Talentt business plan

Business Plan

Donald W. Reynolds Governors Cup 2014

Executive Summary Version 1.0 of the talentt app is currently available on the Apple app store.

Vision The talentt mobile app is evolving the way the world networks, collaborates, and conducts business. talentt will be an indispensible resource for people who are looking to find, network and collaborate with, and to hire skilled professionals locally.

Mission We will create economic, social, and community value by enabling individuals and businesses to find, connect, and transact with talented people in their own cities and regions.

We will strengthen local business communities, entrepreneurial hubs, and local economies by facilitating the visibility and availability of local human capital resources.

We enable and empower individuals and businesses to recruit the right person, in the right place.

We will accelerate commerce by creating opportunities for people to contract work in their own communities, and by creating opportunities for aspiring professionals to learn from and collaborate with local business and professionals.

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Strategy and Tactics Capture a market that is underserved by the current online staffing, recruiting, and freelancing industry.

Capture the local gig market and word-of-mouth markets, which are not currently monetized on a large scale.

Leverage an individual’s location and existing social networks to generate more relevant results. This will alleviate the stress involved in finding the right person they trust with their business needs.

Provide a higher return on investment for outsourced projects by making the process of recruiting temporary and contract-based work less expensive, and by allowing professionals to meet face-to-face and work with people that are more likely to understand the personality and nuance of their business.

Offer advertising space that is location-specific and targeted for niche jobs markets. This will provide a high ROI for businesses and individuals who purchase advertising space on the application.

Provide relevant, high-quality resources and content that will support the association of our brand with both top talent and emerging talent.

Affiliate with educational institutions and skill providers, or establish a proprietary credential platform, to facilitate the growth of our userbase and the value of our product.

Emphasize the value in local business communities and entrepreneurial hubs by hosting networking events and professional conferences.

Founders Randi Cruz, CEO Luke Irvin, CTO Laura Weiderhaft, COO

Market Validation The Freelancer’s Union estimates that there are 42 million American independent workers.

The number of freelance workers is expected to outpace full-time workers by 2020.

Mobile-app usage increased 115% in 2013 and is predicted to continue growing.

II. Company Overview A. History talentt officially began when co-founders Randi, Luke, and Laura attended the Northwest Arkansas Startup Weekend in November 2013. Each of us discovered—through our conversations with the participants, mentors, and organizers at the event—that a large portion of people in the entrepreneurial ecosystem rely on local events like Startup Weekend as a way to gain visibility to job opportunities and establish business connections. In fact, several of the participants mentioned that their primary motivation for attending events like Startup Weekend was to network with liked-minded individuals.

Many participants rely on networking events to find a partner or group they could collaborate with on current and future projects. As the weekend progressed and we investigated the lack of networking opportunities further, we realized that the lack of visibility to local talent is a pervasive problem in a number of entrepreneurial communities.

The talentt team left Startup Weekend with the invaluable insights we learned after meeting with business coaches, venture capitalists, legal advisors, and marketing experts, as well as a handful of business cards. We discovered that talent visibility and networking were bigger problems than we had initially imagined. This was a problem that was near and dear to all three founders of talentt. Being a part of the millennial generation, we had witnessed first-hand the lack of “formal” job opportunities and the malaise of many young people who worked in positions they weren’t passionate about because—at the end of the day—the bills have to be paid. We also felt the same desire to create a more meaningful work experience for ourselves and for our partners. Our only solution was to design a platform that would fill the gaps and fissures that existed on the current platforms for staffing, outsourcing, and professional networking. Today, that product is known as talentt—an iOS mobile application that will enable people to find and connect with people in their area.

Our team submitted the first version of our app to Apple on March 7, 2014. The talentt app, in its 1.0 version, became available on the Apple App Store March 10, 2014. The talentt team is currently working to provide the best experience for users with our current product. We plan to release the next version of the talentt app—that will include the addition of new features—within four to six weeks.

B. Vision talentt is evolving the way the world networks, collaborates, and conducts business. talentt will be an indispensible resource for people who are looking to find, network and collaborate with, and to hire skilled professionals locally.

C. Mission We will create economic, social, and community value by enabling individuals and businesses to find, connect, and transact with talented people in their own cities and regions. We will strengthen local business communities, entrepreneurial hubs, and local economies by facilitating the visibility and availability of local human capital resources.

We enable and empower individuals and businesses to recruit the right person, in the right place. We will accelerate commerce by creating opportunities for people to contract work in their own communities, and by creating opportunities for aspiring professionals to learn from and collaborate with local business and professionals.

D. Goals Become the essential mobile platform for professional networking, freelancing, and contracting. talentt will have the most total users, and the most active daily users of any mobile app in the professional networking space by the end of 2020. Our services will make using local talent as affordable and easy as hiring on the currently existing online resources/platforms. talentt offers a platform that meets the needs of aspiring professionals, and the needs of new entrants into the workforce and freelance economy. We will work with entrepreneurial communities and hubs to help entrepreneurs find the talent that they need to succeed, and embrace the workforce shift towards temporary and freelance work, and help drive the shift forward.

E. Strategy

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talentt will capture a market that is underserved by the current online staffing, recruiting, and freelancing industry. o

Aspiring professionals and students who are looking to start contracting and have little opportunity to contract work at a fair price through the existing freelancing and staffing platforms.

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Current and aspiring professionals who are without an existing robust professional network and who are looking to build their network

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Small businesses that are very specific about their needs and prefer to work with freelancers face-to-face.

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Contract jobs that are very time sensitive.

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talentt will capture the local gig market and word-of-mouth hiring market which are not currently monetized on a large scale.

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talentt will leverage a person’s location and network to generate more relevant results. (right person, right place, quickly) o

talentt’s emphasis on location can facilitate the elimination of problems and inefficiencies that current buyers and sellers in the market face (time costs, communication costs)

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talentt will provide a higher return on investment for outsourcing projects, making the process of recruiting temporary and contract-based workers less expensive and facilitating face-to-face interactions, generating higher quality returns.

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talentt will offer location and profession targeted advertising space that will provide a high return on investment for businesses and individuals who purchase advertising space on the application.

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talentt will provide relevant, high-quality resources and content that will support the association of our brand with both top talent and emerging talent. We will affiliate with education and skill providers or establish a proprietary

credential platform to facilitate the growth of our core user-base and the value of our product.

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talentt will emphasize its value in small/local business communities and entrepreneurial hubs and with participants at events and conferences.

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talentt will base core product decisions on user data collected from talentt’s own users.

III. The Product/Service

A. Problems and Needs •

The current staffing and freelancing industry is failing to leverage the existing benefits of mobile technology to provide a more effective and user-friendly service.

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Recruiters and staffing professionals still rely on word-of-mouth and personal recommendations for a large amount of their business. As many as 60% of jobs are filled using the “hidden” job market according to the Labor Department, indicating that recruiters and hiring managers don’t trust the currently established avenues of finding talent or advertising open positions.

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The current freelancing platforms are underserving both freelancers and businesses outsourcing work. o

Platforms like eLance and oDesk are noisy—many project listings get upwards of 50 bids from freelancers, many of whom are unqualified (average number of bids per platform: eLance—62; oDesk—32) Navigating

tens of bids from freelancers across the globe to determine the best fit is inefficient and consumes valuable time. o

Communication problems are prevalent. Miscommunication and time-lags working with freelancers located across the globe are frequent complaints from users of eLance and oDesk.

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Nuance is impossible to achieve when a project manager and a freelancer are unable to meet face-to-face, as is the case with existing platforms. While outsourcing works well for straightforward tasks, projects that are complex and specific are better executed with ample communication, a high level of trust, and in-person updates.

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The race to the bottom on price from international competition has pushed many qualified professionals off of existing freelancing platforms, in favor of locating work opportunities through networking, industry conferences, word-of-mouth references, and guerilla, local marketing.

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There is a lack of visibility to local talent for networking, collaboration, and recruiting. Our observation that many people rely on events as a mechanism for finding talented individuals locally has been reinforced through multiple conversations with small business owners, staffing and recruiting professionals, and local entrepreneurs. Recent meetings of the Northwest Arkansas Entrepreneurship Alliance identified this as one of the core problems for the organization.

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Platforms exist to connect with and leverage one’s existing professional network, but none effectively establish new professional relationships on a broad scale.

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Gig work and the local services market largely remains a market that hasn’t benefitted from the efficiencies of mobile technologies.

B. Features •

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Location-specific professional profiles, in a variety of location ranges. o

Users can locate individuals within approximately one mile of your current location or a set location of your choosing. Users can locate individuals up to 50 miles away from current location or set location.

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Users can select the location radius from which they’d like profiles to populate the app.

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Users can view the profiles of everyone in the area on the app or select a skill/talent category to narrow the local profiles that populate on the profile screen. You can view the profiles of all talented professionals on the app or just, for example, the mobile developers.

Direct messaging space on app. o

You can message users who you are interested in networking with, collaborating with, or hiring through the app.

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Users can display on their profile whether they are looking to network, collaborate, or freelance.

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Privacy settings allow any individual to determine whether or not they’d like to receive direct messages on the app, allow any individual to limit messages to a certain kind of subject, like contract inquiries.

Individuals can easily block anyone with whom they wish not to receive messages.

Sorting by number of connections in common o

Users with the largest number of Facebook friends, Twitter followers and/or LinkedIn connections in common will populate first in your search for talent. This helps to establish trust and credibility in professional networking.

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Users can send direct messages or schedule a time to meet face-to-face with talented individuals via the app, or they can ask for a personal reference from the people they have common connections with.

Sorting by “endorsement” tags o

Users can tag other users with certain skills, traits, and endorsements. Users can up-vote or down-vote a tag, indicating their experience with the person. Tags can be a hard skill like “API’s,” or a quality like “trustworthy”.

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Users with the most up-votes for a given tag that you select populate first in your search for talent.

Sorting by price range o

Users can indicate a standard price range for projects.

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Users can select a price range to search so profiles of freelancers in the desired price range populate first.

Job / Opportunity Listings o

A listings feed will allow users to explore available projects within a selected radius of current location or set location. Listings can be sorted by category.

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Users can express interest in contracting projects of interest/place a bid on projects of interest.

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Individuals can post that they are available and interested in work and add their portfolio to the listings feed.

Location and Industry Targeted Advertising Space o

An advertisement may infrequently appear in place of a profile card.

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Advertisements that appear will meet certain criteria of relevance for the location or the category in which the advertisement appears. Advertisers can target certain categories and locations to improve their return on investment.

Payment Protection for Monetary Transactions o

Users who prefer to contract outside of the app have the option to do so, since they will be able to meet faceto-face. We believe that most users will select this option, but we will offer an escrow service to ensure that payments are remitted only when both parties are satisfied with milestones and projects that are completed.

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Dispute assistance and arbitration is provided if there is a disagreement between parties who select the escrow service.

*All features will be tested and validated. The addition of each feature to our product is subject to user-interest and perceived value. The features will be rolled out in stages as the product undergoes development.

C. Benefits •

Better for Freelancers o

Freelancers don’t have to compete against bids on projects from people all over the world, whose local cost of living means that they can offer far lower prices for work.

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Freelancers get to work with businesses in their own communities, meet with business owners and project managers face-to-face and understand thoroughly the nuances of the project and the business needs.

Freelancers can produce better work given this in-person communication.

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Freelancers have the opportunity to build lasting professional relationship when they are being hired locally.

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Freelancers and Entrepreneurs can find and contact people in their area with whom to collaborate on side projects or discuss business ideas.

Better for Businesses o

Businesses can contract more work out to freelancers when they know that they’ll be able to meet with and work with the freelancer face-to-face, building a relationship of understanding and trust.

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Meeting with freelancers face-to-face enables businesses to communicate the nuances of their project needs and achieve a higher quality of work.

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Businesses can build a lasting relationship with local freelancers that benefits the company long-term. A business will now be able to use a worker only when a project

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Sending money to local freelancers rather than freelancers in other regions and countries generates economic well being for a business’s own community, which in turn promotes the success of the business.

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Businesses looking for a lower price point can utilize local aspiring professionals or locals looking to gain more work experience who can offer a lower price point, rather than freelancers across the globe.

Better for Communities o

When visibility to human capital resources in a location exist in the way that talentt creates, an entrepreneurial ecosystem can leverage the full extent of its available resources and serve as a more fertile foundation for economic development, entrepreneurship, education, and innovation. Local collaboration between people with different skillsets can take place much more easily with talentt.

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Outsourcing locally maintains the human aspect of “human resources” while at the same time delivering critical cost savings to businesses. Businesses can realize considerable savings without the necessity of sending money out of their community.

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When money remains in a community everyone in the community benefits.

IV. Market and Competitive Analysis A. Market for Temporary Work and Freelance Work •

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The market for temporary work and freelancers is already strong o

The Freelancer’s Union estimates that there are 42 million American independent workers.

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In a survey by the American Management Association of human resource managers at more that 1,200 firms, 91% said that “flexibility in staffing issues” was important and 95% said that flexibility was being achieved through the engagement of temporary and contract workers. “Finding specialized talent” was also listed as important.

The market for temporary work and freelancers is growing o

Kelly Services recorded an increase in the “free agent” workforce from 26% of the workforce in 2008 to 44% in 2011.

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the employment services industry will grow two-thirds faster than overall employment. By 2020, the industry is expected to have increased 23.2% from 2010. The number of freelance workers is expected to outpace full-time workers by 2020

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In a 2011 McKinsey Global Institute U.S. Jobs Survey of 2,000 employers of all sizes and in all sectors, 34% said they expect their companies will use more temporary and contract workers in the next 5 years.

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Rising wages and insurance costs mean that businesses will increasingly hire temporary and contract work.

Changing labor force demographics favor a shift towards more flexible work o

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81% of millennials (a group which now comprises approximately 36% of the workforce and is estimated to comprise 50% by 2020) believe they should decide the hours that they work and the location from where they work, compared with 69% of boomers according to a survey by Time. In a survey by oDesk over 60% of millinneals surveyed reported wanting to work independently or start their own business.

This market welcomes and adopts new platforms and new entrants quickly o

Fiverr, a new freelancing and gigging platform has experienced significant growth since it’s emergence on the market in 2010, and has now outpaced oDesk and eLance in the number of gigs / contracts awarded monthly. Fiverr is the 132nd most visited website in the world (62nd most visited in the United States), and has an average number of monthly unique users in excess of 29 million compared with eLance’s approximately 11 million and oDesk’s approximately 12 million. (source: Mattermark)

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Care.com which targets a sliver of the gig market in babysitting, pet-sitting, and eldercare, has grown to 9.3 million users since it was founded in 2006, indicating that a significant number of people are looking for reliable local resources in this market, and very likely in other service markets.

There is a significant amount of evidence that indicates that the shift towards a greater number of freelancers and less fulltime employment is a permanent structural change in the economy. Although businesses will increasingly be relying on outsourced labor, we believe that businesses will still prefer lasting relationships with a high-level of trust between freelancer/contract worker and the business. talentt is the platform that will facilitate finding people with whom these kinds of business relationships are possible.

B. Mobile Market / Mobile App Market / Social Networking Market •

The mobile app market is growing, with social networking apps leading the way o

Mobile-app usage increased 115% in 2013, according to Flurry Analytics. Usage for social and messaging apps specifically increased by 203%

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1.82 billion smartphones are currently in use globally according to Flurry Analytics.

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50% of the average global web users now use mobile as either their primary or their exclusive means of going online according to Flurry Analytics.

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Globally, users spend over 2.2 hours per day with mobile, ahead of television (81 minutes), the desktop (70 minutes), print (33 minutes), and radio (44 minutes), according to Inmobi.

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At the end of 2013, mobile traffic represented 41% of unique visits to LinkedIn according to LinkedIn’s CEO.

C. Competitors & Our Unique Value and Advantage •

LinkedIn o

Leverages existing professional networks to facilitate easier recruiting.

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Launched in 2003, 250+ million users

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LinkedIn works for people who already have robust professional networks. talentt works for people who want to network locally, grow their network, and collaborate with people who they might not otherwise know.

Tinder o

Leverages location to find potential dates / “hook-ups” / relationships.

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Launched in September 2012, does not report user numbers, but reports 50 million “swipes” per day, indicating high volume of users

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Tinder claims to be interested in developing a similar product targeted at professional networking.

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Tinder is perceived as frivolous. Our brand will have a professional networking advantage and be first to market.

Craigslist o

Local listings

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Launched in 1995, it’s the 49th most visited website in the world.

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Craigslist does a poor job with job listings. Spam is abundant, there is a low level of trust between users, and the job boards favor small gigs. Because talentt’s core users will be professionals who are looking to network, collaborate, work, recruit, and hire, a large amount of listing integrity will be maintained. We will also monitor listings to remove irrelevant and inappropriate postings.

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Physical Staffing Services

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eLance, oDesk, ZipTask o platforms to find and transact with freelancers for business projects o

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talentt is intended to facilitate networking for high-trust, lasting, professional relationships in communities rather than to provide the best outsourcing or freelancing platform like these business models.

Fiverr, Task Rabbit, Fancy Hands o

Platforms to find and transact with freelancers for small services and gigs. The quality of work is not guaranteed because these business models offer low-cost regardless of task or project.

V. Management Team A. The Founding Team Luke Irvin, Founder & CTO Though Luke has been around technology his entire life, he did not start working on Startups until 2009. At that point he started building his personal brand online, through social media, and learned iOS App Development. Luke started his company, Irvin Media, while in college and has developed a number of iOS apps, has been featured in a number of podcasts, has attended major conferences such as WWDC and SXSW, and has helped grow the local entrepreneurial community in central Arkansas. Currently, Luke is still growing his business Irvin Media, is a contract iOS Developer

with another startup called 52apps, has co-founded a non-profit, Let’s Go To Work Foundation, and is consulting with local businesses and entrepreneurs.

Luke holds a B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Central Arkansas. Luke has experience working for startups, non-profits, and Fortune 500 companies. Outside of iOS App Development, he has developed web sites, written and filmed short films, has a thorough understanding of user interfaces and design. Luke is fluent in Xcode, Interface Builder, Objective-C, MySQL, PHP, HTML, and CSS; he has four years experience working with SVN (subversion); has worked with open source APIs such as AFNetworking, Three20, and SDWebImage; and the rendered full-scale integrations of social networks into mobile applications.

Luke has served as a coach for Northwest Arkansas Startup Weekend and a mentor in the EAST Initiative. He was a speaker at Northwest Arkansas Tech Fest 2014.

Randi Cruz, Founder & CEO Randi is an entrepreneur and innovator with a growing focus on technology solutions. Randi’s interest in talentt’s solution stems from her belief that technological expansion, personal development, entrepreneurship and business are most efficient and beneficial when talent is sourced and nurtured locally. Expanding meaningful work opportunities and leveling the playing field for individuals in communities outside tech-meccas like Silicon Valley are vital to Randi because she grew up in a small-town where access to tech resources and mentorship were scarce. Randi is currently selfemployed producing website and graphic design work; she also works as a graduate teaching assistant in the Communication Department at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Randi has a B.A. in Communication from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and will receive her Master’s Degree in Communication, from the University of Arkansas in May 2014. In recognition of her academic scholarship, Randi was invited to present her paper “Gendered Politics and Social Media: A Rhetorical Analysis of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Misogyny Speech” at the 2013 WHG Symposium at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

Randi has previously worked in Human Relations for marketing firms and non-profit organizations in Northwest Arkansas, and as an Executive Assistant for The Women’s Business Alliance in New York City.

Laura Weiderhaft, Founder & COO Laura is an economics, education, and entrepreneurship enthusiast who moonlights as a stand-up comedienne and regularly integrates humor into her distinctive social media presence.

Laura holds a B.A. in Economics, International Relations, and European Studies from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Laura was recently recognized as a recipient of the SURF Grant for her research and honors thesis titled, "The Arkansas State Lottery: Weighing the Costs and Benefits of Arkansas's Newest Scholarship Program.” In her thesis she was able to make recommendations to the Arkansas Department of Higher Education on how to more effectively implement lottery funds to generate better educational outcomes. Laura has worked in a number of positions at the University of Arkansas, including as a Teaching Assistant in the Economics Department and as a Supplemental Instructor for Principles of Microeconomics and Principles of Macroeconomics.

Laura has over 5 years of leadership experience in a number of student organizations, in two of which she served as the President. She also served in leadership roles for five consecutive years in student government organizations at the University of Arkansas and at Rogers High School. With her background in economics, Laura is keen on navigating the intersections of economic policy, education, and workforce trends. She has experience working with statistical and data analysis software, Stata and R, in a number of research projects. Laura also has experience with the website management tools Sharepoint, Wordpress, Joomla in addition to experience with HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript. She has worked managing accounting journals, issuing journal entries for a department whose cash flow exceeded 2 million dollars.

B. Mentorship Resources •

A fundamental part of our management strategy will be to utilize the world-class mentorship resources available to us as we develop our product, grow our user-base, and drive talentt as the essential professional networking mobile application.

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We intend to use the resources available to us as clients of the new Arkansas Venture Center.

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We intend to user the resources available to us as clients of Innovate Arkansas.

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We will utilize the resources provided by the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

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The Small Business and Technology Development Center

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The Center for Business and Economic Research (which focuses a substantial amount of it’s resources on job growth and workforce trends)

We intend to participate in and leverage the provided resources and mentorship of a startup incubator / accelerator

C. Proposed Additions to the Management Team •

Executive Vice President of Product Development o

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Will drive and oversee the development of our service cross-platform, hiring personnel or contracting developers to build our product out as a web application, for Android, for Windows mobile, with Facebook’s app platform, and for Google Glass and other wearable technologies. Will oversee the development of our core product offerings.

Executive Vice President of Creative o

Will drive cutting-edge UI / UX design for our product, hiring personnel or contracting designers and marketers to enhance our product, website, and marketing content.

We intend to maintain a flat organization throughout our expansion, hiring people who we trust have complete ownership over their projects and domains.

VI. Operating Strategies A. Marketing Strategies •

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Team talentt will sponsor and attend conferences and professional networking events in select industries o

We think that attendees of industry conferences and professional networking events comprise a significant portion of the users who will benefit the most from our app and would likely be our early adopters and core users.

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Participating in and sponsoring these kinds of events will help generate appropriately targeted media attention for our product.

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We intend to host “speed networking” sessions at these events whenever possible to replicate the experience of our app in person and demonstrate the value of our product to attendees and potential users.

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Connecting with our core users in these settings can generate robust organic user growth.

We will create engaging content relevant to our users and prospective users. o

Toolkits on freelancing, hiring locally, bookkeeping and taxes for freelancers, etc.

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Blueprints for skill-acquisition & libraries of educational resources that can help users develop a career track that could successfully utilize talentt and enable users to succeed in the prevailing job market.

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Weekly blog post sharing market research, market trends, resources, advice, and other relevant content.

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We will provide relevant content on our website and share content on social media accounts.

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We will affiliate with online education and skill-acquisition platforms. We will also affiliate with an “open-source” credentials platform like Mozilla Open Badges or develop a proprietary platform for collecting and demonstrating credentials.

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We will partner with organizations like the American Independent Business Alliance, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and the Institute for Local Self Reliance to position talentt as the progenitor of a “Hire Local” movement, the next evolution of the extremely successful “Eat Local” movement and subsequent “Shop Local” movement.

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We will utilize online and mobile advertising on social media platforms and online education / skill providers.

B. Production and Development Strategies We intend to develop our product in three separate stages. Advancement between stages is contingent on the acquisition of the funding required to successfully implement the development plan in a given stage.

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Stage 1 Development (approximately 1 year) o

Viewing profiles based on current location

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Direct chat between users

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Tagging, voting on tagging, and sorting profiles based on tags

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Price range feature and sorting profiles based on price range

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Mutual friends / connections feature and sorting profiles based on mutual friends

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Expand list of categories

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Grow user base; strong marketing focus with conferences and affiliations

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Development of relevant content, toolkits, and blueprints.

Goal: 1 million users •

Stage 2 Development (approximately 1 year) o

Cross platform development

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Optimization of User Experience and User Interface based on collected data

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Listings feature

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Promote profile feature

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Strong marketing focus with conferences and affiliations to acquire users

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Development of relevant content, toolkits, and blueprints

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Integration of credential platform or development of proprietary credential platform.

Goal: 2.5 million users •

Stage 3 Development (approximately 1 year) o

Optimization of listing feature based on collected data

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Cross platform development

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Integration of advertising options

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Optimization of credential platform and integration into app profiles

Goal: 5 million users In addition to major product updates, we intend to iterate regularly, fixing user-reported bugs, optimizing based on AB testing and user data, and remaining on the cutting-edge of user interface and user experience standards.

C. Financial Strategies Each year (for 3 years) we will seek an amount of funding that would allow us to maintain our current stage of development, to advance to the next stage of development, and to maintain the next stage of development for at least a year in the case that the following round of funding takes longer to achieve. •

Stage 1 Financial Requirements o

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Needed to maintain current business !

Backend: $500 monthly

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Cost of Living x3: $6,000 monthly.

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Rent/utilities: $600 monthly. (We intend to utilize a co-working space)

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Contract work: $4000 yearly.

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General business supplies: 1 payment of $500

Needed for proposed development !

Travel and Marketing: $2,000 monthly

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Research and product development: $500 monthly

Total requirements: approximately $150,000 each year. •

Stage 2 Financial Requirements o

Needed to maintain current business !

Backend: $500 monthly

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Cost of Living x3: $6000 monthly

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Rent/utilities: $600 monthly

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Contract work: $4000 yearly

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General business supplies: one payment $500

Needed for proposed development !

Travel and Marketing: $2000 monthly

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Research and product development: $1000 monthly

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Contract work: $1000 monthly

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New hires: $18000 monthly

Total requirements: approximately $608,000 We anticipate revenue to exceed this requirement in Stage 2--see Income statement.

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Stage 3 Financial Requirements o

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Needed to maintain current business !

Backend: $1000 monthly

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Wages x 6: $24,000 monthly

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Rent/utilities: $1,500 monthly

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Contract work: $8000 yearly

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General business supplies: one payment of $5000

Needed for proposed development !

Travel and Marketing: $2000 monthly

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Research and product development: $1000 monthly

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Contract work: $1000 monthly

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New hires: $24,000

Total required: 905,000 We anticipate revenue to exceed requirement in Stage 3 – see income statement.

VII. Critical Risks A. The market for freelancers, networking, and hiring might get crowded. The market opportunity has been discussed in the media and by a number of startups and companies.

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The CEOs of oDesk and eLance have mentioned mobile as a component of their next stage of growth.

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The merger between oDesk and eLance indicates they are looking to capture a larger segment of the market and may focus on aggressive growth in the next several years.

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The CEO of Tinder indicated that Tinder is reportedly working on expanding their product to create value outside the dating platform market.

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LinkedIn already has a robust user base and, having noticed the trend towards increased spending in mobile advertising, could optimize their mobile product to leverage the location benefits of mobile.

Our approach: •

Capture a market that is underserved by the existing platforms and build brand loyalty with them. Target a younger, millennial audience who are building their careers rather than professionals with established networks who have crystallized in their career paths.

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Market in a grassroots style. Attend conferences, sponsor conferences, visit entrepreneurial hubs, and engage in community development to better communicate the value of our product to local business and entrepreneurial communities.

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Leverage our female founders to promote our brand.

B. The value of our product depends on scaling our app relatively quickly. Low rates of user acquisition could alienate early users of our product.

Our approach: •

Focus on fast growth in our early stage. Promote viral growth and reach out to entrepreneurial communities, small business organizations, and local business organizations to communicate the value of our product to local business and entrepreneurial communities. Sponsor and attend conferences. Affiliate with skill-acquisition, and non-traditional education providers.

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Build a viral campaign to attract early users to the app.

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Leverage our female founders to generate media coverage.

C. The technology sector is inherently disruptive. Emerging technologies could displace mobile platforms in under a decade, making our current business strategy obsolete, outdated, or inefficient.

Our approach: •

Build our product cross platform to function on the web and eventually on wearable devices.

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Quickly integrate new technological advances into the product to maintain a competitive advantage.

D. Lack of formal education, credentials, and/or work experience among large numbers of users, rendering the value of our product less salient.

Our approach: • •

Develop options to sort by endorsement tags and friends in common, ensuring that more talented, credible users populate first in searches.

Affiliate with a skill-acquisition provider or credentials platform or develop a proprietary credential platform to make credentials, whether obtained from online resources, official institutions, or work-experience a core part of user profiles.

E. Many businesses may opt for outsourcing using a platform like Ziptask rather than finding local talent to hire for projects.

Our approach: •

Use a “hire local” campaign to communicate the value of hiring locally and create a viral engaged community that prefers local freelancers.

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Use research and testimonials to communicate to users and businesses that sourcing talent locally can be as inexpensive more successful than outsourcing on the other existing online platforms.

VIII. Analysis of Pro forma Financials Two attractive avenues exist for talentt to generate revenue. Each avenue will represent a large portion of income.

A. Listings •

Individuals can post that they are available and looking for a project, contract, or a gig or that they are open to collaboration. They may pay per listing or purchase a subscription to make multiple listings, longer-term listings, or listings that span multiple locations.

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Businesses and individuals can post projects, collaboration opportunities, jobs, and contracts. They may pay per listing or get a subscription to make multiple listings, longer-term listings, or listings that span multiple locations.

Proposed pricing Individuals posting availability and interest in work: •

$2 weekly for 3 locations, 1 category. $0.50 weekly for each additional location.

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$5 monthly for 3 locations, 1 category. $1 monthly for each additional location.

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$10 monthly subscription for multiple listings, up to 3 categories, higher location quota.

Businesses and Individuals posting projects, jobs, opportunities, etc.: •

$8 weekly for 3 locations, 1 category. $2 weekly for each additional location.

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$20 monthly for 3 locations, 1 category. $5 monthly for each additional location.

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$50 monthly subscription for multiple listings, up to 3 categories, higher location quota.

Tiered subscriptions will be introduced if user data indicates a demand for large numbers of listings and large number of locations.

Revenue potential: Individuals posting availability and interest in work: To promote the introduction of our listing services, we will offer users the chance to place a listing indicating their availability and interest in work for a limited amount of time free of charge. The listing segment of our app will also be part of the main navigation of the app. We anticipate that the value of posting a listing will be clear, and that 0.5% of our users will post a weekly or monthly listing in this category, and that 0.1% of users will purchase a subscription to take advantage of a better value for multiple listings and multiple locations.

Given 2 million users, 10,000 will purchase a weekly or monthly add in a given month, generating between $20,000 and $50,000 in revenue each month. 2,000 will purchase a subscription, generating $20,000 in revenue each month. We’ve increased revenues over time in our income statement to account for user acquisition.

Businesses and Individuals posting projects, jobs, opportunities, etc: To promote the introduction of our listing services, we will offer users the chance to place a listing promoting a project, job opening, or work opportunity in limited quantity free of charge. The listing segment of our app will be a main part of the navigation of the app. We anticipate the value of posting a listing will be clear and

that 1% of our users will post a weekly or monthly listing in this category and that 0.25% of our users will purchase a subscription to take advantage of a better value for multiple listings and multiple locations.

Given 2 million users, 20,000 will purchase a weekly or monthly listing in a given month, generating between $160,000 and $400,000 in revenue each month. 5,000 will purchase a subscription, generating $250,000 in revenue each month. We’ve increased revenues over time in our income statement to account for user acquisition.

B. Advertising •

Businesses and individuals can advertise to have a project or a business ad toggle with the profiles on the app.

Ads can be targeted to certain categories on the app. An additional fee per click or fee per impact must be paid for the ads to appear in categories beyond the allocated number.

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Individuals can advertise to toggle higher on profile screen and to appear in prime space on the application, like home screens and search screens.

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Individuals can pay to appear in locations beyond their own for a set amount of time.

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Traditional mobile advertising services toggle with the profiles when projected advertising targets aren’t being met. Ads must meet category relevancy criteria.

Proposed Price Tiers: Individual Promotion: •

$1.99 to promote for a week.

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$4.99 to promote for a month.

Businesses and Individuals Paying for Ad Space: •

Price per Click (first two categories) - $0.20.

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Price per Click for additional categories selected - $0.40

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Price per Impression (first two categories) -$1.00

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Price per Impression for additional categories selected - $1.60

Revenue potential: Individual Promotion / Increasing Location Reach: As with the anticipated interest in individual listings for availability, we anticipate that 0.5% of users will promote their profile.

Given 2 million users, 10,000 will promote their profiles, generating between $20,000 and $50,000 each month. We’ve increased revenues over time in our income statement to account for user acquisition.

Businesses and Individuals Paying for Ad Space: Given 2 million users, an anticipated minimum daily user rate of 100,000 users, the average click through rate on iOS of over 1.5% in 2013 (according to MoPub), the current and forthcoming shift toward mobile in advertisement spending, we anticipate revenue of $9,500 to $18,000 each month from businesses and individuals electing to buy ad space on a cost per click basis.

Given the same conditions, we anticipate revenue of $3,000 to $4,800 from businesses and individuals electing to buy ad space on a cost per impression basis. We’ve increased revenues over time in our income statement to account for user acquisition.

X. Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement and Balance Sheet

XI. Funds Required • •

See Financial Strategy under Operating Strategies Section for breakdown of use of funds.

Stage 1

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$150,000 required to pursue best path of development

XII. Offering •

For the 150,000 investment that we will seek for our Stage 1 development, we will offer an equity stake in our company of 5%.

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For the 500,0000 investment that we will seek for our Stage 2 development, we will offer an equity stake in our company of 15%