4 Roles in 4 Months: How Shaped Hired with SeekOut Spot

When Shaped raised $8 million in Series A funding, the company entered a new phase of growth. The product was evolving quickly and expectations from customers and investors were rising at the same time.

For Daniel Camilleri, Co-Founder of Shaped, that meant balancing several priorities at once: guiding product strategy, working with the board, and helping shape what the company would become next. Hiring was part of that picture, but it soon became something much larger than expected.

Shaped needed to bring in new people with specialized skills. The challenge was finding the right candidates for a young company still defining its identity and workflows. With no dedicated recruiting team in place, the responsibility for sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates fell to Camilleri and other leaders.

A startup at a crossroads

Life inside an early-stage startup rarely slows down. Teams stay lean, priorities change quickly, and every hire carries weight. At Shaped, that pressure intensified after the funding round. The company needed people who could step into complex roles and grow alongside the business.

Two of the first positions reflected that need: a solutions engineer with strong customer-facing experience and an account executive with expertise in cloud technologies. These were not entry-level roles. Each one required technical depth, adaptability, and the ability to work closely with customers. Shaped could not afford to rush the process or compromise on fit.

But without a recruiter, the work of finding and evaluating candidates landed on leadership. Sourcing profiles, reviewing resumes, scheduling interviews, and having early conversations became part of Camilleri’s routine on top of product planning and company strategy.

A partnership that reduced the burden

Rather than continue stretching internal capacity, Shaped chose to approach recruiting differently. The company partnered with SeekOut Spot to take on the full hiring cycle. SeekOut Spot combines AI-driven talent search with dedicated recruiters who manage sourcing, outreach, screening, and early evaluation.

The relationship began with a detailed intake conversation. Shaped’s leadership and the Spot recruiter walked through the specifics of each role, the culture of the team, and what success would look like beyond a job description. They discussed which skills were essential and how to recognize long-term fit.

From there, the Spot recruiter handled the operational work. This included:

Building candidate profiles
Running targeted searches
Reaching out to prospects
Screening candidates before introducing them to Shaped’s interview process

Camilleri and the leadership team remained involved in decisions, but no longer carried the day-to-day burden of managing pipelines and early conversations.

Fast results with strong alignment

Within three weeks of the intake call, Shaped made its first hire: a solutions engineer whose background matched both the technical requirements and the team’s working style.

“We found our ideal candidate three weeks after the initial intake meeting,” said Daniel. “Having access to information like salary ranges was important so we could position ourselves more competitively.”

Additional roles followed. Over four months, Shaped filled four key positions while continuing to recruit for three more.

“SeekOut Spot helped us hire two additional sales and engineering roles just as quickly as the first two, with equally impressive qualifications,” said Daniel.

What stood out was not only the pace, but the consistency of the process. Each search followed the same structure established during the intake phase. Candidates were evaluated using clear criteria rather than gut instinct alone. Access to market data and salary benchmarks also helped guide outreach and candidate conversations. That information made discussions more transparent and reduced uncertainty for both sides.

Instead of reviewing large volumes of resumes, Shaped received shortlists of candidates who were prepared for meaningful interviews. What might have required company-wide effort became a focused and repeatable workflow.

How this reflects a broader hiring shift

Shaped’s experience mirrors a larger change in how growing companies think about recruiting.

Traditional hiring often relies on internal teams to absorb recruiting work on top of existing responsibilities or on external agencies that prioritize volume over alignment. For small companies, both approaches can slow momentum and create frustration.

SeekOut Spot takes a different approach by combining AI-powered search with human judgment and accountability. The technology helps narrow the field, while recruiters shape the process and evaluate fit. Leadership remains involved in final decisions without managing every step.

For Shaped, this structure allowed hiring to continue without pulling attention away from product development and strategy.

Lessons from Shaped’s hiring experience

Three lessons emerged from Shaped’s journey.

1. Define success before sourcing. The intake process created clarity about what mattered most in each role. That clarity guided every stage of recruiting and reduced wasted effort.

2. Balance speed with precision. Shaped moved quickly without lowering standards. AI-driven insights and structured screening supported both goals at once.

3. Delegate the process, not the decisions. Execution shifted to the Spot recruiter, while final choices stayed with leadership. This balance allowed Camilleri to stay focused on leading the business rather than managing logistics.

Hiring that supports momentum

With four roles filled and three more underway, Shaped no longer treats recruiting as an interruption to daily work. It operates as a parallel process that supports growth instead of disrupting it.

The partnership with SeekOut Spot allowed the company to build a steady hiring system without creating a recruiting department from scratch.

“From day one, our SeekOut Spot recruiter fit right in with the Shaped team. We’re excited to keep partnering with SeekOut—we’re already working on three new hires together with more on the way. I’m confident they’ll help us find the right people for our critical leadership and analytics positions,” said Daniel.

For organizations managing scale and speed at the same time, Shaped’s story points to a practical lesson: when recruiting is structured and shared, leadership can focus on building the business while hiring continues in the background.

To see how this approach worked in practice, you can view the full Shaped case study or request a meeting with the SeekOut team.