This is
Blessing Ijoma, the CEO of Hourspent. Today is a big day for us. We embarked on
a 6-month journey to completely revamp Hourspent so that you can have a clear view of what we stand for. This milestone was completed today.
Guess what? A new journey has started. This has brought us one step closer to
our mission which is to create economic opportunities for people and businesses
across the world, breaking boundaries without limits.
I'd like to share with you some of the macro drivers that
influenced these changes and how they took us one big step closer to our
mission.
Most businesses shut down within the space of one to two
years. What could have gone wrong?
We found out that some startups have:
1. Products that are
solving no problem.
2. Products targeting a
saturated market with no unique approach.
3. Products that require
huge capital but they couldn't access such capital
4. Products only solving
the owner's problem.
5. Lack of ability to
execute despite having a good product and funding.
6. Economic crisis and
unforeseen circumstances.
My team and I believed by helping entrepreneurs build
step by step, hour by hour at a time with diverse talents, we are changing the
status quo and at the same time building an economic value at scale. We also
believe in human potentials and their ability to create an impact on startups
irrespective of their location.
Before going any further, I'd like to express my
gratitude to all those who came together to make this happen. From our mentors
who pushed us to step up and aim higher, to the vibrant community that got us
here in the first place, you've been relentless in offering us feedback and we
thank you. Your insights have made our upgrade what it is. To our friends and
family, who we haven't seen much of in the run-up to this, we thank you for
being so incredibly patient.
But most of all, I want to thank and congratulate the Hourspent Team, members of the community included for their untethered commitment. The heart and stamina they've displayed in this journey are
humbling. Saying that they worked hard would be a gross understatement. Team
Hourspent moved mountains. Period.
We set out to create the dream experience; to deliver the
best product in this gig/freelance economy; a bubbling space where distributed
teams are epic and we are adding a resilience flavor to it! We believe we are
at the onset of a movement, the making of a new economy that will be as big as
the social media revolution. And we believe that Hourspent will be in the
driver's seat. We now have the best product in the market by a mile, a vibrant
raving community, and a great team. It would take an act of God to stop us.
The big picture: why now, why this, why
does it matter?
Teamwork has gone through a huge evolution over the years
has its roots in niche skills and verticals that were traditionally accustomed
to working onsite and tied on desks. The future of work came on board with
freelance work (like IT and Journalism) associated with offshore work for a
cost-saving. Working remotely as a distributed team instead of been an
independent freelancer is finding its way into the mainstream economy and it is
unlocking a vast and diverse talent pool along the way. From stay at home moms,
students, retirees and anything in-between, the new Economy is emerging and
it's going to win because it enables startups to work smarter and solve
problems efficiently.
The internet is about empowerment and simplicity is
the catalyst. Much like Twitter helped create 'citizen journalism' and
democratized media. Much like Quora unleashed people's voices, allowing
millions who would otherwise never write or be inclined to be inclusive to share
their views with the world. SoundCloud is now doing it for people who otherwise
wouldn't create music to grow into musicians with a following. YouTube has done
it for video. The best businesses are the ones that make use of what people
already have. Airbnb didn't create the second bedroom neither did Uber buy a
fleet of cars. They just created a market for it. Etsy didn't create artists
and artisans; they just gave them a venue to showcase their wares.
The next big movement is the democratization of labor.
Allowing anyone to work with talents miles away from her/him and grow. And
making it as easy as posting on Quora or tweeting on Twitter, on the go, over
their lunch break, in the evening, or in-between changing diapers.
As Hourspent's stories will tell you, what set Hourspent
apart from the beginning, was that it became a breeding ground for a diverse,
distributed talent pool with resilience spirit people building startups of
their dreams from anywhere. Eventually, talents leave their jobs and work remotely
via Hourspent as distributed teams, building up successful startups and fortune
500 companies one hour at a time.
Before this, freelancers on Hourspent voiced their
opinion; they made several requests to have the bidding feature scrapped. That
was the beginning of our restructuring. We made several attempts to bring every
one of them on board but we couldn't. We picked the top 2% among them and
grouped them into teams based on individual location, skillset, availability
and resilient spirit.
Over 100 complex projects have been completed by these
incredible talents within the space of three months, from teams building both iOS and Android app, designing pitch presentations to helping startups find
their product-market fit. Their diversity and creativity are just endless.
I predict this fast-rising gig economy to be bigger
than what we know today as the "9 to 5” job within the next ten years.
Making the transition as smooth as
possible
We know these are big changes made, and we know they
might be painful for some. Please be patient. These are big changes for all of
us. To help make the transition smooth, we have done the following:
We've written a helpful guide. You can find it right at the top of the homepage,
you will find some questions and answers that will help you. Please take a few
moments to read them.
Our support team is on a 24-hour duty to ensure the
transition is as smooth possible. All emails are addressed on the same day so
if we are experiencing a high volume of calls please email support [at]
hourspent.com. For partnership opportunities, send an email to
partnerships[at]hourspent.com
On this new version of Hourspent, we relaunched our Blog page
to share some of these stories with our community and an Insight page
to share some real business case studies, epic startup failures and successes,
hiring and some inspirations to help entrepreneurs navigate the real business
world. We also redesigned our logo! go check it out. Nothing tells the Hourspent story better than the
people who rely on us each day. Do you have a story on how you've been going
strong with or on Hourspent? We'd love to hear your story! Just send it to us
at info [at] hourspent.com.
We also enhanced our contact page so that you can submit
your feedback and report issues easily. Please utilize it. No doubt there will
be things we need to fix or improve. We value your input.
I welcome you all to a new year, a new beginning and a
new Hourspent, dedicated to making every business dream and talents come true.
Yours,
Blessing
