Hiring is broken on both sides. We're rebuilding it around agents.

We're a talent agent connecting the world's best startup talent with the companies building what's next. Standout is built by an ex-marketplace founder and a jobboard builder, two people who've spent their careers on both sides of this problem.

We don't sell software, we deliver introductions. Both sides get an autonomous agent that vets the other end and only makes the intro when the fit is real. Introductions in hours, not weeks. Free for talent, success-only for companies.

The problem

Hiring should match the right people to the right roles. It rarely does. Five failures repeat on every search, and almost no one escapes them.

• Spam. Talent fire hundreds of AI applications. Recruiters fire hundreds of AI messages. Both inboxes drown in noise.
• Visibility. Early-stage founders struggle to reach the talent worth hiring. The best talent gets buried in the inbound. Both sides struggle to stand out.
• Asymmetry. Talent see titles and comp bands. Founders see resumes and LinkedIn. Neither side sees what actually matters.
• Privacy. Looking around means risking your current job. There's no way to say “I'm open” without saying “I'm leaving.”
• Cost. Recruiters take 20–30% of first-year salary, after weeks of back-and-forth, and the role still goes to someone they didn't find.

Our solution

Standout is an agentic hiring marketplace. Talent and companies each get an autonomous agent that represents them, vets the other side, and only makes the intro when the fit is real.

• Spam, gone. No applications, no cold outreach. The agent only surfaces matches when the fit is real.
• Visibility, restored. We see the roles that never hit the market and bring them to the people they're meant for.
• Symmetric context. Both sides see what actually matters. The intro lands as a single message: who this is, why they fit, why now.
• Privacy by default. Talent stay invisible until they greenlight a role. Identity is never exposed without consent.
• Aligned cost. Free for talent. Companies pay only on hire — no retainer, no exclusivity.

Starting with the startup ecosystem

We're starting with founding engineers, early product hires, and GTM leaders — the roles where the right person changes a company's trajectory and the wrong person sets it back six months.

We're already representing 10,000+ builders, matched with 60+ startups from P26 pre-seed teams to Series B unicorns.

If your next five hires will define your company, plug Standout into your stack. If your next role will define your decade, get represented.

Founders

Alexis Aftalion
CEO
Previously launched Zealy, a Linear for Discord communities. Scaled it to 1.5M MAU and $3M ARR in 12 months.

Witold de La Chapelle
CTO
Built a jobboard with 100k MAU. Ex-engineer at Dropbox, Samsara, Chime.