Enabling our customers to unlock more opportunities and accelerate their business, motives everything we do: Scott Kim of RocketReach

“We are continuously investing in delivering the best data quality and contact database breadth with low-friction, integrated, intelligent tools to simplify our customers’ workflows.”

RocketReach is a leading professional contact search platform that is trusted by over 18 million users and 95% of the S&P 500. The company was founded by two software engineers who identified a significant gap in the contact data space. After extensive testing and optimizing, they built a search engine with impressive capabilities to quickly index and access publicly sourced contact data at scale. Starting as a bootstrapped company, they experienced remarkable success and profitably grew the business to a multi-million dollar company. Over time, the company has expanded its product offerings, became beloved by customers, and built the dynamic team it encompasses today.

RocketReach was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

The Silicon Review contacted Scott Kim, the CEO of RocketReach, and here’s his response.

Interview Highlights

Q. As a leading B2B contact data provider, what are RocketReach’s key focus areas?

We see our role as connecting professionals to new people and opportunities via the most comprehensive contact database with easy-to-use tools that simplify our customers’ workflow. To do this well, we focus on delivering the best data quality, inventing easy-to-use tools, adding intelligence that is helpful, and being a trustworthy partner for our customers.

Q. Can you introduce us to your products and solutions? What are their main features?

RocketReach fuels sales, marketing, recruiting, and fundraising efforts with critical contact information.  Whether you’re looking for a developer halfway around the world, a C-level executive in New York, or a potential investor in Silicon Valley, we connect you directly. Our simple tools give you easy access to the most comprehensive, accurate compilation of contact information on earth. That puts you in front of the right people faster and empowers you with a database that reaches across industries, markets, and titles.  Our models use AI to continually improve the quality of your contacts.

RocketReach’s advanced search and create lists features make it easier for you to curate and target contacts based on very specific or broad criteria. And what’s even better, is that these lists automatically update when contact information updates occur. Saving you time and effort. We recently launched AI-powered recommendations that help users unlock new possibilities to increase their targeting, and Intent Data is coming in Q4 2023.

For those with more robust use cases, we have a lightweight and intuitive REST API that enables our customers to automate lead generation, contact discovery, people search, and profile enrichment, along with a myriad of other use cases. Furthermore, our Chrome extensions and powerful integrations with CRMs, ATSs, and engagement platforms enable users to do more from the comfort of their favorite applications.

Q. Can you provide us with one or two success stories, detailing specific client challenges and how RocketReach’s solutions contributed to their success?   

Daversa Partners is technology’s go-to specialty search firm that builds executive leadership teams for growth-stage and venture-backed companies. With a global footprint, data analysis and innovative technology remain at the forefront of Daversa’s day-to-day operations. Accurate and reliable contact information is critical for its outreach, and gathering information across multiple sources was time-consuming and lacked the precision necessary to target the right candidates efficiently. In its quest to improve its recruitment process, Daversa Partners turned to RocketReach.

RocketReach offered a comprehensive set of solutions tailored to address Daversa’s following needs:

Accuracy: The vast database of contact information was an invaluable resource that allowed Daversa to reach with ease and precision. A proprietary and complete mix of data sources includes web pages, artificial intelligence, and custom solutions that provide an aggregate profile with real-time validation techniques. They improved data accuracy rates by 20%–30% and we are excited to have a 90-98% deliverability rate on verified emails.

Scale & efficiency: The browser extension seamlessly follows recruiters on business profiles and company websites where information is sourced instantly, without opening RocketReach. Increased workforce efficiency by 20% with a work-smarter and streamlined approach offered by an accessible browser extension.

Custom support: A custom onboarding plan built jointly by RocketReach and Daversa, which included staged rollout and in-depth training as well as a recording library for future hires, more than doubled monthly lookups, resulting in a 200% increase in adoption and usage.

The integration of RocketReach into Daversa Partners’ talent acquisition process yielded remarkable results: 20% workforce efficiency, 30% increase in data accuracy, and 200% increase in usage.

Thanks to RocketReach’s comprehensive database, advanced search filters, user-friendly browser extension, and tailored support, Daversa Partners has experienced heightened efficiency and enhanced candidate engagement. Consequently, Daversa has been able to focus on understanding its customers’ businesses and finding the right talent to fuel their growth.

Q. Tell us about the RocketReach team. What value do they bring to the company?

The RocketReach team is uniquely down to earth. The talent is high, and the humble attitudes are even higher. The team is incredibly collaborative, expert problem-solvers, and trusts their colleagues to do good work. It’s one of the healthiest environments of collaboration that many of us have experienced in our careers.

Q. What new endeavors is RocketReach currently undertaking?    

We are continuously investing in ways to improve the breadth and quality of our contact database and provide low-friction, integrated, intelligent tools to simplify our customers’ workflows.

Due to our self-service model and easy-to-use solutions, it’s really exciting to see the breadth of use cases and customers we support. Their needs vary from finding the right contacts as potential customers, partners, candidates, investors, research candidates, and so much more.

What brings all these use cases together is that once they know who they want to contact, they need simple and clear workflows to reach out to these contacts, track engagement, and actually connect with them. We are in the process of building out more products that complete more steps of this workflow intuitively and all in one place for our customers.

Scott Kim | CEO

Scott Kim has over two decades of experience scaling new businesses and technology platforms with successful exits. From his experiences across engineering, product, strategy, and operations, he has cultivated a uniquely deep and holistic perspective.  Fueled by curiosity, tenacity, and creativity, Scott is a low-ego leader who strikes a unique balance of high EQ and IQ, which makes him a strong people and business leader with a strong following.

Scott graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Computer Science and started off his career as a software engineer at LoudCloud Systems. He spent a decade at Ask.com, holding roles from within engineering to SVP of Technology and Products, Chief Technology Officer, and then Chief Strategy Officer. Since then, he’s held COO and CEO roles at About.com, Bankrate.com, Zocdoc, and now RocketReach.co.

“By focusing on ease of use and accessibility, it is really exciting to see the breadth of our customers - big and small - and the use cases they use us for.”