Job leads startup gets seed funding to put emphasis on culture, transparency

You’ve been accepted in a new job. You’re excited, of course – you’re finally leaving your crappy old company and horrible boss. While counting the days before your first day, you catch yourself imagining your new office, your new team, and how this new opportunity will change your life.

But after you get settled in, you realize it isn’t all you expected it to be.

Wobb is an attempt to prevent job seekers from being caught up in this awkward situation. This Malaysia-based job app and site offers users a peek into what they’ll likely experience in their new workplace. From office photos to testimonials from employees, Wobb gives you an idea of what a company’s culture is like. If you still can’t picture it, here’s an example of a page on Wobb – the one made for multiple gym membership startup KFit.

Today, Wobb announced it received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from investors in Hong Kong in exchange for 10 percent of the company.

Wobb founder and CEO Derek Toh tells Tech in Asia they’ve received the funding in full and that it gives his team eight months of runway.

The company plans to use the money to fund its expansion to other countries in Southeast Asia, as well as Hong Kong.

More transparency

“The recruitment industry is a multibillion-dollar industry in Southeast Asia alone, and employers continue to look for different ways to compete for the best talent. A recent survey by LinkedIn shows that one of the top obstacles preventing a job seeker from changing jobs is not knowing what it’s really like to work at a new company. Wobb’s unique focus on company culture helps address that issue directly,” says Derek, who was formerly associate director of leading global recruitment consultancy firm Robert Walters.

Wobb started as a blog focused on the topic of work culture in October last year. It relaunched in April as a mobile job search site with a mission to lead professionals to jobs that they love.

“I did wonder whether a job site that’s focused on culture was ahead of its time, especially in Southeast Asia. What kept us going was when we received emails from job seekers who took the effort to let us know how much they love our platform. Employers initially had mixed reactions to a culture-focused job site. However, we’ve recently had many large corporations reach out to us directly to want to be part of Wobb,” Derek explains.

In the US, however, there have been sites such as Glassdoor, which people use to determine whether a company is a good fit for them. Launched in 2010, Glassdoor holds a database of more than eight million company reviews and ratings, CEO ratings, salary reports, office photos, and more.

“We do not rate companies or think that it’s very meaningful to do so,” says Derek. “You can’t determine how good an employer is just by looking at how many stars they have. Different cultures suit different people, so a company I may rate with five stars, someone else may rate with just one.”

Millennial job seekers

Wobb mainly targets millennials who have recently graduated or are now in their early careers.

It has a pool of 3,000 job seekers who Derek describes as “quality talent” – people with good track records, experience abroad, and strong academic backgrounds.