Hirefreehands

Businesses around the world today aim to scale cost-effectively and take advantage of globalisation by working with remote teams and freelance talent. But finding affordable top talent remains a challenge, as it is always a trade between quality or cost. Companies end up spending outrageous sums and wasting valuable time on recruitment processes. 

We created an on-demand workplace platform where affordable and world-class talent can be hired and managed by clients globally all through an integrated & intelligent workstream. We feature a Talent Pool Marketplace, Distributed Development Environment and an Integrated Job Workstream System for seamless Collaboration, Communication and Work Delivery.

We are creating an economic opportunity where there was little before. That is why we look across Africa for people who have the skills, determination, and drive to work remotely for global companies. We offer a window into a promising future for tech talent while creating value for companies.

Africa is home to 1.2B people and 7 out of the world’s 10 fastest growing internet populations with a competitive advantage as the worlds youngest region. On the continent, 60% of the population is reported to be under the age of 35, with research estimating that half of the world’s population will live in Africa. 

These trends have translated into raising number of skilled talent in the last decade. As thousands of students graduate from various top notch universities and colleges in the continent. The number of top tech talent is always increasing in the continent, creating an ever ready pool of tech experts whenever needed. The Challenge now lies in connecting these talent to jobs and giving them opportunities to improve their skills and make a living from their skills. 

Although, there has been an explosion of access to data and learning resources, alongside massive growth in skill learning and development institutions over the last decade, and this has expectedly led to a glut of talent across the continent. The opportunity and availability of jobs in this regions is not as encouraging, with only a few of these talent getting access to well paid jobs.

We efficiently identify, verify and recruit digitally skilled talent to the platform, with the ability to deliver work across a range of tech verticals (Core Dev, Graphics, Content development and ideation, video etc). We export digital African talent globally through a robust web-based workplace.

Every Freehand is provided with opportunities to learn (constant exposure to jobs), grow on the job. To be eligible for work in Enterprise Projects or Full time Remote, Freehands are required to excel in Peer-to-Peer and Enterprise Projects jobs for 6 months and 9 Months respectively.

At the moment, there is a massive, untapped pool of world-class digital talent in Africa. These individuals have the quality required to deliver great work, at a fraction of the cost of their global counterparts but do not have the opportunity and exposure. We aim to bridge this gap. 

We find & recruit our digital talent (developers, designers, content creators and product managers) across Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. We are looking to extend our reach to 5 more African countries in the next 1 year. Across Africa (Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya), we will run local meetups, event sponsorships, hackathons and skill development boot-camps to attract, identify & recruit freelance talent.

Hirefreehands functions as an on-demand workplace platform featuring a Talent Pool Marketplace, Distributed Development Environment and an Integrated Job Workstream System for seamless Collaboration, Communication and Work Delivery. 

We carefully verify and recruit top digital talent from Africa to our workplace platform, exposing them to global work opportunities with individual clients, businesses, multinational organizations.

Supply Abundance & Growth Potential: There is a massive, untapped pool of world-class digital talent in Africa. These individuals have the quality required to deliver great work, at a fraction of the cost of their global counterparts but do not have the opportunity and exposure. We aim to bridge this gap. 

High Quality Control: Our Automated Pricing Algorithm, Blockchain based skill verification protocol and project management protocol, all enhance fair pricing and high quality control on user jobs & projects. 

Team collaboration: Our efficient team communication and high performance task management workstream ensures a hassle free remote collaboration. Practically, this is a reliable, cost efficient and fully managed workflow that scales with your needs. 

Top talent: Our layered competency framework and rigorous screening protocol covering identity, skill & behavioral assessment and ensure we match teams and projects’ needs with hard and soft skilled tech talent ready to work remotely. 

Our proprietary tech

Automated Price Regulation Algorithm: Hirefreehands runs an intelligent algorithm which dynamically determines a ‘fair price’ for every Peer-Peer job posted, hence removing the need for negotiation between clients and freehands. This way, we create a level playing ground on price and effectively make QUALITY the primary deciding factor for clients when hiring of freehands. 

Blockchain-based, HR Quality Control Systems and Protocols: Hirefreehands utilizes Proof of Process and Proof of Skill Protocols to ensure talent assessment (verification) is carried out efficiently and at the highest possible level of accuracy. We also designed a robust project work-system that simplifies communication & work delivery between clients and freehands. This system allows for seamless proposal assessment, talent hiring, profile development, job tracking, timing, delivery and review, payment administration and freelancer earnings management. 

Hirefreehands is a 2-sided, web-based workplace platform, with functions allowing for the posting of projects, proposal assessment, talent hiring, profile & portfolio building with progress tracking for freelancers, project management, delivery and reviews through a workstream, project payment administration and freehand earnings management.

Moving forward, we plan to scale globally with high efficiency and to make this possible, we will be integrating blockchain technology into specific aspects of the platform - Freelancer Verifications and Project Management automation. Our target will be to scale rapidly without compromising on quality which is our unique selling point.

Firstly, we will be implementing a Proof of Skill protocol that allows freelancers to handle new freehand assessments & verifications through a blockchain, jury-based voting system. Secondly, we will be integrating a Proof of Process protocol that simplifies quality control, project management and dispute resolution in job transactions. With roles like dispute resolution, KYC and skill verification handled by qualified users through the blockchain, we will be able to maintain our high level of quality, while expanding on a global scale.

Our solution addresses the problem in three layers:

1. Short term: we identify top talent on the African continent and we try to place them on jobs (mostly remote) while we monitor their growth and performance levels. 
2. Mid term: We solve the challenges that prevents talent from connecting with the right opportunities e.g access to jobs, access to learning materials, motivation packages etc
3. Long term: Meeting the need for tech talent while creating a pathway to economic empowerment for tech talent on the African continent (mostly youths under the age of 35). We belief talent is evenly distributed, so should opportunity be. 

In Nigeria, the unemployment rate for young people is more than 55 percent, and significantly higher when underemployment is taken into account.

From our beta to our initial launch, we have completed over 900+ jobs and had an impact on close to 700+ Freehands, we believe with our expansion efforts, we would better onboard these talent and place them on jobs globally. With our scale, we aim to touch a great proportion of the underserved tech workforce. 

1. Current number of people we are serving

Directly (Freehands) - 0ver 5000+ digital talent across Peer to Peer jobs, Enterprise projects and full time remote hire. 

Indirectly (Staff) - 15+ full time team member with with part time staff. 

2. Number we will be serving in one year 

Directly (Freehands) - 0ver 50,000+ digital talent across Peer to Peer jobs, Enterprise projects and full time remote hire. 

Indirectly (Staff) - 200+ full time team member with with part time staff. 

3. Number we will be serving in five years

Directly (Freehands) - 0ver 500,000+ digital talent across Peer to Peer jobs, Enterprise projects and full time remote hire. 

Indirectly (Staff) - 500-1000+ full time team members with with part time staff included.

We intend to improve upon our Network effect in the coming year. For every one freehand you impact or empower on the African continent, you empower a chain of others. With the unemployment rate going up, an empowered generation will serve a life line for a host other dependents- family, friends, etc. 

In the coming year we intend to improve our platform to accommodate for more Freehand activities, secure partnerships with innovations hubs to gain access to a network of training talent, and access to clients to connect these talent with. By reaching our goal of 50,000 freelancer we would have a multiplier effect on over 500,000-1,000,000 directly and indirectly.  

Going further, 5 years time, we intend to connect over 500,000 Freehand, and hence impact over 5,000,000- 10,000,000 lives on the African continent ( Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda).

Trust: Clients who are used to working in a certain way are adamant to try new platforms. Building a solid relationship with Freehands and Clients becomes very difficult in this situation.

Capital: For our business development, marketing and product development, we require a lot of capital to scale our operations. Securing capital to facilitate these operations is not always forth coming, as fundraising is usually time consuming. 

Market Access – Intra Africa Trade/global expansion: Operating in new cultures and regions presents new regulatory challenges which we need to overcome to set up operations. This is usually time consuming and capital intensive. 

Competition from freelancing companies like Upwork: at the moment, most freelancers turn to these platforms to hunt for work and clients also go here to hire freelancers. 

Security revenue for runways: Revenue flow is depend on clients and with the absence of fundraising, we relay on our revenue streams for operation which is usually not sufficient.  

Trust: As a platform we aim to provide value first to our consumer, ensuring we get high retention rates and subsequently referrals and loyalty from our clients. We also try to keep a small network of freehand we can control and give them access to jobs at all time, making sure they stick to our platform. 

Capital: Our business development has been from word of mouth as such we have kept a lean budget in our marketing drive. So far on the platform we have been bootstrapping. 

Market Access – Intra Africa Trade/global expansion: From proper research and regulatory compliance we have had little hindrances from our market entry endeavour. Although time consuming, we have been able to set up different African countries and Europe (Startup Visa Portugal, Startup Amsterdam Netherlands). 

Competition from freelancing companies like Upwork: These platforms are however overcrowded and lack any systematic way of ascertaining freelancer quality since any freelancer can sign up and work without verification. Price bidding also erodes the customer experience and makes it difficult for skilled freelancers to get good value for their services. Zero quality control.

Security revenue for runways: From our partnerships with companies like The Refinery, OPPO, Adidas, Transsnet, EDP etc we have been able to get access to job supply. 

From Strategic Partnerships, We will establish partnerships with global corporations to gain access to their network of enterprise clients, who are always looking to hire remote project teams. For this, we are looking to setup multiple business development units across different ServiceNow primary markets key cities - London, New York, Silicon Valley, Sydney, Toronto.

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predict that in 2020 there will be 1.4 million more software development jobs than applicants who can fill them.
• Fintech and BFIS will be missing 10.7 million tech workers by 2030, resulting in $1.3 trillion in lost revenue.
• Since 2010, the number of tech-related jobs in the U.S. has increased by around 200,000 every year, and the U.S. economy is becoming increasingly reliant on tech labor for its survival.
• €2.8 trillion Estimated Increase in global GDP by online talent platforms in 2025.

We currently have 10 Full time Team members working on the project. 

- 3 working in Portugal driving business development in Europe (COO, CTO, Business Analyst)  

- 2 In Amsterdam driving growth and global expansion ( Global Business Lead) 

- 5 Working in Lagos Nigeria, which our supply arm (Community lead, project managers) 

- We have Part-time Designer and Content Developers together with Interns. 

We have 10 years combined experience working with freelancers, hiring freelancers for clients, or delivering work together as a freelance team. We have directly experienced a lot of the difficulties large and mid-sized companies encounter in not just finding affordable talent to but also managing their work and communication. 

Personally, I founded and built one of the leading digital creative & marketing agencies in W.Africa today so I have worked with teams of developers, designers and content creators all my career.

We have partnerships with The Refinery, a data-driven advisory firm that specializes in startup growth optimization - they serves as our major client supply pipeline. 

We also have partnerships with CCHub-for our talent supply, UA Incubator in Aveiro Portugal, Startup Amsterdam and Startup Lisboa who basically help us in promoting our project within Europe.

We charge freelancers fixed commissions on job transactions. For single-freelancer (peer-to-peer) jobs, we charge a 20% fee while on enterprise projects requiring team collaborations and project management, we charge a 30% fee and for Full Time Remote Hires, we charge a  monthly recurring fee on every remote hire. 

To perfect this model, we:

• Operate an escrow system. All payments are made through the platform and go directly into escrow before any job kicks off, so both clients and freelancers are protected. We charge job commissions before paying the freehand.
• Have implemented unique protocols that prevent users from sharing personal contact information and hence transacting outside the platform. This eliminates talent leakage, revenue loss and most importantly, user exploitation.
• Developed a Price Regulation Algorithm that removes the need for negotiation between client and freelancers. This way, we automatically regulate prices on the platform, keeping them affordable for clients on one hand, while ensuring they are always worth the value for freelancers. There is no price bidding on the platform. Like Uber, we automatically calculate the cost of each transaction. Most importantly, this feature simplifies user experience and helps clients emphasize quality over price when hiring freelancers.

We charge freelancers fixed commissions on job transactions.

To drive growth to the platform we will rely on two growth channels: 

1. Strategic Partnerships: Partnerships with key stakeholders like recruitment agencies, startup hubs to gain access to their network of clients, who are always looking to hire remote talent and project. Our immediate focus is to develop these partnership networks in the EU, with a longer term view on North America and the MENA region
2. Business Development and Marketing: This is our general approach o reach entrepreneurs, businesses, and corporates in need of digital talent. We will achieve this through online advertising & PR, referral programs and direct business development efforts through sales teams in Europe and Africa.

In addition to this, we are in our seed fund round, which is sufficient for a run way off 9 month, a period we would be set for our mass growth campaign and business development.  

We are also on a search for government fundings, non equity grants, loans and equity investment at this stage to fast track our processes. 

Trust: An exposure on the live pitch event would expose our project to a wider audience and serve are as a network and subsequently client pipeline for us. The event would also give our platform more credibility and trust amongst our primary audience. 

Access to Funding: The US$100,000 in prize funding will be very helpful to us in building our product and running sales campaign that would boost our outreach to a new client audience. 

Networking/Team Upscaling: The skilled based mentorships would help prepare the founding team for much bigger challenges. We know the problem we are trying to solve is a huge one, and as such no mentorship or opportunity to learn will be underestimated. We are open to mentorship and to have a long lived relationship with ServiceNow much after the program.

Business Development: The Media opportunities that come with the program can not be overestimated here. We hope to get media exposure that would prepare us and propel us to enter ServiceNow markets(US, UK, Canada, Netherlands etc) and increase our client base in those regions. 

iHub-Kenya: Talent Supply 

Innovation Village: Uganda

Lets Deel: Payroll for Remote Teams and Compliance 

Swit: One Work Suite for Teams 

Stellar: Open network for storing and moving money