Season 2, Episode 2: Nick La, Co-Founder of Weploy Group

You could have a lot of talent and experience but still be ignored — because your experience might not be seen as relevant, or just because your name or your cultural background might not be something that a recruiter is familiar with. 

Nick La, for example, couldn't get a job when he returned to Melbourne from Hong Kong. Too qualified, they said. Not enough local experience. So to help others, he built Weploy — a recruitment platform that strips out names, ages, and genders so employers actually hire for talent. One of their first candidates was a woman who had been running a billion-dollar portfolio. She applied directly to a Melbourne company. They passed. She then went through Weploy and was placed immediately at the same company. The line manager at that company called Nick La within thirty minutes: "Where did you find her?" he asked, not realising he already had her from a previous application. 

In this episode, Nick talks about building from nothing, pitching across a stranger on a nine-hour flight, and what he's learned now as he backs other founders.

Making It in Melbourne is produced by the City of Melbourne with technical and research assistance from RMIT School of Media and Communication.

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 I'm Jeanette Chia, and this is Making It in Melbourne. My guest today is Nick La, the co-founder of Weploy. They're an on-demand recruitment platform matching employers with talent, but doing it a little bit differently, taking out names, ages, genders, so that people are really getting the talent that they actually need.

Nick is Australian-born, the son of Vietnamese migrants, and he returned to Australia after a stint in Hong Kong to solve a problem that he and his co-founders observed. I just loved hearing Nick's stories of in the pre-AI age being incredibly scrappy, building off spreadsheets, hustling around university campuses, and now he's on the other side of that journey, sitting as an investor and bringing a truly empathetic founder lens to his work.

This is how Nick La is making it in Melbourne

My guest today is Nick La, co-founder of Weploy. Yep. Thanks for being here today, Nick. Thanks for having me. Now, we will get to Weploy in just a little bit, but I wanna start with the fact that you are the co-founder of a successful company. Yeah. You now sit on the board of that company. Yeah. You work at a venture capital firm.

Yeah. But yet, when you first moved to Australia, you couldn't get a job. Yeah. That's- So- That's pretty much it. Tell me what, what happened there? Um, it was... I think people think I was a little bit overqualified, didn't have the experience in Australia. Um, so my whole background is I left Australia to go back to Hong Kong.

Um, it's where I first started my first agency, uh, Liquid Ambience, which is a food and beverage agency. Uh, we did that for seven years. We own a couple of portfolio companies in there. Um, and then I got married, came back here, and it was the whole being overqualified, you know, "We can't find something that kinda fits for you."

Um, went through the whole recruitment, um, spiel, and then was told by people that, "Hey, it, it's gonna be really hard to find you a job." So that's probably where the idea spout- sprung on with, uh, Weploy. But before it was Weploy, it was actually a company called Cutting Edge Group, which was a hospitality agency, um, hiring for, uh, S&B businesses.

Right. So we've already had a couple of evolutions before we even got to Weploy itself. Yeah. Can I come back a little bit to your personal background? Yeah. So I guess even coming into the, the concept of moving from Hong Kong to Australia after working in Hong Kong, getting married, et cetera, um, what was the, what was your upbringing and background?

Went to school, um, my parents weren't very, very entrepreneur- entrepreneurial. My mom was okay. She, she had a couple businesses. Um, hairdressing, she owned. She was the owner, owner of the salon pretty much. She was an accountant by background. Um, but the one thing she always instilled with us was, you know, if you believe in it, you know, you can do it.

Um, so when I said like, "Hey, I'm gonna go to a country that I've never been to. I can't speak the language. I've got 100 bucks in my pocket." "What do you think?" She's like, "Yeah, go do it." Nice. Yeah. And so you'd already started your first business in Hong Kong, and you said it was the first of its kind- Mm ... in Asia.

It was a beverage consultancy, is that right? Yeah. Yeah. What did those seven years of experience building that consultancy give you? It gave me a lot of confidence that, you know, you can do things without experience as long as you're willing to give it a shot. Um, people build businesses obviously. Um, and through that process it was hospitality.

You, you get to meet all different peoples of background. Um, because Hong Kong is such a financial hub, you tend to meet people from New York, London, Canada, all over the world actually, and you get to learn how they live and how they view business as well. And then I guess when we're thinking about, you know, how that then connects to what you started with Weploy- Yeah

um, you've identified some kind of problem here, a little bit to do with your own experience- Yeah ... with hiring, and a little bit to do with what's going on- Yeah ... in the hospitality space. What, what was that all about? Well, it's... The, the one thing that was very similar or, or unique was when I was in Asia, um, a lot of the people that lived there had Chinese names and then they'll have an English name.

Mm. Um, and then when I came back here, even myself, um, I, I was born with a Vietnamese name. It wasn't Nick. Um, so, but it was much easier for people to call me Nick than Long Tan La. You know? It's, it's so much easier on the, on the tongue. And we noticed that as well when we, when we first started Weploy. Um, we had these really long names and we realized like, you know what?

As a, most recruiters aren't even looking at, um, and they're not giving these people an opportunity. So we, we said like, why don't we just remove that unconscious bias, remove names, ages, sex, and it was just all about competencies. So when you're actually looking at a candidate you are just actually only look at the, uh, competencies.

So, so you, you identified the fact that people were missing out on awesome talent and I guess the, the hidden talent pool- Correct ... so to speak. Correct. Do you think that that's changed at the moment or do you think it's still a persistent problem? I don't know. Like, uh, h- honestly, I think it's getting better, um, but I think it's still there.

You know, there's, there's reasons why there's people like us st- st- still trying to push the boundaries, uh, trying to make a change. Um, I'm not saying everyone's a racist or biased, but like it's not, like, predominantly out there yet, you know? Um, I guess, like everyone needs to just change and keep on pushing.

It'll get better. We're in Australia. Th- so I do believe like, uh, it is the land of opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like every single person that makes a, makes a push towards change and makes a good decision- Yeah ... uh, helps to evolve that. Now, when I think about this hidden talent pool, I often talk about it as, like unlocking captive talent, you know?

It's, it's, it's, it's there, it's just the opportunity's not evenly distributed. I'm curious about how you identified and attracted your first few candidates, 'cause you're a business that no one's heard of before. And just for context for the listeners, we're sitting at RMIT University in the studio. Yeah, yeah.

You had a story about wandering around on this campus doing something a bit, uh, creative, I'll say, to get your first few candidates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell me about that. It's a two-way marketplace, right? So you got... You need jobs and you need candidates. Um, just so when we started, we didn't have money, and we couldn't advertise, and we gotta figure out...

Like, we had jobs. We actually had friends that, "Hey, you know, we're willing to give you guys a chance. We, we just need candidates. Good candidates, too." Um, so we put on our Weploy T-shirts, and we actually walked around this campus- ... offering, um, students jobs. What kind of jobs were you hiring for? Um, it was admin support, legal support, uh, finance support.

Anything we could touch, we would do it. Because we weren't trying to really get real, experienced people, but what we did know was a lot of the students or a lot of the candidates we had, had the, I can do attitude, and they can probably run a VLOOKUP better than most of us. Um, so they, they weren't scared of, uh, working hard.

Um, it was more getting an opportunity. It's that wedge into that job, right? And so that's how we were selling ourselves. And do you think that, um, there were certain segments of candidates that you were finding were attracted to Weploy more than others? Yeah, yeah. We, we, we definitely saw that. Immediately we saw- Um, we saw a lot of the international students that wanted to stay in Australia- Mm-hmm

like, they hustled, hustled, hustled, um, to get the job. And they didn't treat the job like a, like a nine-to-five job. They were trying to excel at the job to get a full-time job to stay in Australia, you know? And they were very proud to, whatever job they got. Um, and then we saw, like, the local talent. They were like, "Oh, you know, if I don't, if I don't get this job," like there's probably something else there for them.

Uh, so we saw this hidden pool that we had people that came over here that were either already accountants or they've already worked in that sector already running billion dollar contracts, and they just couldn't get a job because it was just their name or people just didn't have the time. It could be just the way they spoke.

You know what I mean? Um, and so we saw, like, a really big opportunity there. So we're, we're talk- I mean, if there's one thing that will be consistently true, it's that international students will hustle for their places. Yeah. Um, so we're, we're attracting international students, we're attracting maybe skilled migrants who aren't getting the chances.

I'm curious about the other side of the marketplace, so the actual employers. Did you find any kind of resistance to them hiring people who they didn't know what their, I guess, demographic profiles were? And how did you get around that? Um, w- it was actually quite easy for us because, um, DIE was around, uh, removing unconscious bias around...

There, there was all these b- buzzwords. So when we actually mo- met with, like, um, HR leaders or thought leaders, we said, like, "You know, how about we just remove the middleman?" Mm. "And you get to pick the candidate yourself. You know, you won't see their name. Um, you just see what their experience is, and you can make an opinion.

And, you know, we'll pay for their visa checks. We'll pay for everything. We'll put our money where our mouth is for them. Um, and then if they don't do a good job- Um, you don't have to pay them. We'll pay them. Um, so that's, that's how we actually got in with everyone. Everyone thought, okay, well, these guys are actually trying to do something good and trying to create opportunity where opportunity didn't exist, and we kinda coined that when we first started.

That's a really, um, that's a really bold move to actually put your money behind anonymous candidates. Yeah. And what did it mean for, what did it mean for your team to actually kind of, like, back yourself, back the candidates, and put your own money on the r- on the line? Um, so we, we inadvertently built a community by, by accident, right?

We really just wanted, um, through our experience and, uh, our personal experience as well, uh, along the way somewhere of one of us would've, um, experienced, like, a bias or being treated a little bit differently. So we wanted to see how we can hone that, make, make the employment experience or the journey much more pleasant.

Mm-hmm. Um, especially, like we had, like, a ton of candidates that came here and, like, we were, like, literally their ... You talked about the, the different environments. Like, you've got your work, you've got your home, and then it was kinda like Weploy, like, hey, we've got this opportunity for you, and we genuinely did care.

Um, so we, we had people coming to our events just supporting us, um, just like, "Hey, like, you know, you should go talk to Nick and Tony and Vince. Um, they got me a job six months ago. Now I'm working at this great firm," you know? So good, that word of mouth and the ... I think community-building is now such a common way of scaling and growing businesses, but I think that was an early, you were an early version of that, um- Yeah

for sure. One of my favorite stories about the early days of Weploy is securing that early investment, and I understand that there was something about jumping on a plane. Yeah. Yeah. So can you talk us through what kind of, uh, what happened there and, and, um, what happened next? Um, so at the time I had a restaurant.

Um, and the idea about Weploy actually came from my co-founder, Tony. Um, he, he had some wire frames and, you know, I was said like, "Look, if you, if you wanna do it, like, um, I'll drop everything and we'll go all in." Um, and then I brought in, um, our third co-founder, Vince, uh, which is a- high school friend of mine.

Um, he, he had a, he got our first cornerstone investor, which, um, he kinda liked the idea at the, at the restaurant. We kinda invited him to the restaurant, and we end up, like, served the food really slowly, and then we end up like- ... you know, pitching to him there. And he was like, "Okay, guys," like, you know, "Really just wanted to eat the food."

Um, so my co-founder, Vince, uh, found out his, uh, flight the next day and booked a ticket, but they were, like, one seat away, and there was a gentleman in between him. So he's like, "I gotta get this done." So he started pitching over the guy, uh- ... and, 'cause the guy wouldn't move. So, and he's like, "Screw it," like, "I'm just gonna keep on pitching."

And by the end of it, the guy goes like, "Hey, look, you know, can I, can I invest as well?" Um, so he won him over. Then we got the phone call. I still remember. I was living in Berwick, um, like around 11 o'clock at night, and he's like, "Guys, it's done. We've secured the investment." And we're like For how much? And he goes, "Don't worry about that."

And we are like, you know, "Look, okay, let's just focus on, um, what matters. We've, we've got investment now." And that's what, that's what it... Yeah. Yeah, that's ... How long was the plane flight? It was like a nine-hour flight. So most people are like, "I'm gonna watch two or three movies," and your co-founder's like, "No, you're listening to me for nine hours."

That's, that's fair enough. Uh, he was, he was not gonna let, let him leave until he said yes. So like we, we do believe, and I think he, he, he's admitted a couple times now that, um, he, he beat him down for that, that investment. He goes like, "You know, if these, these guys are willing to fight that hard, uh, for my capital and for their vision, then, you know, like, they're, they're the right guys."

Now I'm, I wanna know about, 'cause you talked a lot about the, the impact that you're proud of making with Weploy and helping people get great jobs. Do you have a concrete example of the kind of difference it's made to a particular person, something that really stick, stuck with you? Uh, we, we had this, um, candidate, um, I won't say her name, but, um, essentially she was a contract worker running like a billion-dollar portfolio in, I think it was Dubai.

And when she came over here, um, it was w- with a large organization, and she couldn't get the job. She actually went to them directly. Um, and then she went through our platform. Uh, this was like super, super early, and then we deployed her to that company, and then we got a phone call like within half an hour, and the, the line manager gave us a call, and, and I still remember it, um, because they were like, "Where did you find this candidate?

Like, it's, uh, it's amazing. Like, she's so good." Mm. Um, and we, we told them the secret. Like, they, you actually had her, um, but the recruiter just never gave her the time. Wow. And they were shocked. And so then they were like, "Oh, okay, cool. We, we need to open up like, uh, how we look at talent and source talent."

And so by doing that, not only did you get someone an amazing job- Yeah ... but you also helped a company realize that their internal processes- Yeah ... might require a little bit of examination. Yeah. Nice one. Good impact. Good impact. Now, you have now, I guess, lived the founder journey where you're, you've moved to the board- Yeah

of your own company. Yeah. Um, and in fact, you're actually now sitting on the other side of the investment table working with Empress Capital as a- Yeah ... as a VC. Can you tell me about that sort of jump? Like, what, what psychologically had to happen for you to make that decision and, and change, and then how's it feel?

How's it felt? Uh, it feels good. It feels good. Um, it feels good that like, you know, the, the seven or eight years that I was with Weploy, like, you know, you- You do BAU, then you go around, then you gotta find capital when you wanna grow again. And, you know, you meet s- so many people, you know, um, you know, people, "Let's, let's have a second meeting, let's have a third meeting."

And l- a lot of the time, nine out of 10 times, it doesn't eventuate to anything, right? Um, so I've taken those learnings to Empress Capital, and we, we work in a very different manner. Uh, we say ... We get faster nos. Um, and if we wanna say yes, then we say yes pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. Uh, we try to save time from the founders.

And from our experience, um, 'cause ev- ev- everyone are founders actually, um, at Empress Capitals. Um, they've all had, um, their exits. So we look at it from a founder's lens. Um, so when we're meeting, um, early stage founders, we're very empathetic. Um, so we don't just look at them as, as a piece of paper with numbers and traction and what, how exciting it is.

Um, at early stage, you're really only looking at two things. You're looking at the, the people and the problem, right? Um, and the rest is kinda like a gamble or like a big bet. Um, so if the team has a tech person, a salesperson, and the person that knows the problem, and the problem is big enough, um, then most likely we will take a punt on them.

Now that you've, inverted commas, made it, um, uh, with a successful company and, and now your new roles, is there anything that you still feel like you have to fake it till you make it? Is there anything that you're still fronting about? I always try to remember why I started these things or why that I got into entrepreneurship and why I wanted to help people.

Um, that makes it a little bit easier. Um, I don't, I try not to be the smartest person in the room. Um, I try to really help where I can. I think that's quite important. And, like, um, talking nonsense to people is, you're not helping anyone, right? Um, so you don't have to be the smartest person or the biggest person in the room.

Um, be sincere and empathetic, I think is the best way, especially at, with Empress Capital, early stage, the, the one commodity you can't, um, take back or get back is time. So don't waste people's time if you're not sincere about it. I think that's a really, um, that's a really good observation, I guess, that only a founder would maybe be able to bring- Yeah

to the investment side of the table. And when you actually do speak to these early stage founders now, and you've been through their journey, do you have a particular piece of wisdom that you would like to give them from your, from what you've e- from what you've learned? Um, yeah, yeah. Uh, before you wanna take on capital or take on investment, like just remember like what that really means.

It's, um, everyone celebrates when they get that capital, like, oh, it's, it's a big win. You're actually taking up a lot of responsibilities. It's, you, you're taking up like a shareholder into your business, um, and then you, you have to respect that capital as well. Um, so I think that's, that's really important as well.

So I always tell people, like if you don't need to get the investment, probably stay away from it. Try- if there's other ways that you can get to product market fit, get some paying customers, you know, just prove the concept, you know, that, or the market, then start there. Um, I seen it a lot where, "Hey, let's, let's figure, think of an idea and let's see, let's see who would invest."

Um, that's probably the wrong way of thinking about it. Mm. Like, I was told you can build video games with some pieces and a piece of dice and just check if it's fun, if, if it's fun to play. Um, the- think outside the box, like, you know what I mean? Like, um, I think that's, uh, that's probably my advice to people, yeah.

What are you seeing with the impact of AI onto the new generation of startups that are coming through? Yeah, like peo- people are moving fast, like phenomenally fast. Um, something that we could do in six months, they're doing in days, hours now. Like, that's- Incredible. Incredible, right? So I think there's no technical mo- moat anymore.

Those days are gone. Um, I think IP is just going to be a buzzword. Um, I don't think even people having an issue with, you know, solo founder is a thing. Like, you s- you see it right now, there's, there's people out there, you know, using 20 grand in cash, running, um, a $1.8 billion business. Like, you know, it's phenomenal, right?

So I think the way we have to think about it as well is like, you know, you've, once again, you're betting on the problem and you're betting on the person or the team, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, 'cause the technical moat has completely disappeared. Now, is there something that you're working on in this space that you might wanna give us a bit of a preview about?

Yeah. Is there something coming up next for you? Yeah, yeah. We've, um, we've been in stealth mode. We've been working on a company called, um, HR Hero. In Australia, you've got like, a compliance regarding putting job descriptions and making sure it's compliant. Um, so essentially it does two things only. Um, you upload a job description, it tells you if it's compliant or not.

Um, and the other thing, it tells you what the wage or salary that you're supposed to pay. Mm-hmm. Um, a lot of, um, what I found out is a lot of recruiters don't know what they're supposed to pay, and a lot of candidates don't know what they're supposed to be getting paid compliantly. Um, so that opened up s- uh, penalties, and that was literally my job at Weploy at one point.

Now, I gotta ask you, because we are here, Making It in Melbourne, as someone from a diverse background with, you know, migrant parent background, what is it about Melbourne that you're finding is a good place to do business? Um, I think not just even Melbourne, but I think, um, all of Australia as well. But uniquely Melbourne, um, we, we were able to go to communities, um, startup events as well, meet people like yourself, which, which is really, um, fostering the, the, that space, that startup space as well, right?

So, uh, we've got also the R&D incentive that really helps you to kinda help you from bootstrapping, and really stretching that capital a long way. Um, and then obviously you can always work at any kind of cafe with the best food, best drinks, anywhere in A- any alleyway you go to, there's probably like a good place.

Yeah. That's so true. G- gotta be well-hydrated, well-fed. Yeah. Um, and then there's lots of options to, to work and get funded. So Nick La, co-founder Weploy, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having me.

That was Nick La, the co-founder of Weploy. I just love how Nick has done so many different things from opening a bar to starting an agency, running Weploy, and now he's on the other side of the table helping to support new founders. And we should probably keep our eyes peeled for his next hustle. I'm Jeanette Chea.

I've been building my business in Melbourne for nine years, and hearing the stories of entrepreneurs is one of the best parts of my job. On the next episode of Making It In Melbourne, I'll be joined by Sri Venkatesan, the co-founder of Next XR Group. They're an amazing company with 50 employees, fully bootstrapped, helping to upskill the next generation with virtual reality and augmented reality content.

Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.