#375 - Jesse Tinsley - CEO @ Employer.com - Rescuing Bench, TikTok Purchase?, Battle Tested Acquisition Playbook

The Fort

Jesse is a founder who bootstrapped and scaled Employer.com, Recruiter.com, Before You Apply, and BountyJobs.com into a $500M+ HR Tech powerhouse. He built these brands by solving global problems in EOR, payroll, hiring, and workforce management for companies of all sizes.

Most recently, Jesse has gone viral for his public bid to acquire TikTok, alongside some of the most influential names on the internet. He also recently acquired Bench within 48 hours of its announced shutdown and was able to keep the company online for the bookkeeping needs of its thousands of users.

We discuss:

- Acquiring Bench via X

- How Jesse structures his acquisitions and organization

- The People’s Bid for TikTok

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Links:

Jesse on X - https://x.com/JesseTinsley

Bench.co - https://www.bench.co/

Employer.com - https://www.employer.com/

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Topics:

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:03:13) - Acquiring Bench

(00:21:29) - Jesse’s background

(00:24:10) - Talent Density

(00:25:57) - Acquisitions and integrations

(00:27:55) - Building an ops playbook

(00:31:46) - Setting annual goals

(00:33:45) - What makes a great VC Partner?

(00:36:22) - What kind of acquisitions do you pursue?

(00:40:50) - Making the bid for TikTok

(00:52:42) - What entrepreneurs do you admire?

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