LinkedIn Growth Engine

Building profitable audiences for established recruitment firms ($1M-20M revenue).

Founder & CEO

Longevity Life

Helping people live measurably longer, healthier lives. Our mission is to add 1B healthy years to humanity.

Founder OS

Hired as first Founder Success Manager (FSM) to:

- Build out backend continuity program (OS+) from 0-1
- Build & deliver upsell motion from OS → OS+
- FSM to 30+ founders. Player-coach to newly hired FSMs

Results:
- Helped grow OS+ ($25K offer) to 200+ members
- Closed $250K in cash collected upsell revenue
- Collected 20+ 5-star testimonials on TrustPilot
- Developed 10+ SOPs, playbooks and frameworks that comprise core curriculum

Founder Success & LinkedIn Growth Instructor

KarmaCheck

Head of Customer Success

Blueshift

Head of Customer Success, EMEA (2019 to 2021)

Director of Customer Success

Mixpanel

Enterprise Customer Success

Optimizely

Onboarding Specialist

Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC)

Supported the development of AIC's Education Outreach Program

Dada

Follow for daily Insights to live a longer, healthier life

Over the past decade, I’ve scaled revenue and client success at three SaaS companies from $5M to $30M+ ARR, delivering 110%+ net revenue retention and top 10% NPS scores (65+).

Today, we help recruitment firm owners & Principals ($1M–$20M billings, 5–20 recruiters) turn LinkedIn into their #1 revenue channel by building trusted authority in their market.

Our clients don’t want to be “content creators.” They want visibility that converts into qualified pipeline and high-intent retained searches. That’s what we do.

In the past 12 months, we’ve generated $5M+ in client revenue from LinkedIn by positioning their firms as the go-to authorities in their markets.

Our methodology:
→ Revenue Growth Engine - a 3-step system perfected with 40+ founders
→ Content strategy that generates demand for retained executive searches (not just likes)
→ Strategic outreach to initiate conversations with your ideal clients and candidates
→ All requiring just 1.5 hours per week from busy Principals and founders

Our results:
→ 40+ founders and Principals served
→ $5M+ in client revenue generated from inbound leads via LinkedIn
→ 4+ qualified inquiries per month within 90 days (average client result)
→ Doubling client pipelines in under 6 months
→ Clients include 7 and 8-figure retained search firms commanding $50K+ fees and securing multi-search mandates

And we're just getting started!

We help recruitment founders who are:
→ Tired of building trust from scratch and ready for clients who arrive pre-sold
→ Reliant on a referral pipeline that has plateaued and feels unpredictable
→ Ready to turn decades of expertise into an inbound client pipeline

Ready to turn LinkedIn into your #1 growth channel?
→ Book a 15-minute strategy call: 

https://calendly.com/rohan-karunakaran-mbww/1-1-15-min-consult

Just spoke with a recruitment firm owner doing $2M a year.

"AI sourced 200 candidates in 12 minutes. Used to take us 7 days. How do I compete with that?" 

She's asking the wrong question.

The real one: what happens when your competitors have the same AI tools - and 20,000 LinkedIn followers who see *them* as the specialist?

She places 20 executives a year. Average fee: $120K. Twenty years of placement wisdom. 

But online? Invisible.

Meanwhile, a generalist with half her expertise just won three of her dream accounts — not because they’re better, but because they consistently show up in the client’s LinkedIn feed.

Last month, I watched a boutique firm lose a $2M contract to an AI platform charging $50K. The client's words: "We saw their ads and success stories everywhere."

That’s the real threat — not AI. Invisibility.

Because AI can't tell you why that Stanford PhD with three unicorn exits will quit in 72 days. (He's a 0-1 builder, they needed an optimizer.)

AI can’t sense the power struggle between the CEO and CTO.

Or spot the founder who burns out hires with midnight Slack messages.

You can.

After 500 placements, you can read the patterns that predict success or failure in seconds.

But if that expertise stays locked in your head while louder generalists post daily - it’s irrelevant.

You become just another name in their vendor database. Another undifferentiated cost center to manage.

The firms commanding 30% higher fees aren’t competing with AI.

 They’re sharing their hard-won placement wisdom where 78% of hiring managers and candidates spend their time: LinkedIn.

Every week you stay silent, another competitor becomes the “obvious choice.”

While every post you share builds trust before the first call.

If you’re a 7-figure recruitment firm owner ready to stop competing with louder generalists and start building trust at scale — shoot me a DM. 

It’s time to turn invisible expertise into inbound authority before your competitors do.

Rohan Karunakaran

Helping recruitment firms 2X retained searches in 90 days | Podcast host at Founder-Led

Just spoke with a recruiter who's been placing veterinary talent for 20 years.

Less than 1% falloff rate. The kind of partner biotech CEOs dream about.

She lives on LinkedIn daily - sourcing candidates, using every advanced search trick.

But hasn't posted in months.

So while she's placing impossible-to-find doctors of veterinary medicine (DVMs) and C-suite talent... those same companies have no idea she exists.

She calls it her "6-call trust-building tour." 

Six calls to prove what she already is: exceptional

Meanwhile, competitors with half her success rate close in two calls. Why? Prospects already know them from their content.

Here's what she knows but isn't sharing:
• Why DVMs really leave clinical practice for industry
• The compensation mistakes that kill veterinary talent offers
• How to spot which animal health startups will succeed

Twenty years of wisdom. Locked in her head instead of her prospects' news feeds.

The real cost isn't just the missed searches. It's the compounding effect:

The downward spiral (when you're invisible):

• You take contingent searches from anyone who calls
• You compete with 3-4 other firms on every search
• You get brought in after they've failed for 6 months
• You're seen as a vendor, not a strategic partner
• Price pressure pushes your fees down

The upward flywheel (when you're visible):

• CEOs call you at the planning stage, not the panic stage
• You secure retained exclusives from ideal clients only
• You're consulting on org design, not just filling requisitions
• You get exclusive mandates across multiple divisions
• You command premium fees without justification

The math is brutal: 

6 trust-building calls × 20 prospects = 120 hours just proving you're credible

Those same 120 hours could be spent:

• Securing enterprise RPO contracts
• Advising PE firms on talent due diligence
• Building multi-year talent pipelines for portfolio companies
• Actually doing the strategic work you're capable of

Every week of silence compounds: 

Month 1-3: You're working harder for smaller fees 
Month 4-6: Generalists are winning your specialized searches 
Month 7-12: Your best clients build internal talent teams because they don't know you exist 
Year 2: You're still excellent, but exhausted

The firms winning tomorrow aren't just the best at recruiting.

They're the best at showing they're the best at recruiting.

...sound familiar and want to shift from the downward spiral to the upward flywheel?

DM me and I'll send you a customized workflow showing exactly what this transformation would look like for your firm.

The best recruiters are invisible.

Not by choice. By accident.

You have 20 years placing executives. You know which companies burn talent versus build it. You can spot a padded resume in seconds.

But while you're making 70 cold calls a week, a rookie with 6 months experience is publishing daily on LinkedIn.

Guess who wins the $100K search?

The rookie. Most of the time. 

Not because they're better. Because they're visible.

This is the invisible expert trap: The more expertise you gain, the less time you have to share it.

So you grind harder. More calls. More hours. Less visibility.

Meanwhile, the rookie posts "5 Tips for Hiring" and gets three inbound leads.

Here's the painful math:

You: 10 hours BD weekly → 3 conversations → 1 maybe
Visible rookie: 30-minute post → 2,000 views → 5 inquiries

They're not stealing your clients. Your invisibility is gifting them away.

Every week you choose expertise over exposure, you're choosing:

• Cold calls over warm inbound
• Proving yourself over arriving pre-sold
• Competing on price over commanding premiums

The invisible expert trap has one exit: Stop hiding your expertise.

Your 20 years of placement wisdom locked in your head helps nobody.

Not you. Not your clients. Not the candidates who need you.

The market doesn't need another invisible expert.

It needs you. Visible. Now.

P.S. That expert making 70 calls a week? She could reach 3,000 people with one post. But she "doesn't have time." That's the trap.

Taplio

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