source analytics platform. Their product is used by product, engineering, and marketing teams to understand user behavior, including product analytics, session recording, user paths, a/b testing, heatmaps, and more. The suite, founded through Y Combinator in 2020, has since been installed by over 10,000 companies.

Pragma Platform

ProAmpac

Pulley

QFinds

Quora

Ramp

Readme

Recruiting Pundit

Reddit

Replit

Retool

peer network for senior in-house resourcing leaders

RL100

Scratchpad

With over 2k clients and 20+ years of experience, Sequoia Consulting Group  is a services, tech, advisory business that provides clients with a platform for rich analytics.

Sequoia

Shelby Wolpa Consulting

Shopify

Sift

Snowflake

Snyk

Solana Foundation

Sourcegraph

Stytch

Syfon

Talentful

Democratizing stocks trading across Europe

Trading 212

Treasury Prime

TroopHR

VanMoof is a Dutch e-bike company creating stylish, feature-rich city bikes. They're the fastest growing bike company in the world, with an active community in over 50 cities worldwide.

VanMoof

Vanta

Vantage

Veev

Verkada

WeTransfer

Zapier

Abhik Pramanik

Kyra ran our first holiday book exchange, and it's been a hit with the team (to the point people mentioned it in our 1:1s). I added some photos from our recent meetups.


How we use efficient and deliberate communication at Ashby to keep Slack notifications and meetings to a minimum, focus 36h out of a 40h week, and have fun along the way 😀.


How Thoughtful Communication Makes Us Unreasonably Productive

Engineering Updates

Recruiting Articles

Product Updates

Will Ducey

I’m Will Ducey, and I’m starting my new role as Head of Recruiting Operations at Ashby.

For over ten years, I’ve built and led global recruiting teams. My journey has taken me through a variety of experiences, but the one that really changed my path was a work trial at Automattic. It gave me the opportunity to transition into Recruiting Operations, a field that perfectly aligned with my curiosity, my love of learning, and my passion for making teams better.

For the past three years, I’ve had the privilege of leading internal recruiting operations. What we accomplished together through many different hiring cycles is truly incredible. From centralizing our coordination team to transitioning from a legacy ATS to Ashby All-in-One, every step we took was an intentional move towards leveling up how we operate.

I’ve always prided myself on staying ahead of the game when it comes to hiring, and specifically, RecOps. Whether it was [email automation](https://www.ere.net/articles/email-automation-tips-to-increase-candidate-response-rates-by-will_ducey) in 2015, [structured interviewing](https://www.ere.net/articles/why-structured-interviews-are-the-best-way-to-hire) and [recording interviews](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-journey-brighthire-will-ducey/) in 2019, or the many other topics I’ve written about [here](https://www.willducey.xyz/), I’ve always looked for ways to innovate. So in 2023 as we were implementing Ashby, I was curious to see what opportunities would present – namely in the areas of automation, standardization, alerting, reporting, and hiring transparency.

## Why I’m excited about Ashby

Jim Miller wrote a job description for an [audience of one](https://www.willducey.xyz/job-descriptions-built-for-hiring-performance-and-business-success/). Multiple colleagues saw the job post and said, “it was written for you.” I took a look and agreed. I have been very intentional over the last couple of years to share my ideas, start a podcast, and ensure that I would be ready for a role like this.

I was an Ashby customer for three years. I started using Ashby Analytics and then transitioned to All-in-One. I recognized the Ashby team that drove our experience and knew firsthand what the product could do. I can still remember pushing our business leaders to make the switch to Ashby All-in-One. At the time, recruiting wasn’t a huge focus, and no one was complaining about our hiring stack. But I knew the next phase of growth was coming, and we’d need the full capacity of Ashby to hit our hiring targets. We couldn’t throw more people at the problem, and we certainly couldn’t have our recruiters bouncing between multiple systems. We needed a streamlined, efficient process, and I had conviction that Ashby was the solution.

After moving to Ashby All-in-One,  we focused on improving our processes to scale and improving key performance metrics. Even as we onboarded brand-new team members, Ashby gave us a streamlined, scalable way of working that kept everyone aligned and moving fast. We accomplished this while architecting the system, migrating candidate records, launching new reporting dashboards, and adapting quickly to frequent product updates and evolving needs.

We delivered a step-function improvement in Recruiting in just a few months. With the foundation in place and the team positioned for long-term success, I made the decision to join Ashby and bring that level of impact to more organizations.

My second week at Ashby began in San Francisco for [Ashby One](https://www.ashbyoneconference.com/). Who doesn’t love speaking at their company’s conference on week two?! I made the most of the opportunity and even danced on stage to my [walk-up song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qparhhC1YB0).

![](/images/_c1a1062.jpg)

It’s rare in a distributed company that you get to meet so many colleagues this quickly. Everyone I met exceeded my expectations. Benji greeted me with a hug and genuine excitement for me to be there. When I accepted my offer, so many of my future colleagues reached out to congratulate me. I have never felt so welcomed to join a company.

I have experienced the power of Ashby in rapidly and systematically scaling hiring, and I could not be more excited to champion market adoption across all businesses that want an efficient, fair, and effective hiring process.

## What I'll be focusing on

Like all thoughtfully scaling organizations, I’ll be diving into Ashby’s internal hiring operations first. I’ll drive internal adoption of yet-to-be released capabilities while also focusing on the long-term architecture of our [Hiring Excellence Framework](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework). 

* Scale. I am a team of one, and my goal is to stay this way for as long as possible. Our hiring process is hiring manager-led, and I know what Ashby is capable of. We’ll use the Ashby product to increase our leverage as we scale.
* Experimentation. As the best-in-breed hiring stack, we need to understand how to hire effectively and have an opinion on what works, what we’ve experimented with, and constantly evaluate our perspective.
* Knowledge Sharing. Once I’m fully settled in, I look forward to connecting with our current and soon-to-be customers to better understand their challenges. This will deepen my understanding and help me figure out how to share best practices with our industry. 
* Product Influence. Like a puppy who sees his owner return home and open the door, I am so excited to learn about our [immediate product roadmap](https://www.ashbyhq.com/ashby-one-whats-new) and influence enhancements and new offerings for better hiring. As we continue to evaluate the first principles of hiring, I am certain we will re-imagine new workstreams and processes that enable companies to bring in the best person for the role.

Ashby is the real deal. The [product](https://www.ashbyhq.com/enterprise), the [people](https://www.ashbyhq.com/team), and the [product philosophy](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/product-velocity) will continue to elevate hiring for everyone.

Even as a customer, I always felt like I was part of the Ashby story. Now, I’m grateful to be part of it from the inside.

I know considering a change of your hiring management system can be intimidating. I am here to tell you, with Ashby, anything is possible. As a RecOps practitioner, if I can help you with any questions or considerations, please reach out.

## Thank you

For everyone who has been a part of my career journey so far. Thank you! I wouldn’t be here without you. ♥️

Thank you to [Christian](https://www.linkedin.com/in/novicks/) (best CSM), [Jim](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm/), [Benji](https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminencz/), and the rest of my interviewers for the opportunity! LFG!

A letter from RecOps expert Will Ducey on joining Ashby.

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

Max Butler

During my first week at Ashby, I had some time to reflect on all the conversations and detailed onboarding sessions I’ve been part of. It’s given me a glimpse of what the next chapter of my career will look like — and got me excited! A number of people have asked “Why did you join Ashby?” 

I thought I’d share my answer publicly.

## My Entry into Recruiting

To provide some background, I was first introduced to recruiting by my brother and cousin. While still in college, I watched them both start their careers while also encouraging me to explore it. They both seemed pretty happy and (perhaps more importantly at the time) were making money (shoutout to [Preston](https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonbutler/) and [Tricia](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tricia-holderbaum-99b78335/)). 

A week after graduating, I dove headfirst into recruiting at a large agency. The first half of my career involved a bit of everything — sourcing, coordinating, and recruiting for companies big and small. In 2016, I was given the chance to transition from Tech Recruiting to Recruiting Operations — and I was hooked. 

Over the last eight years, I’ve built and led recruiting ops teams, helping companies hire top talent efficiently. I’ve seen what good looks like… and what bad looks like. I have demoed and/or purchased what feels like every recruiting tool on the market, revamped recruiting processes, and put together awesome (and some not-so-awesome) reports and dashboards. At the end of the day, I love working with teams to elevate their hiring practices and achieve [hiring excellence](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/recruiting/hiring-excellence-framework).

## Discovering Ashby

In 2022, I started hearing whispers about a new analytics tool that plugged into your ATS called Ashby. Naturally, I was intrigued. But when I finally got to see it in action during my time at CaptivateIQ, I felt like a kid in a candy store. I was blown away by its ability to do what so many ATS and analytics products couldn’t — it was user-friendly, gave me real-time data, and it actually *worked*.

But as cool as [Ashby Analytics](https://www.ashbyhq.com/analytics) was, what really blew me away was the support we got from the Ashby team; whether it was customer success, product, or engineering, every interaction was next level. I was ready to be among them.

## Why I Joined Ashby

Three main reasons:

### 1. The People 

As mentioned, my interactions with Ashby’s team as a customer were always positive. As I’ve gotten to know several more employees over the years, I was blown away by their expertise, kindness, and work ethic. Every single person I’ve met is damn good at their job. It’s rare to find that level of talent and character in one place.  Being here myself I can see that the company really does live by their [Operating Principles](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles) and  pushes me to be better.

### 2. The Product 

I’ve come across maybe two or three “holy sh!t” products that I knew had the potential to change the industry. Ashby is one of them. Seeing it spread like wildfire throughout the recruiting world — especially during a time when recruiting was facing some tough challenges — has been inspiring. I’ve watched recruiting teams consolidate their tools and systems into Ashby’s all-in-one ATS, saving money and increasing efficiency. 

It’s the kind of solution RecOps leaders dream about. And Ashby doesn’t just stop at efficiency; they’re paving the way for practical use of [AI in recruiting](https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/03/ashby-injects-recruiting-with-a-dose-of-ai/) and tackling important topics like Quality of Hire. Watching Ashby turn these concepts into [game-changing features](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/quality-of-hire-an-actionable-approach) quickly sealed the deal for me.

### 3. Prioritization of Recruiting Operations 

Since staking my career in RecOps back in 2016, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is finding tools that not only solve real problems, but can support the overall recruiting strategy and various workflows. Unlike most products, Ashby has Recruiting Operations at its core – whether it’s embedding sourcing to build a powerful CRM and ATS together or [effective scheduling for a better experience](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/ashby-scheduling-2-0) for all. 

This didn’t just mean I’m able to elevate the quality of work I could produce, but it also enables me to have an entirely different type of conversation with leaders across the business. In addition to the product, Benji and the team do a lot to support the community – if you’re in RecOps and not already in the community, [apply here](https://www.ashbyhq.com/resources/community) (and shoot me a note).

## My Role and Vision

I joined Ashby as a Recruiting Operations Consultant, working alongside the talented [Olivia Roberts](https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviaroberts08/). While this is a big (and maybe uncomfortable) shift as I now become part of a Customer Success team, it’s also a huge opportunity to learn from a ton of talented RecOps folks, recruiters, coordinators, and sourcers across Ashby’s customer base. If I do my job well:

* Customers will not only get the most out of Ashby, but they will have a dedicated thought partner to help with process improvements, develop recruiting strategies, and plan for both long-term and short-term goals.
* Team up with Ashby Customer Success Managers to guide customers through reports and dashboards, use industry benchmarks to assist with goal setting, and educate users on sharing insights with stakeholders.
* Customers will never be left in the dark and will have access to content and ‘pro tips’ on how to setup and scale with Ashby.

I have a lot to learn, but here’s what I know for sure: We will continue to take care of our customers, improve, and push the boundaries of what’s possible in recruiting and HR.

A letter from RecOps expert Max Butler on joining Ashby.

A Letter from Max Butler on Joining Ashby

Frank Weigel

From various roles at companies like CreditKarma, SigFig, and Lattice, my career in Information Security and IT has been focused on building reliable frameworks that grow with the company. At Lattice, for instance, I developed a security program that supported the company’s growth to 700 employees.

The challenge of security is that it protects against risks that are sometimes hard to quantify and not very tangible. A company is doing a good job if nothing bad happens — but nothing bad happening is often the result of a lot of work behind the scenes:

* It requires senior management to recognize the importance of security and give it priority and budget. 
* It succeeds off a commitment to staying in pace or ahead of evolving technology and legislation (GDPR is now a norm versus a future goal).
* It thrives when there’s an early commitment to the processes and tools required for proper security.

From my early conversations with leadership at Ashby, it was evident that all the above was very mature given the size of the company. That makes the opportunity of taking security to the next level an exciting opportunity and one I was excited to drive. 

## Why I Chose to Come to Ashby

Beyond the company’s commitment to security, Ashby for me is the people and the product. Throughout my career, I’ve seen the limitations of various Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS’) from both hiring and candidate perspectives. Ashby, however, stands out with its thoughtful approach and dedication to improving the hiring landscape.

From my first interactions with the team, I was impressed by the humility and professionalism of everyone at Ashby. This is a company where people genuinely care about their work and each other. And as importantly for me, Ashby treats security as a first-class product, recognizing its critical importance. The leadership at Ashby understands that investing in security and staying well ahead of industry norms is essential. This forward-thinking approach makes Ashby an exciting place to work and ensures that, as a Security leader, I feel valued.

## What I Hope to Achieve at Ashby

At a high level, the goal of Information Security is to protect the:

* **Confidentiality of information**: For instance, keep the data of individuals confidential as public exposure might cause them harm.
* **Integrity of information**: For instance, ensure their data cannot be tampered with so that hiring decisions can be trusted.
* **Availability of information**: For instance, make sure Ashby customers can use the Ashby system since there might be a financial loss for them if they can't.

My goal is to enhance our security measures across all these even further; it’s critical work that requires a proactive and comprehensive approach.

I believe that security measures need to be implemented in a way that doesn’t get in the way of employees or customers doing their work. Apart from just implementing security measures, security should be consulting the business on how to conduct their tasks in a secure fashion. I see security as the department of “How,” not “No.”

I plan to build on the strong foundation already in place by:

* Implementing stronger controls and processes in corporate, product, and cloud security — while still keeping the user experience in mind
* Ensuring we continue to meet international standards (such as GDPR, CCPA, and New York’s AI Bias Law)
* Using my Security and IT experience to support the development of excellent features and guidance that help our customers fulfill their compliance obligations
* Addressing any concerns directly and demonstrate our ongoing commitment to security and privacy

Being part of Ashby means joining a team dedicated to making a meaningful impact. I’m excited to contribute to our mission of improving the hiring process for companies and candidates alike. Together, we’ll continue to set new standards in the industry, ensuring that security remains a key part of our success.

I want to end by thanking the Ashby team for the warm welcome. I’m delighted to be here and look forward to working with everyone.

More on why Frank Weigel joined Ashby as Head of Security and IT.

A Letter from Frank Weigel, Head of Security

At Ashby, we don't have a long-term product roadmap. We've decided to take this approach for a number of reasons. In this post, we'll outline these reasons and our broader product philosophy.

## The problem with long-term roadmaps

While many companies publish 12+ month roadmaps, providing a sense of visibility of what is to come, they very often miss deadlines or kill features altogether, leaving their customers disappointed. Oftentimes, customers will also put off investment in additional tools (or hold out switching vendors) because they are expecting the promised functionality to be released on time. When that does not happen, they are stuck with a solution that does not meet their business needs.

Even if vendors deliver on all of their commitments on their long-term roadmap in time (something I personally have not seen in the past), this approach to product development still has a major issue: It is unclear if what was put on the roadmap 9-12 months ago is still the most pressing issue for customers.

I'm writing this in 2024, and if we look back at the last four years in the recruiting industry, the above point should be clear. The problems TA teams faced were wildly different every 6-9 months. On top of that, we witnessed a step-function improvement in AI capabilities that significantly changed the kind of functionality vendors could deliver.

## Why are long-term roadmaps so common?

There are a number of good reasons long-term roadmaps are used so frequently, despite their downsides.

[Enterprise customers](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c#expanding-into-enterprise-while-keeping-startups-front-&-center), understandably, want to know how the vendors they bet on will evolve over the coming years. But because long-term roadmaps are so often missed, we believe they mostly bring a misleading sense of comfort.

Vendors often feel the need to resort to long-term roadmaps because customers are pointing to significant gaps in their products. The vendor may not be able to address these issues quickly enough, so these "complaints" are turned into functionality that is added to the promised roadmap to buy time to solve them. Such vendors will also often use the allure of the future roadmap to help close deals despite missing product functionality.

## Ashby's Approach

**First and foremost, we're focused on product velocity**. We think that how often we ship *meaningful* product improvements is one of the most important metrics to track. It leads to fewer gaps in the product and, as a result, reduces the need to make forward-looking promises.

**Second, we make commitments to invest in specific product areas (instead of individual features)**. We've staffed all of our core product areas, Core ATS, Scheduling, CRM, Analytics, Enterprise, and Usability (and now AI), to ensure they receive ongoing improvements over time. This should give you an idea of what to plan for, as you don't need to worry that a specific product area will stagnate.

**Lastly, we have priorities within each of these product areas**. This is where we get to the exciting part — what do we pick to build and how? There are three main inputs to that:

1. Customer feedback (we look at both the impact of the potential change and the quantity of the request)
2. Our long-term product vision for each of these product areas
3. Changes in the market (e.g., [new legislation around Salary Transparency](https://www.ashbyhq.com/product-updates/pay-transparency-feature-announcment))

We are constantly reviewing the above, and it drives how we pick the next set of projects within each product area.

This means at any given point in time, we'll have several product updates that we know will be released in the next 1-3 months. At the same time, we're constantly evaluating what should come next based on your input.

For individual feature requests, this means they either have an ETA in the next 1-3 months or no ETA. No ETA certainly does not mean we won't ship an update for this request; it simply means we have not committed to it yet because we haven't started work on it yet. So, we're keeping it in the backlog as a candidate to be prioritized when the next set of projects in the relevant product area are completed.

There's one more benefit to this approach that is worth calling out: In addition to our ongoing major releases, we also ship dozens of smaller but impactful improvements that never make it onto the formal roadmap (which also means they don't have a public timeline). Vendors that cram their entire Engineering schedule with pre-planned releases lose the ability to invest in iterative and ongoing polish. Often, these smaller improvements have the strongest impact on day-to-day users of a product (and they come as a surprise and delight moments for our users).

## Interfacing with our CS & Product teams

We view all of our customers who provide material customer feedback as design partners. While we don't have a formal program today, our CS team works very closely with customers to understand their unique needs and how some of them should translate into future product improvements. They are always in sync with the product team and will often loop in individual Product Managers to connect with customers directly on individual product areas.

## Never say never

We may not keep this approach to long-term roadmaps forever. We continuously evaluate how to evolve our product development practice (once again, based on your feedback!).

But for now, we believe strongly that focusing on product velocity, [close partnership with customers](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/series-c#investment-in-customer-success), agility in our roadmap, and not overpromising but rather surprising and delighting are the right way to go.

Ashby's perspective on product roadmaps and why we focused on product velocity instead.

Why Ashby Focuses on Product Velocity Over Long-Term Roadmaps

As a founder it is most enjoyable to fundraise when you’re trying to accelerate something that is already going really well. We’ve been fortunate to be in that position since our public launch in September 2022. Today I’m excited to announce our $30M Series C.

We had planned this round for later in the year, but were presented with strong offers earlier than expected that provided a healthy up-round from our Series B.

Of course we’re very excited. Of course we’ll continue to invest in Product and Engineering. Of course we’ll also continue to scale our Customer Success teams and Go-To-Market motion. But my goal with this post is to go a bit beyond a regular financing announcement and provide a bit more visibility into where we’re at and what’s next at Ashby. 

## Starting with a Thank You

Before we get into details, I want to start with a huge thank you to our customers. It goes without saying that we would not be here without you. Many of you have been early believers in what we’re doing. Virtually all of you have continued to shape Ashby’s product over the recent years by being highly engaged users sharing incredibly valuable feedback.

You’ve also simply been a huge joy to work alongside. For many of you the last few years have not been easy; that makes your partnership with us even more meaningful.

Next, I want to thank the entire Ashby team. You all have delivered exceptional and consistent execution over the last two years. I frequently get notes from customers and other founders about how much we’ve accomplished with a relatively small team. Your work has let us achieve outlier performance in a challenging market.

## Picking a Partner for this Round

We were fortunate to receive multiple competitive term sheets. In the end, we decided to go with Lachy Groom, who also led our seed round and has a deep understanding of how we operate, which is nicely summed up in this message I received when he extended his offer:

![](/images/lachy-text.png)

We’re excited by this vote of confidence. Other existing investors including Elad Gil, F-Prime, and Y Combinator joined this round as well.

Lachy’s note also gives you a sense of what comes next: a continued focus on strong, consistent execution.

Raising money, in and of itself, is by no means a guarantor of future success. We’ll take this moment to reflect on the progress we’ve made in the 19 months since we publicly launched, but then we’re quickly getting back to work.

While we have grown revenue >6x since our Series B and we’re now serving over 1,300 customers (a count that’s quickly growing). We are by no means complacent. 

There remains a lot left to be done and there’s still a huge gap between what we offer today and our ultimate ambition of building truly exceptional software for the talent community.

## Our Opportunity & Ambition

We started working on Ashby in late 2018 with the key insight that the work talent teams were doing had changed drastically from the ~2010s (you can read more about our story [here](https://www.ashbyhq.com/story)).

Recruiting Operations was becoming an increasingly common function. Data was being used to inform more and more decisions. Talent teams were buying a lot of additional tools to plug gaps that had opened up between the prior generation of recruiting software and where TA teams were headed.

At that time, both Abhik and I were very involved in hiring and embedded ourselves with our recruiting teams. We quickly found ourselves thinking: modern TA teams deserve better and more powerful software.

Today, we’ve accomplished a good amount of our “v1 vision.” We have enabled TA teams to use a single, powerful product to run their entire recruiting process across candidate CRM, ATS, and scheduling automation. And we’ve helped TA teams become more data-driven with our uniquely powerful recruiting analytics functionality.

But there’s a lot more to do. Advancements in AI allow a whole set of new functionality that wasn’t thinkable a couple years ago. You’ve seen early versions of this in the Ashby product but there’s a lot more to come. 

Beyond AI, we’re still just scratching the surface of what’s possible when bringing all key TA workflows into a single tool that’s built on a single technology platform. In many areas of the product we’re now spending more energy on “polish and delight.” That means we’ll make many of our most powerful features more accessible and ensure that Ashby continues to do more for you.

The following has been on our [careers page](https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers) since the day we started Ashby and you can think of it as one of our guiding principles:

*We are continuously disappointed by the state of software products today —software should be more intelligent, powerful, and do much more for us. Today, most business software is still a simple database with few delightful and truly helpful features.*

While we’re excited about our progress to date, this “north star” keeps us focused on all the ways in which we want to improve Ashby in the coming months and years.

## Investment in Customer Success

We also understand that your experience with Ashby goes well beyond the product we offer. From day one, we’ve invested deeply in Customer Success and many of you have shared with us how much of an impact that has had on your experience with Ashby.

Excellent customer success is notoriously hard to scale. We’re committed to spending the time, energy, and money to make it happen. We’ve made a number of key hires across our Success teams in the last few months, including our new Head of Support, [Allie Hurley](https://www.linkedin.com/in/allie-hurley-75557b89/). She most recently led Support at ClickUp and will help us expand our support team and further improve our product documentation and self-service capabilities.

## Expanding into Enterprise While Keeping Startups Front & Center

Since our Series B, we’ve extended our reach into the Enterprise segment and we’re now working with some of the largest and fastest growing technology companies (many of which we can’t name just yet!). We’ve made deep product investments here, including our unique [integration with Workday](https://www.ashbyhq.com/customers/aurora-solar). We believe that our focus on customizability and automation makes us a unique fit for [Enterprise companies](https://www.ashbyhq.com/enterprise) that are scaling out of legacy solutions.

While not easy, at the same time we are keeping [early stage startups](https://www.ashbyhq.com/startups) front and center as we continue to improve Ashby. We believe that startups keep us honest in our pursuit of providing best-in-class UX. Startups also serve as a strong foundation for future growth as breakout companies start and scale on Ashby. Rather than the status quo of scaling out of an ATS, our promise to startups is a robust system that scales with them, ensuring they can put talent front and center from day one. 

## Join us - We’re Hiring!

Of course we’re continuing to ([thoughtfully](https://www.ashbyhq.com/blog/culture/ashbys-operating-principles#5---be-frustratingly-patient-about-hiring)) grow our own team. No fundraising announcement would be complete without a shout out to our [open roles](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ashby). We also continuously hire for roles that you may not see posted right now. If you want to be considered for these roles as they open, you can join our [talent community](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Ashby/form/ashby-talent-community) which we review whenever we open and post new roles.

## Thank you again!

If you made it this far: Thanks a lot for your interest in Ashby, whether you’re a customer, prospect, candidate, or partner. If you like to stay in touch with updates we recommend following our [LinkedIn page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ashbyhq/).

Onward, upward and back to work! 📈

This post goes a bit beyond a regular financing announcement and provide a bit more visibility into where Ashby is at and what’s next for the company.


Ashby Culture

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Ashby’s Operating Principles

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Max Butler on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Frank Weigel, Head of Security

Why Ashby Focuses on Product Velocity Over Long-Term Roadmaps

Announcing Ashby’s $30M Series C - Doing More of What We Already Do, Just Faster and Better

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Ashby’s Operating Principles

A Letter from Will Ducey on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Max Butler on Joining Ashby

A Letter from Frank Weigel, Head of Security

Why Ashby Focuses on Product Velocity Over Long-Term Roadmaps

Announcing Ashby’s $30M Series C - Doing More of What We Already Do, Just Faster and Better

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