With a growing staff and market expansion on the horizon, gig economy startup GigSmart has opened a new downtown Denver office.
The company recently moved out of a coworking space and into a new office at 999 18th St. in Denver to accommodate a growing headcount and instill a company culture.
“The shared office space was a really nice solution for us out of the gate as it gave us the flexibility we needed as we scaled up,” GigSmart President Rich Oakes said. “As the team got bigger, space became more limited. The team was becoming fragmented and in that shared space it created a culture we weren’t comfortable with.”
The company’s growth from 13 employees at the end of 2018 to 31 employees was a primary driver in the move, though Oakes said future expansion also played a part.
GigSmart currently operates in nine markets across the U.S. and plans to launch in additional, larger markets in September. Oakes said the company’s app is approaching 100,000 installations across its nine markets and he’s content with the measured growth strategy the company has employed.
“We really take it one month at a time, to make sure the product is meeting the need of the marketplace,” he said.
GigSmart created a platform that allows temporary workers to build a skills profile with more than 3,000 available skills and search for jobs.
A business, charity or individual requester can then search by skill, review profiles and send a gig request to the worker or volunteer of choice. Within minutes, the worker may accept or decline the gig request.
Upon acceptance, the worker proceeds to the gig site or begins working remotely based on the requirements. Once the gig is complete, the worker is then paid through the app.
The app is free to use for workers and GigSmart takes a 10 percent fee from the employer. That means, if a worker is set to make $100, they will receive the entire $100. The individual or business that employed them will pay an additional $10 to GigSmart for facilitating the work.
Since launching in November, GigSmart has added a job application style feature that allows workers to apply for open positions through the app and opened gigs up to a month in advance.
COO Mitch Catino said the company has introduced new features on the GigSmart app every three weeks since the November debut and the new office has helped further accelerate improvements on the product side.
“One of the key ways to do that is getting feedback as soon as possible,” he said. “Having sales on the same floor as product and development helps get us that feedback.”
Oakes said the company has yet to take on outside capital, despite inquiries, but will look to go down that route in the future.
As it prepares for further expansion, Catino said GigSmart wants to be more than just a handyman or lawn-care gig solution.
“The long-term plan is to continue to expand the product and operations to target and address all the different pieces of the gig economy,” he said. “We’re looking at anything in the gig economy space, the sky is the limit.”
