How Bob Flora grew his team with Raptive’s Luminary Recruiting & Organizational Design solution

Hiring a team is one of the most challenging parts of scaling a business, especially those first few hires. We created our Recruiting and Organizational Design solution to help creators build their team with confidence. 

Creators of all levels can access the Build My Team section of the Raptive-exclusive resource center for insights on how to attract top talent, conduct a smooth hiring process, and even onboard new team members.

Luminary creators can take things a step further by tapping into our Recruiting and Organizational Design solution, working with our in-house team-building experts to determine your ideal organizational structure and walk through the hiring process—whether you’re bringing on full-time, part-time, or freelance team members!

We spoke with Bob Flora of Jigsaw Explorer, who worked with the Raptive team to hire his first employee after 14 years of running his business as a sole proprietor.  

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Bob Flora, Jigsaw Explorer

The Challenge

For Bob Flora, Jigsaw Explorer was a solo project for 14 years. He did everything from software development to sourcing new photos for every puzzle published on the site. As his working hours increased, Bob knew it was time to bring someone else on board. But without previous experience hiring or managing people, it was a daunting task he wasn’t eager to tackle. 

“It was really avoidance of the unknown,” he said. “A lot of what was holding me back was trying to get past the fear of what could go wrong.”

To further complicate the situation, his first hire was for a critical role—the person who sources compelling photos, manages image licensing, then edits the images and converts them into puzzles. 

“My time to work on the puzzles had gotten squeezed down to the point where I had to get all of our photo material from stock agencies. It was becoming too limiting and I really needed another solution.”

When Raptive asked Bob if he wanted to participate in the Recruiting & Organizational Design solution, he jumped at the opportunity to have a team guide him through the process.

“This hire was something I couldn’t afford to get wrong. The recruiting solution came along at a very good time, because I really needed it.”  

The Approach

Bob met with the Raptive recruiting team to discuss what he was looking for in a new team member, and how he could establish a foundation for long-term growth.

“The team helped a lot with thinking about how I might want to grow the organization going forward, like whether it would be best to start off working with contractors or with full-time employees,” Bob said. “We talked about what I was looking for in my first hire and what needed to be stated in the job posting.” 

The recruiting team helped Bob get set up in JazzHR, an online applicant tracking platform. They were also on hand to answer any questions he had about handling the applications, setting up interviews, and what to ask applicants throughout the process. 

Once Bob’s top candidate Laura accepted the position, he was able to ask the recruiting team for advice on setting up benefits and corporate policies.

“I had a lot to learn about the HR side of things, so I used the Raptive team as much as I could. It was really helpful.”

The Outcome

“The biggest change has been in what goes on behind the scenes. Laura has been able to branch out to find other sources for our photos, negotiate directly with photographers on licensing, and build up a catalog of photographers we can go back to,” said Bob. “The quality of the puzzles will continue to increase over time. It has definitely taken some of the pressure off of running the business.” 

Bob now has more flexibility with his schedule, and he anticipates making additional hires to further manage his workload. 

“I’ve learned so much from that first hire and I now have so many things in place that will help with any additional people I bring in,” he said. “I just needed to break the ice on hiring, and the hiring process will now be a lot easier going forward. Now that I’ve started building a team, I expect I will continue building it fairly quickly.” 

Bob has long had a vision for expanding Jigsaw Explorer but hasn’t had the bandwidth to act on it. As his team grows, he’s looking forward to finally implementing some of those ideas. 

It’s going to make a big difference as far as what we can do. I can’t overstate how much Raptive’s help has meant to me.

Bob Flora, Jigsaw Explorer

“It’s been a really great experience. Without the recruiting solution I would have hired someone eventually, but I would have had to learn a lot of things the hard way. It was really helpful to have Raptive’s hiring team there to help make it all go smoothly, and it turned out really, really well. I’m so appreciative of Raptive for providing this service.”