In this conversational interview, Matt Paulson explains MarketBeat's employer branding strategy, which relies on low‑cost local sponsored content in the Sioux Falls business journal and a dedicated YouTube channel to showcase employee stories and attract high‑caliber hires. He cites the successful recruitment of a CFO from a $300 million construction firm as evidence of the approach’s effectiveness. Paulson also discusses the company’s limited mishire history, detailing a minority partner buyout that highlighted the importance of clear equity terms. The conversation shifts to valuation discipline, where Paulson draws on his experience running Homegrown Capital—a $40 million venture fund—to advise first‑time founders on realistic company valuations based on revenue, growth, and retention metrics. Throughout, he emphasizes that these branding and valuation tactics are inexpensive, scalable, and critical in a tightening labor market.
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We're doing like paid promotional content about MarketBeat in the local business journal, like talking about our employees and how they, like how they love their job and like what they were doing before and what they're doing now at MarketBeat. We talk about all this stuff we sponsor, like, like people know in Sioux Falls, like MarketBeat is, is a great place to work at. And obviously we pay well. So like when we go out to hire somebody, like we tend to have a, a pretty good choice of people to choose from. Like we We stole the anchor away from the local news to go to our YouTube channel. And we like—
That's awesome, dude.
We stole a CFO of a $300 million construction company to come be our CFO. And like, we can get great people now. And it's because we put all this energy into making Markbeat like a great employer brand in our community.
That's awesome. I actually was on a call with one of my clients who, He'll be listening. He sells boilers and installs boilers and like skilled labor crisis is happening. And so I got a lot of my clients matter, like real things for real people in the real economy, like just like stuff. And like we had like the skilled labor is going to be a problem for quite a few of the people I work with. And we want that dynamic for them to be able to be choosy because they have like very similar characteristics and qualities I think that you have attracted. And I actually said to the guy, I'm like, I think that there's a serious argument to become, you know, I'm going to put in air quotes here, like a media company. But like, you know, like right now they don't have a lot of YouTube channel or any of that stuff where people don't know that they should be the employer of choice where they are. They're even a half ESOP, Matt. So like there's like, there's all these things that could make them, but they, no one knows it. And so like, I think as labor and the demographic cliffs become something that are really a constraint. It's interesting to hear you say that because I think that's something that people should take notice of.
Well, and it's like not really expensive to do. Like our local business publication charges us maybe $250 to do a— maybe $500, I don't know— to do like a sponsored kind of story and like on the, on their website. And like everybody reads it cuz it's like the only thing out there in town. Um, like we write the article so we can say whatever we want. We publish it and Like it's really well spent.
Awesome. Yeah. How about the people that, um, have you had any varying experiences like when you're not hiring the right person and then how you figure out it's the wrong person and then how have you addressed that to find the right person?
Yeah, I mean, we've only had a few mishires. Like, I think we've had like 4 or 5 people leave ever, and, um, really only one person left on their own accord. Um, maybe two. Yeah, two left on their own accord. First, first one was like a gal that I helped her start a business, and then like she made too much money from it, and like, okay, go do your thing, I'll find somebody else to do customer support. Second was a minority business partner that I had that I was going to let— buy up to 10% of MarketBeat, but he had just so many other things going on. MarketBeat was never his priority. So then I ended up having to buy him out. Um, uh, when was that? Uh, this is probably 2019. Um, it was a person I met from Rhodium, so—
Oh really? I don't know if I ever knew you had a partner. How did, how did that go for you?
Um, like the, the, like, the guy was super smart, really good at marketing, and doing online stuff. And I felt like, okay, if I'm ever going to take a partner, I think it's him. But like, he still had other stuff going on and then the other stuff quickly became the priority and like, this just was not working. And, you know, it was the type of thing where you're supposed to provide a ton of value, grow the company, and that's how we did it as equity. But then like the value never really came. Yep. So I was like, all right, we need to wrap this up. And it was expensive to wrap it up, but we did.
And I— Yeah, amen. That's a Very elegant way of putting partnership disputes. I did you— how did you guys— was there any— we don't have to get too much into it if you don't want to, but I'm just curious because when I— when I've— I've also facilitated a lot of internal buyouts and family equity and there's this understanding of what creates value and how valuations work to become— I think I believe that like that is one of the biggest gaping holes where like if we— if you and I are going to trade value, whether it's this phone or whatever, I think You know, my example is like if we're arguing over Android versus iPhone, it's very difficult for us to argue about that. If you think that this is worth $100 grand and I think it's worth $10. And so it's like I just have found that the valuation education becomes one of the biggest issues on the trading. I don't know if you have any experience on that with all the ventures that you have.
Yeah. Thankfully in my deal with my minority partner, like it was all spelled out and like I made sure like I had the right to get rid of him and like at what what price I would get rid of him for. So thankfully, I thought about that ahead of time and was able to deal with that. On kind of the venture capital side of things, I've got a firm called Homegrown Capital. We've got about $40 million under management. So not big by any means, but big enough. And you do find a lot of kind of first-time founders that have never raised money, never done a deal before, just have very inflated expectations about what their company is worth. And I think they just hear a number and get it stuck in their head. But like, even with venture stuff and tech startups, like, there are actual, like, metrics you look at to determine what a company is worth. It's not all just blue sky and picking a number out of the air. It's based off, you know, your revenue and your growth and your retention and kind of all that stuff.
