Remote staffing agency placing vetted Eastern European and LatAm talent with US founders

Two revenue models, both B2B. Outstaffing (about 95% of revenue). The company places remote professionals (Eastern Europe, LatAm) with US founder-led businesses and bills the client a flat monthly rate per placement, invoiced at the start of each month. Talent is paid as contractors after the client's cash is received, so working capital is positive. Contracts are month-to-month. Currently 12 clients and 17 placements billing $40.6K per month, about $2,400 per placement, at roughly 30% gross margin. The blended gross margin is around $12K per month before team and overhead. Recruitment (about 5%). One-time placement fee for a permanent hire, typically 15% of first-year salary ($3K–$8K per placement, e.g. $8.1K signed in August). No talent cost passes through, so the fee is 100% margin.

Sourcing on Juicebox and LinkedIn (Growthlead), background checks via Zinc, interviews on Zoom with Fireflies/tl;dv notes, client invoicing and card/ACH collection through QuickBooks, contractor payouts through Revolut Business and Solar Staff, team on Google Workspace and Slack, AI-assisted screening and content with Claude.

Reprice the low-margin placements. Four of the 17 placements sit below the $1,000/month margin floor set in May; bringing them to the floor adds ~$2K/month of gross margin with no new sales. Sell recruitment placements on the existing relationships. Fees run 15% of first-year salary ($3K–$8K each, 100% margin); two closed in Q3 so far. One placement a month covers the whole fixed cost base. The demand is already in the client list — every outstaffing client also hires permanently. Replicate the referral channel. One referral partner (an advisory firm paid a commission on invoices) brought in three of the top five clients. Three or four more partners of the same kind — fractional CFOs, boutique law firms, real-estate advisors — is the cheapest client acquisition available. Go from 1.4 to 2 placements per client. Twelve clients, seventeen seats; the best account has three. Each added seat is ~$700–1,000/month of margin at near-zero acquisition cost. Double down on the verticals that repeat. Real estate (three current clients), boutique law firms (three placements in the past year) and small investment firms (three current clients) are where the book already concentrates; a buyer with an outbound sales function can run a focused campaign at each. For an acquirer with an existing sales team, the asset is a vetted bench of Eastern European and LatAm talent plus a delivery process that runs without the owner; plugging that into a larger pipeline is the return case.