JobBliss Inc

The vision for JobBliss is to give freelancing the same sort of stability as a full-time job by providing a steady, schedule-able stream of work that creates job security. By connecting freelancers directly to employers, JobBliss gives visibility and control to both a contract workforce, and the companies using it to manage that talent.

This vision is innovative because it enables a direct connection between employers and talent, and allows remote talent access to a broader range of jobs. It also gives employers increased control over talent management, costs associated with, and enables smoother workflow within their organizations.

This vision is transformative in its approach to shaping our economic destiny because it creates stability in a volatile industry.

Our vision is to provide all elements required to help non-traditional workers/freelancers access the features that normally only full-time employees get.

Making Freelance, a full-time, secure profession.

By 2020, almost half the workforce will be freelance, meaning more than 80 million people will be working for multiple companies. (Intuit)
50% of companies reported a significant number of contractors in their workforces, with that number expected to rise dramatically, with only 16% having established policies to work with and manage this workforce. 

Freelancing is not going away. The need for this type of short term and remote work is only going to increase. 

Not properly managing freelance talent poses risks such as legal, security, privacy on top of the obvious inefficiencies for both the freelancer and employer.

Companies and freelancers are often forced to use expensive 3rd party recruiters to connect, which mark up a freelancers rate and impose strict contracts and high costs on both sides.

By choice or by necessity, freelancers often face "feast or famine" cycles, moving from work to not knowing where their next job will come from. During periods of employment, there is often a lack of proper on-boarding and management which affects aspects including: not having access to the tools they need to not knowing who will approve their invoice and ensure they get paid in a timely manner. 

JobBliss empowers a variety of people to engage and work in the digital economy, as well as those who face barriers to employment, including:

• Women returning to work after maternity leave 
• Freelancers in remote areas
• Freelancers with niche skill sets 
• People who require a flexible work/life balance to manage family needs
• Disabled persons 
• Immigrants 

Independent contractors: freelancers who take on project-based assignments
Moonlighters: Individuals with a primary job and work as a freelancer after hours.

Temporary workers: Continuous temporary contracts.

Freelance business owners: People with one or more employees who consider themselves both a freelancer and a business owner.

Previously excluded from the digital economy because:

Lack of network: freelancers who haven't had opportunity to work with enough people to make new connections.

Remote location: freelancers who don't live in urban centres with access to new work opportunities.

Niche skill set: freelancers who specialize in something that's not needed locally.

Lack of time: a personal investment finding and building a freelancing network as an individual, time that could otherwise be spent working.

Negative perception: freelancers can be seen as less important or less skilled than full time workers by potential employers.

JobBliss is a freelance team management platform that allows companies to build, manage and track their freelance resources. 

Employers have a 'top down' view of all activity, ensuring hiring managers and freelancers are working together within the established rules of engagement. This ensures rates, workflow, contracts and communications are centralized and documented, creating a fair working environment.

JobBliss is a SaaS platform that can be used anywhere across the globe, and as a self-serve tool, it can scale to suit the needs and size of any company. The platform removes the need for 3rd party agencies, allowing a direct connection.

Finally, a symbiotic relationship for a historically volatile working relationship.

Employers can:

• Find skills they need, quickly 
• Connect directly to talent
• Monitor and control all manager / freelancer interaction to ensure fair, compliant work agreements
• They will see activity throughout their company (no more legal misunderstandings), ensuring proper on boarding and the sharing of resources
• Save costs on 3rd party agencies, which can be transferred to the freelancer through fair rates

Freelancers can:

• Communicate directly with employer
• Document all agreements
• Get paid regularly and on time
• Get booked in advance
• Work from anywhere / on their schedule
• Have more visibility across the every organization they work with (skills sharing in single company)
• Have more visibility to jobs suited to them with other companies through the JobBliss marketplace

The working model for employers still focuses on 'Full-time' first, and has yet to embrace this powerful freelance workforce. To change this behaviour, we must begin with helping companies create a new way of working. One that is simple and easy to adopt. 

JobBliss works for freelancers and employers. Companies can build up and manage a database across their organization. Freelancers use JobBliss with no cut or markup of their rates, or fees charged to host their portfolio/contact information, and manage their availability.

Freelance management systems competitors include WorkMarket (workmarket.com) and Kalo (kalohq.com). While they offer ways to find talent, they take a cut of freelancer's rates or charge a finder's fee. WorkMarket focuses on contractors that do not become part of the employer's team or workforce, e.g. electricians. Kalo does not host job postings, or allow management of ongoing projects.

JobBliss is about building relationships. Companies learn what their freelancers' skill sets are, and how to take advantage of them so that when a job comes up, the employer knows and trusts that their freelancer will complete it on time and budget.

JobBliss is a cloud based SaaS platform that can be used by any company, anywhere in the world. Our platform is scalable, and can grow to fit the needs of the user. One admin can have hundreds of managers on their team, managing, working, and connecting with thousands of freelancers.

We employ the JobBliss platform and model of working remotely. To communicate on a daily basis, we use tools like Zoom, or collaboration tools like Google or Dropbox paper. All of our day-to-day work is done remotely except client demos and meetings.
JobBliss is a SaaS platform with 3 portals:
1. Admin level for the Company C-suite or head of HR
2. Managers across the organization
3. Freelancers
All of our full-time, freelance, and contract staff are members of the platform.

Tech stack
- JobBliss is built on CraftCMS and Vue.js
- HubSpot is used in the front end for marketing automation
- Zendesk is used for customer support

Functionality
- Communication between admin, managers and freelancers is fully documented through the platform
- Fully automated and self-service - companies don't need us to do anything to get started

Plans to use more digital based tools include integrating video interviews for freelancers to add content, paperless invoicing such as QuickBooks self employed and Freshbooks.

JobBliss tags and captures valuable interaction and budgeting data that can be used by employers to have better control and visibility into the activity between managers and freelancers.

From Deloitte’s 2019 Global Human Capital Trends report, 37% of survey respondents forecast increased contractor use, but only 16% have established policies and practices to manage contractors. That gap, along with more than 80 million freelancers globally, or 40% of the US workforce in non full-time employment and growing represents a huge opportunity.

Most freelancers are on their own when it comes to: dedicated workspace, equipment, training, health benefits, or even getting paid on time. And they rarely receive training, personal feedback, business advice, or emotional support, with little control over working conditions, scheduling, insurance coverage, or retirement savings. 

JobBliss is a solution that offers power and control to freelancers through ease of use and accessibility. Anyone can use it anywhere, around the world, and it can be incorporated into a company’s processes for day-to-day use, like Slack. 

Bringing employment standards into the gig economy is an ongoing challenge, but one that JobBliss is addressing as it grows. 

Short-term outcomes: JobBliss offers employers organization, reduced recruitment costs, and increased speed to market; and offers freelancers a marketplace to promote their skillsets. The platform is easy to use, and therefore adopt, which is a key issue in promoting new models and technology within an organization. 

Long-term outcomes: JobBliss allows employers to attract, retain, and manage their freelancers, promotes a more positive view of a skilled contract workforce, and stimulates growth through efficiency. JobBliss makes it easy for freelancers to find and schedule work, showcase their portfolios, and better manage their income sources.

Since the initial launch of JobBliss in 2015, we have enjoyed incredible growth and proof of market need, including:
- 13,000 + freelancers joined JobBliss, all through word of mouth
- 345 (and growing) freelance or contract jobs
- 200% increase in Freelancers accessing and meeting companies they were originally unable to connect with without a recruiter.
- 432 companies are on JobBliss in the SMB category
- 5 enterprise level clients with an average of 60 departments each are preparing to use the JobBliss Enterprise Beta in June, 2019.

Average employer brings on 20-30 thousand skilled freelancers to their database. These people can now have access to jobs across this organization, where they would normally be limited to the one contact that first employed them. Most companies have 20-100+ departments that need freelance help.
These freelancers now have access to jobs posted by the other companies, specific to freelance work.

Income equality - freelancers on the platform were able to achieve their preferred rate without being undercut / marked up.
Our growth over the last 3 years has been exclusively from word of mouth, which demonstrates there is a need.

Metrics

- # of freelancers hired
- Sharing of freelancers across departments (% increase in visibility of talent)
- Increase in hourly rate (no markup) of freelancers rates
- Speed to freelancer getting paid
- Reduction of cost of employers outsourcing budget
- Reduction in legal issues (lack of documentation / agreements / contracts)
- Job satisfaction

Top 3 Goals
- Market expansion to the US in key cities
- Freelancer payment - new product offering of payment to freelancers through JobBliss to ensure payment (FundThrough)
- Invoicing integration (QuickBooks, Wave and Freshbooks partnerships)

Our risks revolve around growth and expansion, as well as new product development.

Growth:
Rapid growth is a concern, as we would need onboard and provide customer service across the globe.
As we begin to engage larger organizations, they in turn bring in their freelance databases - some of which have more than 30,000 freelancers. We are focusing on ensuring that each company is on-boarded properly, wherever they are located, as well as bringing the freelancers in to the system properly.
We continue to expand on-boarding services that are automated as much as possible.

Understanding:
With all new products and ideas, it is often difficult for people to grasp the unique aspects of the site. We are working to create content to help teams understand how JobBliss works, including white papers, demos and infographics.

Awareness:
JobBliss caters to 3 unique segments, Freelancers, Employers (leadership) and hiring managers. Creating customized content for each group will be necessary, including white papers, onboarding material and social media management.
Approach: Content creation by the users has been helpful, engaging the community to create and write. Marketing costs are budgeted according to territory and customer type. 

Development costs and new product development:

Our product roadmap has been prioritized with the feedback of employers and freelancers, and we will focus on the lowest cost, highest payback features in the next 6 months. We hope to grow the business by 50% in the next 6 months, with this revenue being used to increase development.

Growth:

Targeting key cities headquartering large, global companies. We will be employing local experts who can integrate into the community and begin to build awareness. This will require the hiring of several sales people, both remote and local

Understanding:

With webinars, seminars, white papers, social engagement and speaking at events, along with trade show participation. Our team will be creating content that will help educate the C-suite and hiring managers about the process and benefits. 

Awareness:

Social, local and mass marketing initiatives will be deployed in targeted publications, as well as regular social channels.

Member get Member (MGM) campaigns that engage and reward existing freelancers and customers to help share the site, along with the content. (Our growth to date has been through word of mouth exclusively)

NA

Angie Kramer is the CEO & founder of JobBliss. With a background as a strategist and creative director, Angie had first-hand knowledge of the barriers that freelancers faced.

As VP of Strategy, Angie managed a department of 45+ people, with a $16M gross billings target to "build new loyalty products", but her efforts were stymied by a lack of internal skill sets, and not being able to hire fast enough.

Angie decided to build a tool to help her network find jobs, collecting and building a database of freelancer contact information to prevent them being undercut by recruiters. 

JobBliss head office is based in Oakville Ontario Canada

All employees are remote, as we use the JobBliss model, with team members living and working in cities across Canada, including Regina, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, as well as South Carolina and the UK. They are able to support themselves living in areas that would otherwise not support their skill set.

We are nimble, and use an agile methodology to build and deploy all products across content, marketing and technology.

Our team includes individuals that have up to 20 years + each of senior management and leadership experience, giving us the a unique competitive advantage with our knowledge of building and running a business.

Leadership:
Angie Kramer - Founder & CEO
Analytics, Strategy, Loyalty, Technology and Development, New product development, Marketing, Social media and Leadership

Mario DiPietro - Advisor, Finance
M&A, Leadership, Investment, Finance

Anthony West - Head of Product
Research, Customer experience, Product development, Analytics

Jesse Knowles, John Waller - Technology
Full stack development

Katryn Kolt - Sales support

Siobhan Kelly - Content creation

Ian MacFadyen, Stuart Thursby - Design and User Experience

Our team has worked together in other corporate or consulting roles for many years, and have built a solid, trusting relationship that helps us quickly make decisions.

Angie Kramer ran a monthly Women in Tech Meetup, and as a Finalist at the Women 2.0 PITCH competition in 2014, gained recognition in the startup and innovation community.

Top 10 Finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt Toronto, 2015, Angie pitched to 500 tech enthusiasts and C-suite employees.
Presenting on several panels increased visibility and JobBliss was a Recipient of OCE Smart Start grant, 2016.

JUDGE: PwC V2R Awards 2017
PANEL: PwC V2R Awards 2016
PANEL: The Sharing Economy - Queen's Park 2015
PANEL: The Future of Work - The Ontario Economic Summit 2015
BNN Disruptors Pitch (BNN) 2017
https://www.newswire.ca/news-r...

JobBliss is a 'For profit' company model
We use the JobBliss model where all of our employees work remote, allowing for low overhead and flexible work/life balance.

Revenue model

Freelancers: FREE

Employers: Yearly SaaS Subscription for employers with tiering price options:
1. Database only
or
2. Database plus unlimited access to the Freelance Marketplace

Tier 1
Small/Medium (SMB) business: 1 admin, up to 5 managers.
2 options - Database only ($9,000 annual subscription) or Database + Marketplace ($12,000 annual subscription) with unlimited connections to freelancers (no markup).
Each additional manager is 4k per seat.

Tier 2
Enterprise companies: 1 admin, 10 managers.
2 options - Database only ($60,000 annual subscription) or Database + Marketplace ($75,000 annual subscription) with unlimited connections to freelancers (no markup).
Each additional manager is 3k per seat.

Future offerings:
- For employers; freelancer payment plans, with subscription cost
- Freelancer focused features such as invoicing integration benefits, coworking discounts and insurance

We are a 'Fee-for-service' or SaaS model

We expect to fund our work through both the use of the platform, as well as raising capital, although our focus is on generating revenue first and foremost.

Since we have a high margin revenue structure, we are confident that the annual subscription cost will allow us healthy growth.

Our second strategy will be raising capital over the next 18 months, with a goal of 2 Million USD to allow us to scale and expand markets.

Our revenue forecast for the next 3 years is as follows:

(USD$)

Revenue
SMB.                           2020                2021                  2022
Private Database         

$325,000             $406,250             $507,813 

SMB 

Private Database & Marketplace         

$665,000             $831,250          $1,039,063 

Enterprise
Private Database         

$625,000             $781,250             $976,563

Private Database & Marketplace      

$3,750,000          $8,750,000        $25,000,000 

Total Revenue 

2020 $5,365,000  

2021 $10,768,750  

2022 $27,523,438 

Total COGS (Fees, Disbursements, Other) 

$4,023,750  $8,076,563  $20,642,578 

Gross Margin 

$1,341,250  $2,692,188  $6,880,859 

If selected as a Solver, the prize funding and resources would be spent on growth and expansion:

Key hires:

• Salespeople in key markets to help drive adoption in US and UK (2)
• Marketing & Social media support (1)
• Customer onboarding/support (1)
• Site and marketing material design (1)

Technology investments: (2 developers)

- Expediting faster payment of freelancers through the syste

- Budgeting visualization tools for employers to help control spend
- Onboarding tools/materials to facilitate freelancer onboarding/learning

Marketing:
HR Trade Show attendance x 2
Freelancer outreach/partnerships with WeWork and freelancer organizations
Social media outreach: freelancers, employers and managers

N/A

WeWork, coworking spaces: Space for freelancers

Benefits and insurance providers: Freelance benefits and insurance packages and deals

Intuit Quickbooks / Freshbooks: Invoicing integration to allow for faster payment for freelancers.

IBM: We are in initial conversations with WorkDay, as JobBliss and the services we provide are a known gap in the IBM offering. 

WorkDay: We are in initial conversations with WorkDay, as JobBliss and the services we provide are a known gap in the WorkDay offering. 

Financial institutions: Banks struggle to connect with freelance workers, and are looking for a way to provide mortgages and loans. With JobBliss, we can prove and predict ongoing work, allowing freelancers the opportunity to have data that can assist in bank related financing. 

N/A

Finding work, advancing your career, affording travel costs, time away from your family - these are very common, stressful issues. Freelancing and working remote is often a great way of allowing for the work-life balance modern families are seeking... but where do you find this work, and how do you maintain a pipeline of clients new to the country, or even just a busy working parent. 

With funding from the GM Prize on Community-Driven Innovation, JobBliss will build out features to improve, promote and increase the sharing of talent across companies, target marketing to create awareness in remote areas, and through partnerships with organizations like WeWork for finding shared office space for remote workers.

Finding opportunities can be difficult for remote workers, or those new to a city. Freelancers on JobBliss will get exposure across entire companies, increasing visibility to potential employers, and the amount of work available to them. Access to a database of opportunities will enhance the lives of remote workers looking to build a viable career. 

Short-term and freelance work helps build confidence, particularly among people who experience barriers to work including women, disabled persons, caregivers, and families. It's a leg up in a very competitive work world.

Being able to work from home or a local shared space lowers stress, reduces the costs and environmental impacts (e.g. pollution) of travel, and empowers everyone to improve their work life balance and enjoy prosperity. 

With funding from the Innovation for Women Prize, JobBliss will empower women to engage and work in the digital economy, specifically women returning to work after maternity leave, and in rural and suburban areas. 

Helping mothers work from home, and be closer to their families will create a better work-life balance, lower stress, and allow savings on travel costs. 

The prize money will fund a “Freelance Moms” three-fold initiative to: 

1. Recruit new women who freelance (by advertising in freelance groups on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn etc.) 
2. To sign up on JobBliss, target current registered freelancers on the site, and feature these women to companies registered on JobBliss. Companies can access and share these Freelance Mom profiles across their organizations. 
3. We can also offer a discount or a rebate to companies who hire women through this initiative.

N/A

There are several exciting opportunities for data for both companies and freelancers. 

Budgeting - amount of forecasted budget needed using predictive analytics. This data will be collected while the employer is posting jobs, engaging in projects, managing and working with freelancers over time.

Forecasting - companies will begin to see trends in freelance engagement including skills, work behaviours of their internal team, duration of projects, and costs. 

All this usage-based data is easy to read and accessible right from the main dashboard in the platform. It is stored on a secure server, and is proprietary to each individual company or organization.

The funding will also help build tools to assist freelancers with mortgage applications and loan assistance using the data we collect.

Because JobBliss allows companies to schedule and book jobs in advance, freelancers can collect data and show financial institutions their proof of employment, both past, present, and future. 

The funding will help with the development of the features, as well as research and learnings between our team, companies and freelancers to better understand how we can empower them with ongoing learnings.

With funding from the Morgridge Family Foundation on Community-Driven Innovation, JobBliss will build out features to improve and increase the sharing of talent across companies, target marketing to create awareness in remote areas, and through partnerships with organizations like WeWork for finding shared office space for remote workers.

Finding opportunities can be difficult for remote workers, or those new to a community. Freelancers on JobBliss will get exposure across entire companies, increasing their visibility to potential employers, and the amount of work available to them. Access to a database of opportunities will enhance the lives of remote workers looking to build a viable career. 

Short-term and freelance work helps build confidence, particularly among people who experience barriers to work including women, disabled persons, caregivers, and families. Being able to work from home or a local shared space lowers stress, reduces the costs and environmental impacts (e.g. pollution) of travel, and empowers everyone to improve their work life balance and enjoy prosperity.

Funds will be used for the advancement of technology needed to create more visibility, specifically to individuals in need, such as rural talent, mothers returning to work, or those that need to work from home. This will include a features section, as well as supplementing costs of the platform to provide discounts to employers who employ these individuals.

N/A