Outrove

What do they actually do

Outrove is a very early-stage B2B recruiting platform that automates sourcing, outreach, first-round interviews, scoring, and handoffs so recruiters spend less time on admin and see higher-quality shortlists. Its core feature is an AI "interviewer" that uses video and audio and can join standard meeting tools (e.g., Zoom/Google Meet) to conduct realistic screening calls and ask follow-ups, then summarize and score candidates against customizable rubrics Outrove site YC profile.

Teams use it to build candidate pools (search/LinkedIn parsing/uploads), run multi-channel outreach, trigger AI-led screens, and automatically move candidates to the next step (e.g., scheduling human interviews, assigning take-homes, or sending rejections). The product is sold via demos today, consistent with an early YC Summer 2025 company with a two-person founding team Outrove site YC profile Outrove blog. Press has reported pilot usage (e.g., 100 interviews in five days) and early per-hire pricing tests (around $750 per successful hire), though these are founder/press-reported and reflect pilot-stage commercialization Entrepreneur.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Early-stage or small-company hiring teams (1–2 recruiters): They spend too much time on sourcing, scheduling, and first-round screens, slowing down hiring and stretching limited headcount.
• High-volume hiring teams for repeatable roles (support, entry-level sales/engineering): They receive many low-quality applications and need fast, consistent filtering so hiring managers only see viable shortlists.
• Staffing agencies and contingency recruiters: They must screen many candidates quickly to win placements; slow vetting hurts time-to-fill and fee conversion.
• Recruitment operations at mid-market companies: They want fewer manual handoffs and predictable routing into ATS/calendar systems, plus consistent, rubric-based evaluations.
• Hiring managers who need objective, repeatable early screens: They waste time on poor-fit interviews and worry about inconsistent or biased first-round screening.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run targeted, white-glove pilots via warm outreach (YC network, LinkedIn, founder intros), showcasing live AI interviews and offering short paid pilots with close support and performance-based pricing.
• First 50: Scale with repeatable outbound to high-volume teams and staffing firms, weekly demo webinars, and a fixed-scope pilot package; add 1–2 channel partners (e.g., ATS integrators) to co-sell using early case studies.
• First 100: Publish clear pricing and a streamlined onboarding path to run a first automated screen self-serve, while keeping premium white-glove pilots; expand via ATS/HRIS marketplace listings, referrals, and targeted paid demand gen.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

The direct recruiting/talent-acquisition software market sits in the low double-digit billions globally (e.g., talent acquisition software around ~$10B+) while staffing/recruiting services generate hundreds of billions per year, especially in the U.S. and EU GMI Insights Markets & Markets (ATS) Fortune Business Insights (ATS) American Staffing Association.

Bottom-up calculation:

If priced per successful hire (e.g., ~$750 as reported in pilots), 100,000 hires/year would be ~$75M revenue; 1,000,000 hires/year would be ~$750M. Benchmarks put average cost-per-hire near ~$4,700, leaving room for ROI-driven per-hire pricing Entrepreneur SHRM.

Assumptions:

• Per-hire pricing remains acceptable for staffing firms/high-volume roles; SaaS tiers emerge for in-house teams.
• Early adoption focuses on repeatable roles where automated screening is easiest to validate.
• Reported pilot results and costs generalize to broader deployments with similar efficiency gains.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• HireVue: Enterprise video interviewing and assessments with deep ATS/HCM integrations; strong in large programs needing validated assessments and compliance features.
• Modern Hire: Full interviewing and pre-hire assessment suite oriented to enterprise workflows and selection science for large-scale hiring.
• Harver: Volume hiring platform with pre-employment tests and automated scoring to filter large applicant pools for repeatable roles.
• Humanly: AI recruiting for SMB/mid-market teams focused on chat-based screening, scheduling, and automated scoring.
• Spark Hire: Simple one-way and live video interviewing used by agencies and small teams; easier setup but less agent-like, real-time interviewing behavior.