pirkx

I, Stella Smith founded fintech start-up pirkx in 2018. A disruptive force in the UK’s employee benefits industry providing benefits and savings for individuals in order to extend their income spending potential and enhance their health and financial well-being. 

Prior to founding fintech, pirkx, I was a Senior Investment Director at Alternative Investment Specialist, Ingenious and Director, Retail and Private Wealth, at HBOS Treasury. I built the financial markets wealth proposition at HBOS, and my role expanded to cover the multi-branded Retail distribution channels across the Group.

I joined HBOS from Lloyds TSB Financial Markets and the majority of my early career was in private banking at C. Hoare & Co. Holding a variety of banking and financial markets qualifications, I have a number of private investment interests and enjoys art, music, property, travel, and spending time with my baby daughter at home in Covent Garden, London.

1. The contingent workforce - contractors, the gig economy - and even employees of smaller businesses often have little or no access to well-being benefits due to ineligibility, complex on-boarding processes or high cost.

2. To help all companies support the wellbeing of their teams, whether they employ them directly or engage them as a contractor. The dictionary definition of “wellbeing” is the state of being happy, healthy or comfortable and we have built our proposition around 5 key pillars of wellbeing; Health, Wealth, Recognition, Learning and Social. We believe everyone should be given the tools to support their wellbeing. 

3. Our project will elevate humanity by driving an equality-based proposition for everyone. At pirkx we believe it is a fundamental human right for everyone to have access to basic healthcare and wellbeing benefits and that is exactly what our project is set out to achieve.

Traditional Employee Benefits providers focus on companies with >200 employees and can be too expensive for small businesses.

With the growth of the Gig Economy and the size of the traditional contractor industries it became apparent there was a huge market for employee style benefits. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the number of self-employed is increasing. This is partly driven by the growth in the ‘gig’ economy, where instead of a regular salary, workers get paid for the work ‘gigs’ they do.

The ONS also state that of the 27 million UK workers, 5 million are self-employed. There are a significant number of SMEs with staff of less than 250 who do not currently offer employee benefits to their staff. Traditional employee benefits are deemed too expensive or too complex for smaller businesses.

Just under a third (32%) of UK employer respondents working in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have implemented benefits packages above statutory minimum levels, for example additional days of paid leave, in order to improve productivity, according to research by NatWest Bank. This means that there are an estimated over nine million employees in the UK working in SMEs with no employee benefits.

At pirkx our project is to make 1 million happier, healthier humans by 2025 by providing affordable wellbeing benefits to everyone, improving health, wealth and happiness.

To achieve this pirkx was built with the aim of having a true social impact. With a keen focus on both physical and financial well-being, pirkx can be used to encourage saving and is a valuable benefit in helping raise living standards and helping families for the longer term. We give our members the ability to save £,000s. We utilise self service technology to make employee benefits accessible to the many, not just the few. We have traction in our target market with our product being used by real people, solving a real issue today. Our platform gives members the ability to save upwards of £300 on average as well as access to financial wellbeing services such as debt management advice and counselling, an elderly care helpline, Money Advice and a budgeting service to help financially empower our members. 

Our project will aim to serve the Gig Economy of contract workers and employees within businesses of any scale.

Dependant on household spend, our members will have the ability to save upwards of £300 on average as well as gaining access to financial wellbeing services, such as a counsellor and 24/7 GP helpline for them and their families. 

Our target community is huge, for example there are c. 5m in the contingent workforce in the UK together with an estimated 10m employed in the SME sector without access to employee benefits. By engaging the masses, we are able to understand the needs of thousands, if not millions of individuals and provide them with access to wellbeing benefits, that they may not have had access to previously.

Due to the large-scale community, our wellbeing project model is based around five key pillars, Health, Wealth, Recognition, Social and Education. This allows pirkx to meet a variety of needs in various areas of a human’s wellbeing.

pirkx elevates an equal opportunity for anyone to gain access to well-being benefits - regardless of their employment type. 

Traditionally, well-being benefits have only been made available to individuals in employment and only those in employment with an employer who can afford to provide such well-being benefits. This tradition left behind the entire gig economy, made up of contract workers and employees within businesses who cant afford well-being benefits. pirkx was built to disrupt this tradition by creating an affordable platform compiled of well-being benefits, ranging from everyday savings to both mental and health care. 

My CTO and fellow founder of pirkx Craig Caveney historically owned a suite of different businesses - one in particular was a firm of massage therapists. We scouted the market to try to find a package of benefits to provide to the therapist team to say thank you for their hard work and continued service. Safe to say, we found nothing - except an unaffordable package of minimal benefits; priced high because the therapist team was small and benefit providers were not interested in small teams or individuals. 

Post this frustration, Craig and I approached an employee benefits expert to understand what proposition was available in the market for contract workers and employers of small teams. Again, we found nothing except a huge gap in the market.

Thus, pirkx was born. Craig and I began the pirkx business model right away; collaborating with a team of experts in various fields. 

We have built a low cost solution, via a simple, easy to use, self service platform. 

pirkx was built as a business to solve a problem that I had for my team, that I couldn’t solve - then realised it was applicable to a much wider audience. This makes me feel compelled to try to get something for those people who are traditionally left behind. pirkx uses technology to democratise wellbeing benefits, helping money at home go further for everyone. 

On average 17 million people do not have a couple of hundred pounds available as 'spare' income to cover adhoc but much needed costs, for items such as grocery shopping, fuel and heating - which is why I am passionate about the impacts that pirkx can bring for thousands of individuals and families.

I think that under the lens of COVID-19, everyone's view of the wellbeing of humans globally has become far more acute and aware. In conclusion, I feel that my underlying motivators about why I am passionate about my project are down to the simple fact that my day improves if I can help just one person in the world improve their wellbeing.

I feel I am well-positioned to deliver this project, because I am self motivated and have been for the majority of my life. Despite being extremely bright, I didn’t do my A Levels or go to university so no higher level of education and instead went into the world of work. This meant that I have done a variety of jobs and had to work my way up from the very bottom, progressing to quite senior in large organisations. I have a background in Finance, Technology and every element of commercial in terms of managing various types of teams of various sizes. 

Having a blend of both technical and commercial experience I feel is unusual and equips me to deliver this project in a unique way.

I think I am well-positioned to deliver pirkx, because the idea came from my head - and now my job is to utilise the experience I have to try to make sure that we as a whole try to positively impact human beings. 

I aim to use my past experience to run build and create things, continuous our positive social impact mission. 

I believe I have the ability to gather support and motivate others to join in on a journey, which is something that drives my passion to help other people.

A very relevant problem I have had to solve was caused by the impacts of COVID-19. With people being furloughed, some businesses felt it was not an appropriate time to provide wellbeing benefits to their workforce, both still employed and furloughed.

Whilst this was a challenge, I could see the opportunity and persevered to demonstrate that in fact all employees could benefit from wellbeing benefits now, more than ever.

pirkx offers a 24/7 counsellor service to its members at a small bolt-on cost of £2.00 plus VAT per year. To some companies who were struggling, I offered this service to them for free with any paid for pirkx membership. This did not only solve the original problem, but also enforced my intended message of wanting to improve the wellbeing of humans globally.

I feel that challenges similar to this only highlight the importance of human wellbeing, and that the global landscape post-COVID-19 will have a deeper focus on this subject. pirkx is a solution to this ‘new normal’ and I hope I can evolve my project to only further facilitate the Health, Wealth, Recognition, Social and Education of humans globally.

This is highlighted in my life so far, I didn’t go on and do higher education at school but I worked hard and I grafted. I suppose that if you commit average efforts to a project, then you will receive average results - whereas I get up I the morning with an aim to give my absolute everything to this project. This I feel excels my leadership ability, because I am not afraid to do the doing and lead by example with my team.

I will do whatever it takes to get the job done and I will continue to work until that job is complete - and when other people can see that, they can see the clear message that I am demonstrating. I make our goal clear and provide guidance on how we are going to get there in principle – whilst allowing flexibility so the team can get to that goal in their own way.

I set our goals high, double of what we need to achieve - I believe that if I can lead by example and demonstrate I will do whatever it takes to get the job done, that is what makes a brilliant leader.

In one year we aim to service circa 550,000 people and 1 million people by 2025.

Our mission is to make 1 million happier, healthier humans by providing affordable wellbeing benefits to everyone, improving health, wealth and happiness