Norm Volsky doesn't just place people at companies. He invests in them.

After 14 years in digital health and employee benefits recruiting, Norm has built something almost nobody else in this industry has pulled off: a $6M recruiting practice and a fully operational venture capital firm — running side by side, feeding each other, in the same niche.

His first client, Livongo, sold to Teladoc for $18.5 billion. His second, Hinge Health, just IPO'd for $3 billion. He placed three dozen people at Hinge alone. And somewhere along the way, he realized the smartest investors in the room already trusted him more than any VC — because he knew every founder, every pricing model, every hiring trend before they did.

So he stopped just taking fees. He started taking equity.

🚀 This Is Your Year Recruiter Summit — April 27th through May 4th Free live sessions with the industry's best, including Mike Williams, Brianna Rooney, and Mark Whitby. The event you don't want to miss heading into Q2. Register free: https://this-is-your-year-recruiter-summit.heysummit.com/

This episode is the blueprint for how Norm did it — and how you can do the same thing in your niche.

He walks through meeting the Hinge Health founders when they were 15 people in a garage, and the exact conversation that turned a recruiting client into an equity stake. He explains why this model only works in B2B software. He breaks down how he raised $850K from 80+ industry insiders for a single SPV, bought 4.7% of an $18M company, and grew that investor list into 500+ potential LPs across the benefits world.

The lesson underneath all of it is universal: niche domination unlocks things fees alone never will. Norm didn't stumble into venture capital. He earned the right to be asked — by being the most knowledgeable, most helpful, most persistent recruiter in his space for a decade before anyone saw the investment firm coming.

You'll also hear how he scaled his team to $6M in billings with roughly 10 people, why building an ops function was his biggest unlock, and the word-choice mistake he caught his younger recruiters making that sounds unprofessional to every hiring manager on the call.

What you'll learn:

How to dominate a niche so thoroughly your clients become your investors
The exact pitch that turns a recruiting engagement into an equity stake
Why B2B software is the only space this playbook works in
How Norm raised $850K from 80+ investors for a single deal
Why hiring an ops function was the unlock that doubled his ceiling
The pattern recognition that separates great investors from lucky ones
How to build 500+ high-trust investor relationships starting from zero

Sponsored by Atlas

Atlas is the AI-first recruitment platform built to eliminate admin. It captures every candidate conversation automatically, surfaces insights through natural language search, and gives you a clear view of your entire pipeline. Atlas customers have reported 40%+ EBITDA growth and 80%+ increase in monthly billings.

Get your exclusive listener offer: https://recruitwithatlas.com

🔗 Links & Resources

💼 Join the Elite Recruiter Community — biweekly roundtables, Billers Club, split space, full summit replays. $49/month, cancel anytime. https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community

🔗 Connect with Norm Volsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/normanvolsky/

🎙️ Norm's podcast — Digital Health Heavyweights: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JeFFZqvVC1lmVXCvv3D7y?si=aa28a49e63ba413f

📬 Subscribe to the newsletter: https://eliterecruiterpodcast.beehiiv.com/subscribe

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/yn-7_7cQsZs 🌐 Benjamin Mena: http://www.selectsourcesolutions.com/

🔗 Benjamin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminmena/

📸 Benjamin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benlmena/