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Founder of Workible, a mobile and social recruitment platform for flexible workforce industries, Fiona Anson (pictured), writes about her journey into creating a technology start-up with her business partner Allison Baker.
The idea of Workible came from an idea that was sparked from many shared car rides to work with my business partner, Allison Baker. We were both having trouble finding flexible roles to fit in with our lifestyles and we agreed there needed to be a better way.
This is the niche Workible, a mobile and social recruitment app, occupies. It helps businesses find flexible employees fast, allowing them to find and connect with workers in real time, anywhere and on most smart devices.
It also caters to the 6.7 million flexible workers in Australia, supporting job seekers to build professional and dynamic profiles to show off their industry skills, experience, references and availability. It also allows them to join company-based, skill-based or industry-based shortlists.
Our journey getting Workible off the ground was like many others, a voyage into a space we knew very little about. But for an entrepreneur, taking the easy road is a foreign concept.
Some people may think starting up a business is a glamorous job, but when you start a business you put a lot on the line – time, energy and money. We have found learning new technologies and attracting investors to be the two biggest hurdles to overcome.
Jill of all trades
All business owners know having a great idea is never enough. We needed to be Jills of all trades – experts at sales, marketing and operations.
Along the way we’ve quickly learnt that to stay in the game we needed to build a huge understanding of where technology is now, how it works and where it’s headed in the future, for instance coding, wireframing, workflows, mobility, social platforms and viral marketing.
With everyone striving to be the next Facebook, you would think the startup space would be very competitive, but this community is incredibly connected and supportive. Entrepreneurs regularly share contacts and ideas to help each other move forward. There are a variety of weekly events for the tech startup community fuelled by free pizza and beer.
Startup entrepreneurs live and breathe their businesses, often giving up well-paying jobs to follow their dreams. Like us, businesses are typically set up by “bootstrapping” – funding their own technology builds and operational costs. However we quickly realised we would need to find investors.
Coffee and investors
Investors and investor groups, (i.e. Angels and VCs), are also a growing industry, supportive of the tech community and fuelled by the growing number of tech businesses who capitalise on a big dollar “exit” to a major player.
Investors come in all shapes and sizes and having gone through obtaining seed here in Australia, the best advice is to find investors that fit with both the requirements and skills sets, but also the values, of the business.
We found our first investors using the ‘100 cups of coffee’ method. This meant meeting after meeting with as many people as we could find that would listen to our 30-second story.
Our most recent investor I met at a small business networking event. He happened to be a friend of the host and we were mingling and he asked what I did. I gave him the 30-second story and within 10 minutes he told me he might be interested in investing!
What has worked for us is finding investors that understand the technology and the concept so it is not so much of a hard sell. We are not trying to educate them and sell our idea. But it is important to remember, once you have an investor or potential investor, include them in what’s happening with the business and to help them get an inside view into how you work through weekly updates and new client wins.
About Workible
Workible is a mobile and social recruitment platform for flexible workforce industries, catering to the 6.7 million flexible workers in Australia. Workible allows job seekers to list a profile and join talent and industry pools according to their skills and experience. Employers use Workible to tap into those pools of job seekers when they need to find staff fast. For more information visit www.workible.com.au.
About Fiona Anson
Fiona Anson is the co-founder and director of Workible, a new mobile and social recruitment app for the flexible workforce. Fiona is a serial entrepreneur having owned businesses for over 20 years. In additional to starting up several successful companies she has won the American Express Fastest Growing Business Award, Sydney Businesswoman of the Year and was a NSW Finalist for Telstra Businesswoman of the Year.