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What\u2019s\u00a0a six year old startup doing entering Y Combinator<\/a>? Plotting a new growth trajectory\u00a0after a pivot. Pilot<\/a> may be a veteran in\u00a0Silicon Valley startup terms but\u00a0it reckons the freelance contractor marketplace model it\u00a0switched to\u00a0around a year and a half ago is ideally positioned to serve a future of work that\u2019s increasingly\u00a0fragmented and distributed.<\/p>\n So while the business has\u00a0long been profitable it\u2019s now getting put\u00a0through its paces at YC\u2019s bootcamp,\u00a0and will likely be\u00a0looking to raise VC funding once it graduates to\u00a0help it step on the gas, says co-founder Matt Drozdzynski.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re focusing on enterprise customers right now, because that\u2019s where we feel like the pain is strongest and where we can make the most impact.\u00a0But long term\u00a0we think of ourselves as more of an enabler of the future of work \u2014 of an environment where every company could be working with a vastly distributed talent pool, everywhere in the world.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ultimate end game here [is] where we could be this talent infrastructure, almost, for a lot of companies \u2014 not only the Fortune 500s that we\u2019re going after right now, but also for early stage startups. And any company in between.\u201d<\/p>\n Pilot is not the only startup thinking how it can serve\u00a0and tap into growing\u00a0demand for more flexible and piecemeal, gig economy style ways of working. Lystable<\/a> is another that springs to mind, though unlike Pilot, Lystable is just making the platform \u2014 not seeking to operate a contractor marketplace of its own. And a curated\u00a0talent marketplace is key to Pilot\u2019s proposition, with in-house vetting and ongoing\u00a0assessment of its freelance talent pool\u00a0(and currently a wait list to get onto\u00a0its books).<\/p>\n It\u2019s also not just matchmaking contractors\u00a0with vacancies and then walking away after\u00a0trousering a hiring\u00a0fee, like some in this space; Pilot\u2019s role (and fee) continues for the duration of any contract, acting as\u00a0a support platform to help resolve issues that might arise during the term of the project.<\/p>\n It\u2019s\u00a0intending to develop machine learning tools to automate performance tracking in future to aid\u00a0management of its remote contractors. Though \u2014 at least at this point \u2014\u00a0its employer clients are large enough that they do have in-house staff\u00a0whose primary role is to manage teams, including Pilot\u2019s remote freelancers, so it\u2019s only aiming to offer\u00a0assistance rather than fully\u00a0replace human managers.<\/p>\n The\u00a0talent-vetting process Pilot users does involve a lot of manual work, to ensure it\u2019s identifying high quality contractors with strong\u00a0communication skills to allow onto its platform (it says it\u2019s prioritizing comms skills because of its focus on\u00a0remote work). But it reckons it can scale that in future by looping in relevant expertise sourced from\u00a0its own marketplace. So, in other words, its\u00a0vetted talent can become paid\u00a0vetters to help it scale the size of the marketplace, as and when needed.<\/p>\n In terms of core tech, Drozdzynski says that\u2019s its matching algorithm for connecting contractors with vacancies (again with a little human input looped in at the end of the process to select candidates from an algorithmic shortlist). This is another area it intends to enhance with machine learning going forward, as it pulls more performance data and learnings off its platform, he adds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key is understanding or matching contractors to projects and\u00a0this is something that we\u2019re able to do much more efficiently because of the software that we\u2019ve written,\u201d he argues. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to automate all of the [vetting] tests to make this process much more efficient, by just using software to co-ordinate some of these human efforts. So I think by being smart about the features that we build into the platform we\u2019re able to maximize our efficiency when it comes to using human labor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing that we\u2019re also really excited about is some of the things that we can do by connecting different tools that our contractors use \u2014 like time-tracking software, GitHub, Trello, project management tools \u2014 connecting them into our system and then being able to infer what\u2019s happening on the project, what are the potential issues, and basically entirely automate the function of a project manager. Our contractors are managed by project managers within large companies but we can make sure that they\u2019re as effective as they can be by helping them out in this automated fashion.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s something we are really excited about long term \u2014 this notion of giving our talent \u2018superpowers\u2019. Giving them all of these tools that they would need to be extremely effective remote workers wherever they happen to be around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Pilot\u2019s\u00a0pivot away from its original, more traditional\u00a0consultancy firm\/dev shop model, where it had some 60 paid\u00a0contractors on staff\u00a0to fill a mixed bag\u00a0of clients\u2019 needs, came not so much from\u00a0a flash of inspiration about the\u00a0inexorable rise\u00a0of the gig economy, says\u00a0Drozdzynski, but more gradually; from analyzing\u00a0its operational data and realizing there was a another\u00a0need it could move into serving.<\/p>\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t very happy with our model,\u201d he\u00a0tells TechCrunch, discussing how the\u00a0pivot came about. \u201cWe found that our developers were happiest working for companies that were a little bit larger, a little bit more established, and they\u2019d already had engineering teams because they don\u2019t want to be the only developer on a project, they wanted a stable paycheck, they wanted to work on a team so they can learn from other people \u2014 so this is kind of what led us to realize that we should only work with companies that are large enough to support a full engineering team. As opposed to say a small, early stage startup.<\/p>\n \u201cWe realized that \u2026if we opened the company up to independent contractors then we can not only pay them more \u2014 in some cases double or triple what they\u2019re making before \u2014 but we can also lower the cost for our customers, and allow them to hire better quality talent for the same price that they were paying before. And the reason we were able to do that is if you work with larger companies these tend to be longer term projects, six months+.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n At this point Pilot\u00a0has no contractors on its payroll; its marketplace of\u00a0vetted talent is\u00a0free to work elsewhere should they wish. It\u2019s not disclosing the number of contractors on its books at this point, nor the number of employers it\u2019s working with. Nor will it name many customer names either, though there are a few examples on its website \u2014 such as long time client\u00a0travel publisher, Lonely Planet. Drozdzynski agrees a target employer\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>include a company such as Google which clearly has ongoing needs for the kind\u00a0of developer and design talent that Pilot is working to pull\u00a0in.<\/p>\n Ultimately, he\u00a0reckons workers want the flexibility of being able to work remotely from home (as essentially all Pilot workers do) so they can be with their family or so they can travel, but combined with\u00a0the reliability of a steady wage. And contractors\u00a0can get that from\u00a0Pilot because it offers longer term project work, and lets them\u00a0line up the next gig\u00a0as needed. (He says its longest serving gig between one of its contractors and one of its employers\u00a0has gone on four years at this point.) It\u2019s able to attract talent because he says it takes a lower cut of\u00a0wages than an average dev shop, for example, charging a fixed 30 per cent fee over the duration of any contract \u2014 with\u00a0the rest (i.e. 70 per cent) going to the contractor.<\/p>\n The imperative on the employer\u00a0side which\u00a0Pilot is seeking to tap is the pressing problem for enterprises of filling in-demand talent vacancies \u2014 giving businesses\u00a0an incentive to accept a vetted contractor as a remote addition to\u00a0an existing IT or design team if it means they get to\u00a0tap into skills they might otherwise find hard to secure. Pilot\u2019s philosophy is that a globally distributed talent pool ultimately means more choice and, statistically speaking, access to\u00a0better choices (\u201cWe believe talent is evenly distributed across the globe,\u201d is how Drozdzynski puts it). And demand for engineers and designers typically\u00a0continues to outstrip supply \u2014 hence in part Pilot\u2019s\u00a0focus on those two skills.<\/p>\n He\u00a0reckons the model could work for other product development roles, and perhaps more widely still for all sorts of other work that can be done remotely. But with a lot of job specific expertise and knowledge needed to support the smooth running of the\u00a0platform, and to underpin the development of additional tech features (such as its machine learning plans), he says it makes most sense for Pilot to constrain itself to those two (in-demand) skills for now.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to stay focused on what we know right now, and I think it\u2019s more likely to be other areas in product development, broadly speaking, where we can be of help. If you look at some of the recruiting marketplaces, like Hired, they branch out to other verticals \u2014 like sales and marketing \u2014 and the reason for that is that their core competency is just on the screening part. That\u2019s where they focus 99 per cent of their time because as soon as a customer has hired someone they never see that person again, at least until they\u2019re looking for another job. Whereas the difference with a platform like our is that that moment where somebody gets hired is almost the beginning of a journey, as opposed to the end of it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo the reason why it makes sense for us to constrain ourselves to certain domains is that if we want to build up the machine learning features around predicting what makes for a good worker, what makes for a bad worker, based on the output that they\u2019re producing \u2014 then that\u2019s very output specific. Even doing design and development is already quite difficult because the tools that each contractor uses are very different; a developer will be using GitHub and writing code, a designer would be using Sketch and sharing files with Dropbox. So if we want to integrate with all of these tools, these are very different problems.\u201d<\/p>\n Why is it operating a marketplace at all? Why not just provide the platform and tools to help companies manage their own freelancers? Drozdzynski\u2019s take on that is that\u00a0the most pressing need for most businesses is filling vacancies rather than gearing up for the\u00a0more distributed, on-demand\u00a0workforces that are coming down the pipe. So the strategy is to secure\u00a0a working relationship with enterprises now, by first\u00a0helping them fill their empty seats; after which the team\u00a0has a foot in the door so is\u00a0better\u00a0positioned\u00a0to sell the advantages\u00a0of its contractor management platform, and to add smarter\u00a0features over time to serve its users\u2019 changing needs.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the companies side I think the talent problem \u2014 in terms of not being able to find great talent \u2014 is a more pressing one, than \u2018I have too many contractors that I have to manage today\u2019,\u201d argues\u00a0Drozdzynski, adding: \u201cI think we would rather bring a client to a contractor and then have them realize how great our systems are, and how great out platform is \u2014 and then bring their customers into the platform, than the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re working towards that [bigger] vision [of becoming a talent infrastructure for all sorts of companies]. Building tools that make it easier for contractors to work with anyone in the world and vice versa, building tools for companies that make it extremely easy to find and hire these talented individuals, wherever they happen to be in the world\u2026 They won\u2019t have to figure out the logistics of that, they won\u2019t have to be scouting for people in all of these different cities, figuring out the legal\/administrative work required to event hire that talent pool.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of\u00a0competitive landscape, he\u00a0says\u00a0the\u00a0team\u2019s current focus on enterprises\u2019 recruitment needs puts it\u00a0in competition with the likes of Accenture, IBM, Infosys and Cognizant \u2014 so it\u2019s competing for customers with the big, management consultancy type firms, rather than (at least most of the time) smaller recruitment startup players.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s also dev shops and smaller consulting shops that we run into occasionally but those typically can\u2019t meet the very growing needs of large enterprise customers,\u201d he says. \u201cWe can deliver better talent faster, and because it\u2019s a software platform they can use we don\u2019t get in their way \u2014 they don\u2019t have to schedule a call or a meeting with an account manager to get anything done.\u201d<\/p>\n Given the size of some of its\u00a0rivals Pilot\u2019s desire to step on the gas now (via YC and probably also by taking VC) makes sense. He says it\u2019s\u00a0looking to build out an enterprise sales\u00a0team as a priority now. It\u2019s also continuing to work on the product, with a new version of its client app due to launch in the next few months to further streamline identifying and hiring contractors, especially for the target enterprise user.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re definitely looking into raising a venture capital round because we\u2019re seeing this model as something that can scale and can grow into a really large company. If we\u2019re competing with the likes of Accenture it will take capital to get there,\u201d he notes, adding:\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re already talking to some investors so that\u2019s something that will come after YC \u2014 so in a couple of months.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured Image: sirastock<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/3CgnhixvXe0\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What\u2019s\u00a0a six year old startup doing entering Y Combinator? Plotting a new growth trajectory\u00a0after a pivot. Pilot may be a veteran in\u00a0Silicon Valley startup terms but\u00a0it reckons the freelance contractor <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-3448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t![\"Pilot\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/01249_talent-opportunity1.png?resize=640%2C519&ssl=1\")
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