Supporting workers in the gig economy

Nearly all of these are brand new. Many of them are pre launch, and many of those are just at the idea phase.  And, as you’d expect, they are all tackling different facets of the problem. Here’s a quick review of the categories I’ve been tracking: Job Discovery: gotta find work, and there are an increasing number of competing options out there. Matching those opportunities to workers will be important.  (see: Dispatcher, Opus for Work, BlueCrew) Education & Training: along with the unbundling of the job comes, to some extent, the unbundling of education & job training.  The need here spans both sector-specific training and more general education like financial management. (see: Peers, KungFu) Community: as workers become more independent, we will need new ways to form various forms of community support, from commiserating, to peer-learning, to organizing. (see: Coworker, Domino, Sherpashare) Equipment: gotta have the tools and the space to do the job. (see: CoPass, Breather, ReCharge, IdleCars, Breeze) Admin: keeping track of your finances, expenses and taxes as an independent worker totally sucks.  April 15th is doomsday.  There are a bunch of tools providing helpful services here.  (see Zen99, Benny, Hurdlr, And Co) Banking: money is at the center of everything, and independent workers have unique financial needs, in particular related to lumpy cash flow, saving for taxes, and overdraft & lending.  (see: Even) Benefits & Insurance: clearly a huge issue, relating to everything from healthcare, to disability, to liability, to operating insurance. Traditional insurance plans aren’t built for this economy, and insurance will be a huge part of continuing to build trust, safety and security in this sector.  (see: Stride Health, Freelancers Union) Identity & Reputation: perhaps the biggest opportunity, in my view. As independent workers work across platforms and services, reputation is their currency.  Platforms are built on trust, and workers need to be able to port that trust from one context to another.  Unclear how we will get to a world where workers control their identity and reputation data -- could be indirectly, through banking, insurance, or job discovery.  (see: Opus.me, Karma, Traity, Checkr) This is surely incomplete, and many of the examples span categories, but it’s a start. The happy confluence There will undoubtedly be many tensions as this market develops, particular around the sharing and control of data (for example, worker-facing APIs and the right to be represented by a bot).  There is, however, a nice potential synergy between the needs of work platforms and worker support platforms.  In order for work platforms to maintain the arms-length relationship with worker/partner/contractors required for proper 1099 status, they will necessarily need to relinquish some amount of control, which could really open up the market here.  We will see. Finally: if you are working on this, I want to know you!

Nearly all of these are brand new. Many of them are pre launch, and many of those are just at the idea phase.  And, as you’d expect, they are all tackling different facets of the problem. Here’s a quick review of the categories I’ve been tracking: Job Discovery: gotta find work, and there are an increasing number of competing options out there. Matching those opportunities to workers will be important.  (see: Dispatcher, Opus for Work, BlueCrew) Education & Training: along with the unbundling of the job comes, to some extent, the unbundling of education & job training.  The need here spans both sector-specific training and more general education like financial management. (see: Peers, KungFu) Community: as workers become more independent, we will need new ways to form various forms of community support, from commiserating, to peer-learning, to organizing. (see: Coworker, Domino, Sherpashare) Equipment: gotta have the tools and the space to do the job. (see: CoPass, Breather, ReCharge, IdleCars, Breeze) Admin: keeping track of your finances, expenses and taxes as an independent worker totally sucks.  April 15th is doomsday.  There are a bunch of tools providing helpful services here.  (see Zen99, Benny, Hurdlr, And Co) Banking: money is at the center of everything, and independent workers have unique financial needs, in particular related to lumpy cash flow, saving for taxes, and overdraft & lending.  (see: Even) Benefits & Insurance: clearly a huge issue, relating to everything from healthcare, to disability, to liability, to operating insurance. Traditional insurance plans aren’t built for this economy, and insurance will be a huge part of continuing to build trust, safety and security in this sector.  (see: Stride Health, Freelancers Union) Identity & Reputation: perhaps the biggest opportunity, in my view. As independent workers work across platforms and services, reputation is their currency.  Platforms are built on trust, and workers need to be able to port that trust from one context to another.  Unclear how we will get to a world where workers control their identity and reputation data -- could be indirectly, through banking, insurance, or job discovery.  (see: Opus.me, Karma, Traity, Checkr) This is surely incomplete, and many of the examples span categories, but it’s a start. The happy confluence There will undoubtedly be many tensions as this market develops, particular around the sharing and control of data (for example, worker-facing APIs and the right to be represented by a bot).  There is, however, a nice potential synergy between the needs of work platforms and worker support platforms.  In order for work platforms to maintain the arms-length relationship with worker/partner/contractors required for proper 1099 status, they will necessarily need to relinquish some amount of control, which could really open up the market here.  We will see. Finally: if you are working on this, I want to know you!

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>1.2K subscribers