Having worked around the world for two of the Big Four Accounting firms (PwC and KPMG), Amy Ni, MBA ’19, had decided to go out on her own prior to starting her MBA at the Ivey Business School.
For Ni, the one-year long MBA program was a time for personal growth, but also an opportunity to test the viability of her own startup idea.
Together with a group of Computer Science Experts from her time at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana and Western University, Si-Han Education Technology Inc. was incorporated on February 22, 2019 in Ontario, with the help of Ivey Lecturer Philip King, MBA ’89.
While the start-up was coming together during her time at Ivey, the first step on her entrepreneurial journey began the day she rejected a job offer from Deloitte Consulting in the states.
“That’s when I thought, I should do this,” said Ni.
Talent Management with Artificial Intelligence
Using a software as a service (SaaS) distribution model, the four co-founders, along with Ivey Professor Robert Austin, and the former Executive Director of Ivey’s Career Management and Corporate Recruiting Team, Sharon Irwin-Foulon, Si-Han‘s mission is to provide talent management business solution for enterprises.
A few months in, the company is already post-revenue, and Ni is targeting $100,000 in revenue within their first year in business.
For years, artificial intelligence has played a major role in sifting through job applications. The company’s software goes beyond the basic process of keyword searches, and seeks to solve three major problems in how to attract, recruit and retain top talent.
Firstly, the Resume Check, uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) to identify the right candidates for a particular position, by understanding the content of applicants’ resumes; all within 30 seconds. The system then ranks each of the applicants as a percentage, with those with the highest grades receiving an automated video interview invite.
This aspect of the software has actually been opened up as a free service for students at Western University.
The second process is the Interview Check, which rates the scheduled video interviews of the top applicants through a number of structural interview question banks. At the end of the Interview Check, the software recommends a final list of candidates for in-person interviews.
Si-Han has also constructed a Talent Check function, which is specifically designed to help companies retain talent at both mid-level and junior-level. The Talent Check leverages big data, and portraits key staff members by interpreting data like competency, teamwork and leadership. The software then provides a customized talent retention plan.
When speaking about higher, C-suite level retention, Ni notes that there are too many variables required to provide adequate solutions, currently.
Finding a unique target market
For Ni and her co-founders, the secret sauce lies in their target market; overseas companies looking for high quality talent from the U.S. and Canada.
Ni breaks down the current struggles for major Chinese companies, who must first approach the local government with their hiring needs. The local government then goes through a Chinese agent, who connects with a Canadian agent, who in turn touches base with a university or student club to present the job opportunity.
With Si-Han, a Chinese company can, with one click, forward a job opportunity to multiple job sites, and multiple university career management centres.
Just recently, Ni spoke to government officials from the province of Ningbo, China, who were visiting Toronto to attract Canadian talent. Due to budgetary limitations and a lack of knowledge of other prospective talent pools, their search was limited to the University of Toronto. “They don’t know how to touch base with Western University, Ivey, or the Ivey Career Management Centre… we will minimize these layers, and touch base with more options directly,” said Ni.
Si-Han is currently available in both Mandarin and English.
The software’s attractiveness was further validated at a business plan competition in Shenzhen, China, where it took second-place in the Industry category. The product left such an impression that Ni, and the team, were invited back to meet Shenzhen government officials.
As they prepare to expand their potential client base, Ni and the team are busy building up an overseas talent database, with graduate and undergraduate profiles. Ni notes that the Canadian market is a perfect testing ground for their software, thanks to Canada’s manageable size, and affluence of educated and qualified candidates.
Future Plans
Si-Han is currently at Pre-Series A funding, and Ni is eager to finish the funding stage within the next six-months.
In order to do this, Ni is hoping to launch the 2nd version of the software, while also increasing the use of their individual product offerings, such as the Resume Check.
She is also looking to grow local seed clients, and get feedback on the new functions for the upcoming version.
With the whole team reunited and hard at work in Toronto, Ni is excited to see where her new career path may lead.