81cents Has Been Acquired by Rora!
Today we’re excited to announce the next chapter of the 81cents story!
We’ve been acquired by Rora, a growing startup in the career advising space that provides 1-to-1 coaching for professionals who are navigating new offers, promotions, and severance negotiations. We will continue to support underrepresented candidates through our Market Value Reports and Script Generator, and will be offering coaching services and more accessible education with the support of the Rora team.
Since 81cents launched in 2018, our mission has always been to give underrepresented employees and candidates the confidence and tools to navigate tough career conversations, advocate for themselves, and get paid fairly.
And, we’re proud to share that, over the past four years, we’ve done just that – helping 900+ underrepresented employees successfully negotiate, achieving an average pay increase of 18%.
We’ve done this by crowdsourcing data, negotiation advice, and mentorship from 2,000+ hiring managers, recruiters, and established professionals who donate their time to the 81cents community.
Why join with Rora? To expand our impact!
The Rora team has built a scalable coaching service that not only helps candidates secure sizable financial outcomes – including more than $10M in compensation increases! – but also addresses underlying challenges around self-worth and confidence.
I met Brian Liou, the founder of Rora, four years ago. Since then, we’ve spent a lot of time together discussing our work, learnings, and growth as founders in the space.
Along the way, we realized how complementary our skill sets and visions were – and, more so, the exciting potential of combining the 81cents mission and community with Rora’s impactful, personalized coaching model.
Our goals in merging 81cents and Rora are to:
#1. Greatly scale up how we support underrepresented professionals, giving them the confidence to negotiate and get paid fairly
#2. Bring together two like-minded, passionate teams since we believe we can accomplish more together than apart.
#3. Build a sustainable, mission-centered organization that’s positioned to combat pay inequity for as long as the problem exists!
What does the acquisition mean for 81cents?
81cents will now exist as part of Rora – and Elyse, Grace, Michelle, Ronke, and I will continue to operate the 81cents brand, community, and product as we have been. We’lI also be working closely with the Rora team to help them grow and expand their coaching program and increase its accessibility, particularly for underrepresented candidates.
More concretely - here’s what you can expect moving forward:
#1. We’ll keep building Market Value Reports – crowdsourcing data, feedback, and advice for underrepresented employees and candidates. Our pro-bono arm 81grants will continue its work, too!
#2. The Rora team will support us in offering coaching for professionals interested in deeper, more personalized support, with a sliding pricing scale to ensure we remain accessible.
#3. 81cents pay equity advisors can continue to advise underrepresented professionals as usual – however, those who are interested in working more closely with professionals through the negotiation process can sign up to learn more about becoming a coach!
#4. We expect to have more resources to dedicate to education – expanding our resource library, adding new partners, and deepening our relationships with existing ones like Colorwave, /devcolor, HireBlack, Sista Circle Black Women in Tech, Techqueria, The Black Product Managers Network, and Women in Product.
#5. I will join Rora full-time as General Manager to lead their marketing and impact work – and to realize their mission to support underrepresented professionals in tech. This is a role I take incredibly seriously to ensure that the 81cents vision lives on.
Building 81cents has been the most meaningful professional experience of my career – and certainly the most challenging! Thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way – including our pay equity advisors, my family and friends, the dozens of mentors who’ve advised us over the past four years, and, most importantly, the 81cents team. We wouldn’t be here without you!
I’m excited to see what our newly expanded team can do and how we can further our mission of helping underrepresented professionals confidently negotiate!
Jordan Sale
Founder, 81cents