The Patch launched their AI-powered recruitment platform on February 5, 2026. Within 8 weeks, Outbound Empire had brought them 10,000+ candidate users and 50 B2B clients — a dual-audience motion that lit up both sides of their two-sided marketplace at once.
The Patch is a simple idea elegantly executed: AI that interviews every candidate, scores them objectively, and shortlists the top 5 without the recruiter ever touching a CV. The product is sharp. The positioning is polarizing (good kind). The onboarding is 5 minutes.
Two-sided marketplaces have one structural problem: you need both sides at once. Candidates won’t show up without jobs. Companies won’t post jobs without candidates. Most two-sided launches burn 6 months chasing one side before realizing they needed the other in parallel.
The Patch had €1.2M in seed funding and a 2-month runway to prove the motion before Series A. Content marketing and paid ads were the obvious plays — and the ones every competing ATS (Greenhouse, Teamtailor, Welcome to the Jungle) had locked down with years of SEO authority.
The brief from the founding team: launch with both sides lit at once. By end of month 2: 10,000 candidate users and 50 paying B2B clients. Budget: €15K total for the outbound motion.
We started January 14, 2026 — 3 weeks pre-launch. Our job: run two parallel outbound motions that fed each other. B2B recruiters on one side. Candidate communities on the other. Both timed to peak by launch day.
Seeded 120 HR leaders at 50-500 FTE companies with early-access invitations. Locked in the first 10 early adopters on aggressive freemium pricing to pre-fill the demand side before launch day.
On Feb 5, the first roles from the 10 early adopters went live. We ran candidate-side outbound via LinkedIn + newsletter placements in engineering & ops communities. 4,200 candidates signed up in week 1.
With 4,200 candidates in the platform, recruiter-side outreach became 3× more effective. Every email referenced the available candidate pool. 40 additional B2B clients signed at full price by week 8.
Each B2B client brought 1.3 more B2B clients via referral. Each candidate brought 0.8 more candidates organically. The marketplace started compounding without our hand.
We started before they launched. Three weeks of seeding meant day 1 wasn’t a cold start. 38 live jobs = 4,200 candidates. That’s not luck — that’s sequencing.
Dual motion, one feedback loop. Every B2B sequence referenced the candidate pool. Every candidate sequence referenced the hiring companies. Each side made the other side’s pitch stronger. That’s how two-sided marketplaces beat their cold start.
Outbound as the flywheel starter, not the flywheel. By week 8, organic signups exceeded outbound-sourced signups. Our job was to light the fire, not keep it burning. By month 3 we’d scaled down B2B outreach by 50% because referrals carried the rest.
Launching a two-sided marketplace in 8 weeks used to require a €5M Series A and a 12-person growth team. Outbound Empire did it with 2 people and €15K. If you’re launching a B2B product and thinking about paid ads, you’re thinking wrong.
20 minutes. No pitch deck. We look at your market, show you the playbook, and tell you if we can help.
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