Wamly, from South Africa, is changing the way companies interview for open positions

Wamly, a South African startup, is changing companies’ recruitment processes by providing one-way video interview software that eliminates the need for one-on-one interviews, allowing them to interview more people and better candidates faster.

Wamly, founded in 2018 by Francois de Wet, allows companies to recruit candidates by sending out a custom link that allows candidates to perform a one-way video interview, just like in person, but without the need for the employer to be present, allowing the company to interview a lot more people in a shorter amount of time.

They can then invite their hiring team to rate, comment on, and shortlist candidates based on their video interviews, resulting in a more streamlined recruiting process and the ability to demonstrate ROI on time and money spent.

De Wet worked with many high-profile corporates and CEOs as an industrial psychologist and talent expert. He noticed that they all had one thing in common over the years: they were all extremely frustrated with the recruitment process.

In 2018, he decided to start a side hustle to address this issue, and when entrepreneur and Shark Tank SA investor Marnus Broodryk tried out his video interview software in his own accounting firm, he saw the potential to help thousands of businesses worldwide. Broodryk embarked on the Wamly journey with de Wet in 2020.

“What’s interesting about our software is that we’re not looking to replace any existing recruitment software, nor are we looking to eliminate a step in the hiring process.” “However, we did notice a gap in the countless, fruitless hours spent interviewing candidates,” de Wet told Disrupt Africa.

“Wamly’s one-way video interview solution is a complimentary add-on that aids in the digitization, streamlining, and optimization of the interviewing process.” We integrate with many third-party applications, and by including the one-way video interview component, we can save up to 70% of the time normally spent finding, interviewing, and hiring a suitable candidate for the position.”

Wamly, which has generated good recurring cash flow since its inception, received its first investment from Broodryk, who now serves as CEO, and the company recently received a second round of funding from South African venture capital firm Knife Capital. Expansion is the name of the game when armed with capital.

“At the moment, our focus is on the South African market, as we believe there are still many organizations that have not yet implemented video interview technology.” However, we are present in all of our neighboring countries, including the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. Expansion is undoubtedly on the agenda, especially with the VC funding. “We believe that our market is an incredible opportunity for us to truly test our solution, and that once we are confident in nailing it here, the world is our oyster,” de Wet said.

Customer acquisition can be difficult because the concept of one-way video interview software is still relatively new, particularly in the South African market.

“Once we’ve taken the interested company through a short demo of our full system, they almost always dive into a POC period where we get to prove to them the true ROI of using a system like Wamly on top of their current recruitment process – it’s a bit of a mind twister, because the mindset is usually – “by adding more software, I’m adding more admin” – however the opposite is true with Wamly,” de Wet explained.

“Sure, you’re adding more software, but the software is designed to reduce your time spent on administration by centralizing all of your data and assisting you in building a talent database to refer to in the future.”

Wamly operates on a subscription basis, charging per user, and reports “great” revenues given the company’s relative youth.

“You have to spend money to make money,” de Wet explained. “We are investing heavily in our platform, our staff, and our brand through marketing efforts.”

“Education has undoubtedly been the most difficult challenge.” As previously stated, many organizations have no idea what asynchronous video interviewing is. So, in the beginning, and still today, we focused a lot of attention on why organizations should invest in technology like ours and how it will save them time and money.”