Taylor Christoffel: From Employee to CEO of Uncubed

Show Notes

Taylor Christoffel, CEO of Uncubed, shares the story of the company's evolution from HR software to employer branding production. He joined Uncubed in 2016 and eventually acquired the company in 2024. Taylor discusses the value of the company's legacy and the passion he brings to the business. He highlights the expansion of Uncubed Studios into the European market and the opportunity to improve employer branding in Europe. Taylor's background in video production and his dedication to building the company have been instrumental in its success.

• Uncubed started as an HR software company and evolved into employer branding production.
• Taylor Christoffel joined Uncubed in 2016 and acquired the company in 2024.
• The value of Uncubed lies in its legacy, reputation, and production services.
• Uncubed Studios is expanding into the European market to improve employer branding in Europe.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Barnaby Cook

What is The Exit Plan: Mergers and Acquisitions for Creative Entrepreneurs?

The Exit Plan is for business owners that are interested in learning more about how to sell their business. Each episode Barnaby Cook interviews someone who has bought or sold a business - either a creative agency, or a production company. The conversation gets under the skin of why they wanted to sell, or were looking to acquire, how the deal was structured, how they agreed upon a valuation and what lessons they learnt along the way.

Cool.

So yes, I always start the same way and it's just by asking you to introduce yourself.

Tell me who you are and a little bit about your business.

Well, thanks for having me.

My name is Taylor Christoffel.

I am the CEO of Uncubed.

We are based in Amsterdam and we work in employer branding production.

We're a small little studio and we serve big clients like AWS, IBM, Amazon, Peloton, and
our work is mostly helping brands tell their stories to candidates.

OK, fantastic.

Because I used to do some work in the employer branding space as well from a video
perspective years and years ago.

Do you know Brett Mincington?

He does World Employer Branding Day in Amsterdam.

you familiar with him?

don't recall the name.

No, I'm not.

okay, fine.

Not to worry.

So, yeah, so tell me a bit about the how long how long has the business been around?

And was it is it you that founded it?

Or did you have a co founder?

So Uncube's been around since 2012.

When they first started, they were in HR software business.

And then that evolved into career fairs.

And their unique value proposition was connecting innovative companies with talent in big
cities like New York and San Francisco and Chicago and the US.

And then they were running that business for a while, it doing really well.

And they wanted

find a way to connect a lot of the candidates that were at these events, post -event.

And so they decided to create a career board where companies that were at the events can
post their jobs and a little bit about their company in case candidates didn't get a

chance to catch them or see them in person.

And then through the site, they can apply or learn a little bit more about the company.

And there was an opportunity for video.

The video was an asset that they realized was a better way to see into the company, hear
voices, see what's like inside offices.

So they started a few pilot episodes.

think they did a few, a couple with BarkBox and BuzzSeed was a couple of them.

And when I got wind of the company, I actually worked with them as a contractor and they
reached out to me to

elevate their brand.

Sorry, I'm gonna start over again.

Sorry about

yeah, yeah, no worries.

Yeah, go for

So I started with them as a contractor and they wanted to build a video suite that would
help their employer brand pages.

And so I started doing a a few months as a contractor and along the way we started
building products that seemed to really work and fit.

And so I joined them full time and I started building a studio with them and started
creating products.

And sure enough, eight years later,

I am now the CEO of the company after an acquisition.

Okay.

So it's interesting.

So they started out as HR software, but then what happened to the software side of the
business?

Or did the production kind of completely replace it or was it just an add -on service?

Well, in the beginning, they were trying to figure out what was working.

Some things worked, some things were a little slow.

Software was kind of the approach, but they did everything from job boards to automated
candidate selection services, to resume parsing, employer brand pages, basically

everything under the wind of employer brand pages.

But the production side came a little bit later, and that's where I came

And that was creating content, video content, sizzles, little documentaries into the lives
and the work that people are doing.

And podcasts were another source of media that was able to articulate and propagate their
culture.

And in terms of kind of business model, which era did it turn out that the kind of
production was more profitable than the HR software side of

I think in the long run, the production side seemed to be a service that people really
wanted.

It seems to be very strong and relevant to this day because brands still need to tell
their story and video is probably the best asset to tell that story.

The software side, they built out technologies and services that actually ended up being
acquired by recruiter .com.

And when recruiter bought those technology services, I was able to spin off and keep the
production side of Uncubed and that we branded as Uncubed Studios, which is still going on

strong

Okay, that's really interesting.

you joined in 2012, is that

I actually joined in 2016, so they were already in the business for a while.

And when I joined, I joined right at time that they were looking to expand and supplement
their income, but also support the brands that were on their platform.

Okay.

And what, so when you joined in 2016, what kind of size was on cubed in terms of revenue
and number of employees?

time I joined there was about 16 employees.

We were in Chinatown, New York, and there was a lot of people doing different things.

There was an event side, there was a technology side, back end side, and then there was a
product side, and I was folding under the product side.

And I think at the time they were doing about a million and a half US dollars in revenue
per year.

Okay, so you were living in New York at the

Correct.

Yeah, I was living in Brooklyn actually.

And when I joined, they were doing events pretty much all over the city.

This were the NYC on cubed.

This was the career fair.

And it was really nice to be able to go to the Chinatown because I get to ride my bike
over the bridge and eat Chinese food and see a different part of New York that I didn't

get a chance to

Interesting.

Whereabouts were you living?

Sorry, I didn't catch that last,

Sorry, was just asking where you lived, because I was living in New York at the time as
well.

was in 2016, I was in Park Slope.

I was in East Williamsburg, right on Metropolitan and Olive, right by Olive Park.

it was right before Williamsburg blew up that I moved there.

And now when I go back and I see that neighborhood, it's completely changed.

But that neighborhood was still industrial.

And I lived in a two story apartment with a roof deck and we were paying really cheap rent
and I could not.

Imagine what that apartment is going for

Yeah, it's gone ridiculous.

Okay, so when did you move back to Amsterdam

I just recently moved to Amsterdam in February of this year, in 2024.

My wife and I had our first daughter and we both have been professionals in the city for a
really long time.

And we really wanted to change.

And the fortunate part of it, we were able to keep our jobs.

So we decided, let's go for it.

Let's move to Amsterdam.

And I had actually wanted to start a new agency with Chelsea, my wife.

And that was a way that we were able to get the daft visa in the Netherlands.

But I was able to keep my role at Uncubed and do all this.

So when the, the offer or the opportunity to acquire Uncube came up, structurally from a
business standpoint, I was able to acquire Uncubed under my new agency that I started in

Netherlands.

I'm so sorry.

I'm at, I got to turn off my note.

I didn't turn off my notifications.

I'm so sorry.

They're popping in right

Okay, I'm terribly sorry.

Yeah, no worries.

Yeah, so tell me about how the offer to acquire on cubed came

Well, actually, I'll give a little bit of a story before that.

When I first joined, I did a few projects and the owners are really happy with everything
I was doing and we're getting a lot of good feedback from the clients.

Let me start again.

The story of the exhibition actually dates back when I first joined.

I was led, I was tasked to lead the video department.

And while I took that role, I had a lot of ambition and a lot of drive and ownership.

And I wanted to treat that part of the business as my own.

And I was pretty transparent with the company that I wanted to have this department and
run it like my own business from day one.

And they really appreciated that.

And it resonated with them.

And so along the way in the first year, they offered me shares into the company in case it
got sold or whatever they wanted to do with it.

But they gave me an incentive to play stock options with the vesting cycle.

I had vested those twice over.

It was four year vesting cycle and I had been with Uncued for eight years.

So at the time when COVID happened,

We were kind of scrambling to see what we can do and stay relevant because a lot of
employer branding initiatives were falling short or a lot of layoffs were happening after

2021, should say.

So we kind of had to rethink the business and the owners had a lot of other ventures.

They're entrepreneurs and they have other businesses that were doing and they were very
transparent with me and the other employees that they wanted to seek to do

things and continue on with their endeavors.

And I took that as an opportunity to have a discussion with them and say, hey, if
anything, if you guys want to leave and you want me to take over the company, I'm totally

happy to do it.

I have the business structure, the holding structure here.

I could do it.

And just about a few, a few months ago, that opportunity actually really came to a
forefront and we're, we've been talking about it for about a year

Once the opportunity came, I said, let's do it.

I'm ready to go.

said, fine.

Boom, boom.

We did the deal.

We, sorry.

We did the deal and structurally it all made sense.

It was very easy.

I had all the company assets already in my possession, studio equipment, all the media,
all the drives, computers, basically had everything to run the operation on my own as is.

And I already had an establishment.

with all the clients, relationships with all the clients and peers in the industry.

So it was just a no -brainer for me to take

So at what point did they sell the software side of the business to recruiter .com?

When did that

This happened in early 2021.

Chris and Tark, who were the previous owners, they have been looking to sell that side of
the business.

They weren't really sure how or when, but they wanted to find a way to have a, to reap the
benefits of all the work that they have done with that side.

And a lot of that was job boards.

technology, sourcing candidates and organizing candidate experience through job boards and
job posts.

A lot of the technology, everything that I did not touch was something that they wanted to
basically sell and they were successfully able to sell that part.

And the catch was, is that at the time that Recruiter .com bought it, the name Uncube was

under license for a year.

So they had a year to hold onto Uncubed if they wanted to keep that name.

They ended up not using the name, but we kept the name Uncubed Studios as a spinoff.

So as the acquisition happened, I said, I would like to reclaim the name Uncubed fully.

And we were able to keep the name and get it back from recruiter.

Okay.

So, so between 2021 and 2024, you were, you were still in New York and kind of running
Uncubed Studio just without the software side of the business.

Correct.

Okay.

And what kind of size was that business on its

When Recruiter bought Uncubed and the technology side, they did take that team with them.

And so that was a significant reduction in employee count at Uncubed.

When we rolled over to Uncubed Studios, we had about four people left over to run the
studio.

Okay.

And with Chris and Taras, what was their involvement after they'd sold the software side?

So when Chris and Tarek sold the technology side, Tarek stayed with Uncube Studios and we
were

When Chris and Tarek decided to sell the technology side, Tarek stayed with Uncubed
Studios and ran it as CEO.

And Chris went on to work with Aura Frames and to decide that he wanted to run, I'm sorry,
I'm take that part again.

When Chris and Tarek decided to sell the technology side,

Tark saved with the Uncubed Studios and Chris moved on to Aura Frames where he's now the
CFO.

OK, cool.

So in terms of where are the team now?

Is everyone in Amsterdam?

Or are some of still in New

now, yeah, right now the company has been reduced down to myself and a few contractors.

had talked when, sorry, I'm gonna start this answer again.

This is my first podcast I've ever done, so.

yeah, don't worry.

Don't worry.

It's all good.

It's all good.

Can you repeat the question for

Yeah, no, I was just going to ask the the the makeup of the of the team and the fact that
you moved from New York to Amsterdam.

Is there a way that maybe I can not say how many people are now because that's going to
change soon?

And I don't want to say this.

I don't want to say it's just me and a couple of contractors.

That's fine.

So in that case, a different question.

So now that you're based in Amsterdam, presumably you're maintaining a lot of those client
relationships.

Are a lot of them still US and are you just servicing them from the Netherlands?

As of now, yes, we are still working with all of our US clients and companies that we
represent.

We still have a lot of long -term clients and a lot of relationships that we built that we
sustain.

When I moved out to Amsterdam, my biggest goal was to expand the employer branding
services out to companies in Europe.

Majority of our clients are in US and North America, but we are starting to close some
deals out in Europe.

majority of our clients are based in the US.

So it's been a lot of work to work with the different time zones and

Yeah, I'm sure.

in terms of the deal that you were able to do then, how did you kind of go about valuing
what it was worth and how did you go about kind of structuring the deal to acquire

Well, I think the value of the company at the time that I acquired it in my mind is that
we had a lot of legacy in this space.

A lot of people knew about Uncubed.

Uncubed had a lot of presence in New York City.

A lot of people at HR and employer branding know about Uncubed.

And we have worked with a lot of big brands.

created a lot of great content.

So to me, the value was in what Uncubed is and the production and the value that we bring.

And to the previous owners, Chris and Tarek, they always thought that the value of the
company would be best served if it was given to someone like myself who could passionately

take it on and do something with

rather than finding someone that would pay X amount of dollars and then do who knows what
with it.

I think in their mind, at the end of the day, they probably felt more comfortable giving
it to someone who has owned it since day one and passionately cared for it and knows it

inside and out because since day one, they did not take VC money.

Everything was home brewed, grassroots, self -funded.

A lot of ups and downs.

And I think at the end of the day, they really wanted to give it to someone that they felt
would take good care of

Okay, so presumably it wasn't like a sort of, you know, big, like cash deal type thing.

I guess, were you able to kind of negotiate something with them where you were able to
kind of pay them out over a period of time?

Or how did you, how did you kind of structure

So the way that we structured it is that it was a full asset transaction where they would
be transferring all the assets of the company.

So that's all the studio equipment, all of the IP, all of the media and content, the
contracts, all of the documents and data that we provided.

I have a huge

email list.

We have a lot of customer and client information.

So there's a lot of value in that asset.

And the way that we structured it was they would give me the entire company through an
asset deal to my company now.

And the terms that they wanted to go forth with is that if I were to sell the company
within the first 12 months, they would get 25 % of that deal.

And after 12 months, I think it it slid down to 12 and a half percent and 10%.

So they wanted to make sure

If I were to turn around and make a sale of the company that they would at least get a
portion of that because they felt that that was based on a lot of the efforts and the

investments that they had, which was totally fair.

And a clause that they added is that I would have to have a minimum threshold of income
per year and they would have a right to buy back if I did not clear that threshold.

So it's an interest of mine to...

to keep the company going, otherwise they have the right to buy it

Okay.

Okay.

then that's interesting because that's, that's called an anti embarrassment clause when,
yeah, they, they, when, you know, if you sort of, you know, if they sell it to you at a

certain price and then you go off and sell it at a much higher price in a short timeframe,
then it protects, protects the previous owners.

so yeah, that's interesting that they, that they included that.

So, so it was your

Amsterdam holding company, was it, that bought the assets?

And how did you fund

Are you asking how I funded the

how you find it.

I don't know, like, you know, I don't need to kind of know numbers of like what you paid
for the assets, but just how like how it was funded.

The purchase of the of the company.

Well, the good news for me is that with the asset deal, I didn't have to put any cash
upfront.

I think...

from a symbol, let me start that answer

Yeah.

So fortunately for me, when I acquired the company, it wasn't a cash deal.

It was me vesting all of my shares and my stock options over eight years and having all
the assets in my possessions, the drive and the ambition to carry on the company was worth

more than cash.

So good for me, okay for them, know, they didn't get a cash deal out of that, but they
did.

have the feeling that the company is going into the hands of someone that would take care
of it.

I don't think they really were interested in selling it to a first buyer that just wasn't
in the space or didn't really understand the brand and what the purpose of the brand is.

And plus I had asked them straight up to take it.

And with the holding company in Amsterdam, the funding probably on my end was more

into starting that company.

And that was part of the visa deal.

So that was having minimum capital requirements, paying lawyers, notary, a lot of the
startup fees for starting a company out here, production fees, maintenance fees.

So the money is being invested into the holding company, whereas Uncubed is the asset
acquisition that I'm running

Okay, great.

And so how have things changed?

Like how has it been for you sort of since you've made that acquisition and how's business
been?

Well, since I acquired it, it's been a few months now that I have it.

I'm very excited to embrace this new journey.

A lot of new clients are coming in through our website.

We still have word of mouth.

have still a lot of US clients that I'm working with.

I have a client called Noble House that runs multiple resorts across North America.

I'm doing employer branding video for them.

There's a quite a very big media agency that I won't name that I'm working with right now.

The deal hasn't closed.

kind of under an NDA right now, but it's a very, very big media agency.

And going forward, I'm very excited to be a person that is going out there and speaking
about the company instead of someone that's behind the scenes, doing the product and

working on the sets and editing the videos or shooting the videos.

I'm going out there in the field and representing Uncube, which is

a new phase of Unqueue.

With the clients and the work that I've already done, I did that naturally.

And every day I would be doing sales or I would be on employer branding calls and talking
about what we do.

But now that I am owner of the company, CEO, it kind of changes the mood a little bit.

it's a new journey

Okay, great stuff.

Good.

I'm just trying to think of my next question.

And if there's any questions that maybe if you like me to expand on, maybe I gave you
short answers.

If there's anything you want me to expand on a little bit, I'd be more than happy to.

Like I said, it's my first podcast, so I might be little dry.

mean, listen, it's, it's a really good, it's great, right?

You sort of, joined, you joined this business as an employee and worked there for a long
time and you got an opportunity to acquire it and, and, and take it and run with it.

And that's, that's, you know, and you, sounds like you got a really good deal out of it as
well.

And a bunch of assets that you can leverage to kind of turn it into

Keep going.

What's your background actually?

what do you do?

Do you kind of shoot and edit?

that sort of primarily what where you what's what's your kind of like core skill set?

Would you

So I have about over 20 years of professional video production experience.

I have basically done everything in the production field from cinematography, video
editing, sound design, sound mixing, pre -production, post -production.

color grading, you name it.

I've done it and I've done it in professional levels.

having that experience allowed me to start my own businesses in New York.

So I started a little production studio in Brooklyn and I was able to work with clients in
fashion, technology, financial services.

I worked directly with agencies.

I was able to work with big businesses, small businesses.

everything around the sun I was able to work with through being my own business owner.

So I had enough skills and experience from that stint as a small business owner to get to
a point to ask myself, okay, do I want to continue running a small business and basically

waking up every day and looking for a new business and looking for the next thing or

Do I want to work for another company who has capital, who has a team, who has a direction
and I can kind of run the engine room.

And, you know, I know the engine room really well, I run it, but it was kind of hard to
steer your ship and run the engine room.

So I thought I wanted to take a break from running my own small business.

And that's kind of why I joined Uncubed.

Cause I thought it was a perfect opportunity to join a company and say, Hey,

I want to take this video department, I want to own it, I want to start it from scratch, I
want to grow it, and I want to see it all the way through until it's successful.

Either it gets sold or it dies.

I want to work this out because prior to that, I was freelancing for years in New York
City.

As you know, it's very choppy.

You have these seasons and work comes in.

then it's dried up and it's very tough.

And I think I was at a point where I said, I wanna work in a company and have a position,
have one single brand that I'm not always responsible for basically maintaining, but I

wanna support it.

I really wanted to be the chief supporter.

Yeah, And what are your plans now?

So, know, where do you want to take the company?

So right now we're expanding to the European markets.

Basin Amsterdam is a perfect position to travel to Berlin or London, to Paris, to you name
it.

Everything is close.

It's within time zones that I can work with.

And I have a lot of connections out in Europe and I'm starting to build these connections
and I'm noticing the same thing that was happening in the U .S.

is that when you go to a

page, a lot of their websites, the front end looks really good, the front page are all
basically a Lambo, but when you get to the careers page, it's basically a Pinto or a very

rundown car.

And I see a lot of opportunity to bring the work that we did and the employer branding
production services that we did in the US to a lot of these European markets.

That's fantastic.

Yeah, you should check out World Employer Branding Day.

I think it's coming up in September or October in Amsterdam.

So that would be a good event.

do remember that now, actually.

I was blanking on it, but I do know exactly who you're

Yeah, that would be a thing for you to go to, reckon.

Great.

Okay.

Well, I think I think that's covered everything.

Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?

Maybe...

Maybe I wanted to say something about...

think maybe the angle for your podcast would be acquisitions and I would say an
acquisition of a company can be done through perseverance and loyalty to a brand.

You know, cause I started as a contractor and when I joined full time, I was brand new to
the company and I didn't understand employer branding at the time.

I didn't really know what they were doing.

I didn't know where the company was going, but I knew for a fact that whatever the job
they gave me and the studio I was going to build, I wanted to build it all the way up, see

it through and really make it a success.

And I think they saw that early on.

And so when they offered me the employee stock options, it kind of gave me the motivation
and drive to say, okay, I really want

build this product, build the brands all the way to the ends.

And that was what they recognized all the way through.

And so when we had the conversation about acquisition, it was, like I said, a no brainer.

They said, you you're the one that can take this and champion it and bring it to the next
level.

And now there's no restrictions.

I don't really have

run any ideas through anyone else.

I have sales strategy.

I have a new demographic I want to work towards.

I have a new asset production class that I want to build and market.

And it's an opportunity to take all the experience that I've built over the past eight
years working with lots of different brands, lots of different companies.

And start something new under my management and really see where this goes.

It's basically a new chapter for Uncubed.

Great stuff.

Well, that seems like a good place to wrap it up.

So yeah, thanks very much for sharing your story.

Thank you so much for having me.