{"id":100833,"title":"Standout - The Agentic Hiring Marketplace","tagline":"Talent and companies each get an agent that makes intros when it matters","body":"**TL;DR:** We're a talent agent connecting the world's best startup talent with the companies building what's next.\n\nWe don't sell software, we deliver introductions. Both sides get an autonomous agent that vets the other end and only makes the intro when the fit is real. Introductions in hours, not weeks. Free for talent, success-only for companies. One month in: 100 intros done.\n\nHiring is broken on both sides. We're rebuilding it around agents.\n\n\u003chttps://youtu.be/7LdjJO-ibdI\u003e\n\n**❌ The Problem**\n\nHiring should match the right people to the right roles. It rarely does. Five failures repeat on every search, and almost no one escapes them.\n\n* **Spam** — Talent fire hundreds of AI applications. Recruiters fire hundreds of AI messages. Both inboxes drown in noise.\n* **Visibility** — Early stage founders struggle to reach the talent worth hiring. The best talent gets buried in the inbound. Both sides struggle to stand out.\n* **Asymmetry** — Talent see titles and comp bands. Founders see resumes and LinkedIn. Neither side sees what actually matters.\n* **Privacy** — Looking around means risking your current job. There's no way to say \"I'm open\" without saying \"I'm leaving”\n* **Cost** — Recruiters take 20–30% of first-year salary, after weeks of back-and-forth, and the role still goes to someone they didn't find.\n\n**✅ Our Solution**\n\nStandout is an agentic hiring marketplace. Talent and companies each get an autonomous agent that represents them, vets the other side, and only makes the intro when the fit is real.\n\n* **Spam, gone** — No applications, no cold outreach. The agent only surfaces matches when the fit is real.\n* **Visibility, restored** — We see the roles that never hit the market and bring them to the people they're meant for.\n* **Symmetric context** — Both sides see what actually matters. The intro lands as a single message: who this is, why they fit, why now.\n* **Privacy by default** — Talent stay invisible until they greenlight a role. Identity is never exposed without consent.\n* **Aligned cost** — Free for talent. Companies pay only on hire — no retainer, no exclusivity.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=100833\u0026key=user_uploads/2886794/19cf3727-8a22-4910-b69a-12bde13936c1)\n\n**Starting with the startup ecosystem**\n\nWe're starting with founding engineers, early product hires, and GTM leaders — the roles where the right person changes a company's trajectory and the wrong person sets it back six months.\n\nWe're already representing 10,000+ builders, matched with 60+ startups from P26 pre-seed teams to Series B unicorns.\n\nIf your next five hires will define your company, plug Standout into your stack.\n\nIf your next role will define your decade, get represented.\n\n**Our Ask**\n\n* **If you're a builder** — get represented at [standout.work](http://standout.work). Free, three-minute onboarding, and we start matching you the same day.\n* **If you're hiring** — book a demo at \u003chttps://cal.com/team/standout/hire\u003e. We'll send you the first candidates within days.\n* **If you know someone** — a builder who deserves better than a job board, or a founder drowning in inbound send them our way.\n\n**The Team**\n\n**Alexis Aftalion** — Previously launched Zealy a linear for discord communities. Scaled it to 1.5M MAU and $3M ARR in 12 months.\n\n**Witold de La Chapelle** — Built a jobboard with 100k MAU, ex-Engineer @ Dropbox, Samsara, Chime.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post\u0026id=100833\u0026key=user_uploads/2886794/73e8595d-6a1f-4295-9a0f-47c591083490)\n\n","slug":"QEL-standout-the-agentic-hiring-marketplace","created_at":"2026-05-07T05:59:23.895Z","updated_at":"2026-05-25T02:52:30.583Z","total_vote_count":14,"url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/QEL-standout-the-agentic-hiring-marketplace","share_image_url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/media/?type=post\u0026id=100833\u0026key=user_uploads/2886794/19cf3727-8a22-4910-b69a-12bde13936c1","company":{"id":31402,"name":"Standout","slug":"standout","url":"https://standout.work","logo":"https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/0cae3b4c599e9e6ff92522ffbf541670c1a97669.png","batch":"Spring 2026","industry":"Consumer","tags":["Marketplace","AI","Careers"],"search_path":"https://bookface.ycombinator.com/company/31402"}}