Disputifier filled 12 key roles in under a year with fractional recruiting

Disputifier’s COO had tried agencies and in-house recruiters. Then he found a third option.

Nidal Haque has built teams at four startups. He’s paid agency fees. He’s hired in-house recruiters. But until he joined Disputifier as COO, he had never heard of fractional recruiting.

Disputifier helps ecommerce merchants fight chargebacks automatically. A solo founder had grown revenue three to four times a year on outsourced talent. Nidal and a new CTO were the first leadership hires, and one of their primary objectives was to build a team with onshore talent.

That’s about the time he met InTandem and discovered an alternative to traditional TA models. Ten months later, he swears by the model and recommends it to his peers.

Two familiar options. Neither fit.

Nidal’s mandate was a big one. Disputifier’s product was built mostly by a large offshore development team, and he wanted to bring senior engineers and a core dev team onshore. That meant hiring senior people quickly, and getting each hire right.

Nidal knew the trade-offs of traditional talent acquisition models. Agencies charge a percentage of every new hire’s salary, and many want part of it up front. At Disputifier’s hiring pace, that adds up fast.

“Let’s say we were hiring two developers in Canada at $150K each. Any agency is minimum 20%, so that’s $30K for one hire. We’re hiring two, so that’s $60K just to get those two hires in place, which is incredibly expensive.”

An in-house recruiter fixes the fee problem but creates another. You pay a full salary through the quiet months between hiring sprints.

It’s no wonder then that Nidal “wasn’t too keen on either option,” and was open to hearing about a better way to hire.

Fractional recruiting: a better way for startups like Disputifier

Things changed when a friend introduced him to InTandem. He met them alongside several other recruiters, and the model stood out: a flat monthly retainer for a set number of roles, full-cycle recruiting embedded in your team, and the freedom to add roles or pause entirely.

Still unsure, InTandem asked for a shot on the first two senior developer roles and dug into the business before sourcing anyone.

“[They] really dig in there and understand your business, the perfect candidates for the role you’re looking to hire, and help determine fit based on different profiles.”

Within a month, Nidal was convinced. And a new partnership was born.

Embedded in their Slack, and easy to work with

InTandem works inside Disputifier’s Slack through its Execution track: full-cycle recruiting on a flat monthly retainer, with a channel for each hire. Together, they set one rule: after ten conversations, bring the three worth meeting. No job posts, no applicant pile, just curated headhunting and weekly updates.

When the first product manager candidates missed, InTandem didn’t push harder. It helped reshape the role and the comp expectations, then went back out.

“I don’t necessarily want to be sold on candidates. I need my recruitment partner to listen to my concerns, adjust, and find us the right talent.”

The model, proven in practice

To Nidal, the budget consideration was a no-brainer. On the same roles, the retainer came in well below agency fees, so the real question was simple: could InTandem deliver?

It could, and the fractional model made the difference. If a search ran into a second month, nobody rushed a candidate to close it. Every hire was headhunted via a curated search process.

In ten months, InTandem filled eight developer roles, a product manager, a partner account manager, a director of finance, and a director of people. Disputifier now has the onshore development team its new leadership set out to build.

“It was really important that we found the right people, as these were all relatively early hires for a growing startup. We’ve hired a lot of people with [InTandem], and they have been a very good fit for us.”

Nidal’s advice to other operators is short:

“Give [InTandem] that chance, and find the right people.”

Results at a glance

• 12 total hires: eight developers, a product manager, a partner account manager, a director of finance, and a director of people

• 8 developers: goal met, an onshore engineering team for the new CTO to lead

• 9 engineering and product hires: eight developers and a product manager, building the onshore development bench for the new CTO

• 50 → 82 people: Disputifier’s headcount in the year InTandem supported its hiring

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