#refer.me

[djbeatty]

Interview on StartupsHK

I was recently interviewed by StartupsHK.  Check it out here - http://www.startupshk.com/5-questions-with-david-beatty-co-founder-of-refer-me/

[referme]

Job referrals, new feature at refer.me

Referrals work. This has long been the core belief of the Refer.me team and it has remained a guiding principle as we have tackled the challenges of creating a platform that allows users to harness the power of referrals.

Referrals are one of the most effective and preferred channels that employers use to find candidates.

For something as crucial as staffing your team, most employers value a personal referral much more than an unsolicited enquiry, yet existing referral systems fail to leverage this. Many companies operate internal referral reward schemes where staff can receive rewards for successfully referring one of their contacts to join the company.  Yet these schemes only cover staff who are already within a company and they don’t make use of any of the powerful technologies or wider networks that are available.

Refer.me is working to change this and we are excited to be bringing you a new stage in our development – a platform to refer your contacts for job vacancies, where successful referrals earn you cash (as well as helping your friend find a new job).

[djbeatty]

A great view of my home base, Hong Kong.  This was an amazing evening in June when we gathered to celebrate the refer.me beta go-live.  Hong Kong has some spectacular views, and great photographers are really able to find some magic.  This image was captured by leading sports architect (famous for the Watercube in Beijing and Copper Box in London) and good friend John Pauline.  ( And on a cheap camera he tells me! )

[referme]

Refer.me pitches at #startclub

It was great to pitch at #startclub with Andrew Primrose on Monday night.   Great photos of the event are on the Erly page and on the Google+ event page

Thanks to StartupsHK (for organizing the event, and for the refer.me team attending!

David

[referme]

Prelaunch Update #1

Hi,   If you signed up at our launch page, you've already seen this update.

Thank you for pre-registering with refer.me. It's encouraging to see hundreds of people so keen to be early users of our site.  We're looking forward to introducing you torefer.me soon!

Meanwhile, just to let you know: 

  - Our team is busily working on refer.me, and will be opening the site in June. 

  - We'll be in touch via email when the site is ready for you to use. In the meantime, if you'd like to stay up to date, follow our blog or twitter (@referdotme).

  - Finally, (since some of you asked), refer.me will be free!

For those of you who don't know me, I'd like to tell you a litte about myself.  My wife Natalie and I are originally from Australia and have been expats since 1999, living mostly in London and Hong Kong.  refer.me is my first business and its seed has been planted for many years.  We often struggled with finding the right professionals, places to go and things to do wherever we lived and visited.    Likewise, at each new stage of our life - getting married, starting a family and renovating our home - we had countless discussions with friends and family to discover their best contacts.   Sure, there were bulletin boards, websites and google results to trawl through,  but we found a lot of information was old, irrelevant or from dubious sources. 

After leaving the bank where I worked for 12 years, I decided to work on my dream of creating a platform where people could discover and refer trusted contacts - refer.me is the result.

Our aim is to supersede all those conversations, texts and emails that start with "do you know where I can buy ..." or "where can I go" or "who can I see for ...", with a trusted online platform to help you make the best choices.   We've built the platform for ourselves, and we hope it will work for you too!

Thanks for your support, and I'll be in touch again soon.

David Beatty