Web Scribble Solutions has been around since 2002, but a new business model has led to fast growth reminiscent of a budding startup.
The company makes software that powers job boards for nonprofit trade associations. Its largest client is AARP.
Web Scribble landed a spot for the first time this year on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing companies, ranking at No. 1,350 for 481% growth over three years.
The company plans to grow revenue by four times in the next three years, according to CEO Alexey Gutin.
Since 2018, the company has been based on the entire second floor of the building at 216 River St. in Troy. It has nearly 50 employees, almost 30 of them local, with plans to double headcount in the next two years. Web Scribble wants to build out its executive team in the next six to 12 months with a head of finance, head of product and other positions. The company just hired a vice president of sales and marketing.
“Our preference is to keep growing in the Capital Region, so our goal is to keep looking for talent here ideally,” Gutin said.
Web Scribble was founded by twin brothers Alexey Gutin and Alexander Gutin, president. They are still sole owners of the company.
The brothers moved the company from their bedroom and into the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute business incubator in 2003 at age 19 while they were pursuing undergraduate degrees. They later spent some time in the Rensselaer Tech Park.
The company started out building software for e-commerce businesses, along with custom projects in other areas – including online job boards.
Revenue from the company paid for the Gutins' tuition with a little leftover. When they graduated about 10 years ago – Alexey with a doctorate in management and Alexander with a law degree – they had to decide whether to create something more sustainable or move on.
“We didn't want to get real jobs, and so we took that job board product that we had built, and was being sold very inexpensively, [and] started charging it on a subscription basis,” Alexey Gutin said.
They found a significant opportunity in 2015 when they started developing job boards for nonprofit associations.
“That's where we've seen tremendous growth over the last three, four years in particular,” he said.
The company started with some smaller organizations, and that led to some medium companies. By the end of 2017, the company signed its first three big clients: AARP, the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association and the American Psychological Association.
“It took awhile to break into that industry,” Gutin said. “It's very much an industry where you need some recognition to get the larger partners and the larger associations.”
He said the service can be used to help employers in those industries find the workers they need, often faster and cheaper. He used a client, the National Association of Social Workers, as an example.
“That's a profession where it doesn't pay that well, you need a master's degree and there's not enough of them graduating. And it's quite difficult to hire one,” he said. “So a lot of employers come to that career center to go find qualified talent they simply can't find anywhere else.”
Gutin said one of the top reasons people join trade associations is for career advancement. So when an association implements the Web Scribble service it can help gain and retain dues-paying members.
Associations often get the software for free, while employers looking for new hires pay a subscription or posting fee. Web Scribble then shares some of that revenue with the association. Along with that, Web Scribble runs recruitment sales and marketing on their behalf.
“So they generate non-dues revenue without having to do much work at all.”
