Interview with Vahan Melkonyan from Cauldron
Hi all. For those celebrating, hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day.
Continuing our interview series, we had the chance to talk with Vahan Melkonyan of Cauldron this past week. Vahan has been an entrepreneur at Hye Combinator more or less since our inception. He is a graduate of AUA with a degree in Computer Science. Cauldron, the company that he co-founded with Alexander Davtyan, helps companies reduce noise in their candidate funnel, hire 3x faster, and eliminate bias in the hiring process. Recruiters use the software to pre-screen candidates with quick tasks as they apply.
Please find our interview with Vahan below.
In addition, we are always looking for feedback and suggestions. Please email us at ncabraloff@gmail.com to get in touch.
HC: Hi Vahan, thank you again for taking the time to chat with us, we greatly appreciate it. Maybe we could start with getting to know you a bit better…
VM: Thanks Nick. I was born and raised in Yerevan, Armenia! I went to college at American University of Armenia. Got my Bachelor’s in Computer Science, never touched code after that again. My fist real “job” was running our first startup with my co-founder. It actually started when we were on our 2nd year - the whole gig was about connecting college students to summer jobs and internship opportunities through some kind of marketplace.
This experience had a major impact on me. Even though the business in itself didn’t end up being successful, it created something new. After nearly three years, we had enough knowledge and insight on recruiting that we could pivot into building Cauldron (our current business).
HC: Rarely do entrepreneurs see success in their first act! So talk about what Cauldron is? What problem are you solving?
VM: The premise is fairly simple. From our experience, we knew companies had trouble managing large volumes of incoming job applications. Because of the large percentage of noise in the resumes you’d get, it was often not worth the time to sift through them. Cauldron makes it easier and 10x faster to screen job applicants through role-specific questions and tasks.
HC: Who is your target customer?
VM: We mostly work with high-growth tech companies that are on their path to scale. As a growing organization, there comes a time, when inbound resume flow becomes unmanageable — that’s where we come in.
HC: Very interesting. Who else is doing this? What are the key differentiators vs. others in the market?
VM: We’re able to compete and win against current recruiting solutions based on three major aspects:
The industry has rightfully lost trust in automating candidate screening through AI or similar solutions. Candidates hate it and recruiters have been burned by a dozen of similar products not delivering. Our approach is the complete opposite as we’re still keeping the human in the loop, and our focus is on empowering that human with unique tools, so they can be more efficient
We work with whatever recruiting customer relationship management (CRM) or applicant tracking system (ATS) you have in place. Recruiting/HR systems cover a lot of stuff and everyone has one. Trying to replace an HR system won’t get you anywhere. Instead, we built a suite of integrations capable of connecting to any system
Our candidate scoring system is unrivaled in the efficiency improvement it offers. Our customers are able to close customers as fast as 3-4 days. It also makes sure there’s no chance of unconscious biases slipping through while scoring
HC: Can you talk about the traction the company is having so far? What are the milestones for the next 12-24 months?
VM: We just passed the landmark of 100 jobs being created through Cauldron by our customers, and it’s been a great journey. The best part is that the average time-to-hire has been 7 days. It’s an unheard-of statistic for recruiting. In comparison, the average industry number to close a candidate is 35 days.
HC: Clear and demonstrable ROI… when did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
VM: I actually never did… it just sort of happened and we stuck with it because it’s fun :).
HC: What motivates you every day?
VM: I think knowing there are people out there that you don’t know using something you’ve built and being happy about it is the greatest source of motivation.
HC: That has to be a great feeling. What has been the biggest surprise for you in your entrepreneurial journey? What have you underestimated?
VM: How a lot of things are just out of your control. We’re building a recruiting-tech company through a global pandemic, multiple wars, and market crashes. It’s been a crazy run and you constantly get humbled by the world.
HC: What do you enjoy most about it?
VM: The road - the ups, and the downs. Even if in some aspects, this is an extremely stressful position to be in. I think as we reflect as a team, we find we’ve enjoyed ourselves throughout.
HC: That is great to hear. It’s all about the journey. What advice do you have for others looking to start their own company? What do you wish someone would have told you?
VM: I’d say do your research, read books, and make sure you’re comfortable committing a lot of your hours to something… and just do it!
HC: How do you define success at Cauldron? What quantitative or qualitative metrics are you focused on?
VM: Success for us is helping as many people and organizations as we can while building a world where getting hired is never a hassle.
HC: How did you find Hye Combinator? What have you found most useful? Where can we improve?
VM: Got recommended by a community member. I’ve been enjoying the community and have met amazing people through it.
HC: That is great. Thank you Vahan for your time. Lastly, how can readers get in touch with you?
VM: My email is vahan@cauldron.app. Always happy to just connect and learn about each other. Thank you.