There comes a point when a high skilled employee reaches a point of deceleration on growth and the career trajectory is focused more on depth of expertise and knowledge. The employee realizes that they could potentially do this work for themselves and the idea of taking the grand leap to setting up an independent practice is exciting and intimidating.
We believe there is an opportunity to serve the highly skilled independent consultant workforce. One of the biggest pain points from people that take the leap to set up their own practice is sales or simply keeping the top of the funnel full and utilization rate high. An engineer is not a specialist in business development or sales as they would rather focus on the work they are best at accomplishing.
The investment opportunities we seek should address the pain of access to customers and increase in full time utilization. Unlike the gig economy, which has proven to be mostly true for supplemental income roles only, i.e. picking up uber shifts in off hours.
We are focused on full-time high skilled labor. As an example, we invested in WorkRails, which helps software companies deliver professional services. They are also providing opportunities to qualified expert consultants, which addresses the utilization rate pain point. WorkRails does much more for consultants to increase utilization, manage payments and eliminate marketing costs. They let the consultant focus on the delivery of their work freeing their time to do more.
People want to focus on the work that matters to them, not the sales pipeline, back office pains or administrative burden. We continue to review more interesting startups, marketplaces and creative concepts that address the potential of highly skilled talent to set up their own practice. If you are addressing this pain in any form, then we would love to hear from you.