Flagler College student and entrepreneur Jacob Goldman is trying to provide more business intelligence to employees. Specifically, he wants to tell his users when their company announces mass layoffs somewhere in the U.S.
Alerts required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act can sometimes be employees' first indication that mass layoffs are coming. But unless employees are tracking their state's database — and every other state the company does business in — they could be unaware their job is in jeopardy.
Letting employees know when such notifications are filed is the goal of Layoff Lookout, which Goldman founded with his cousin, Noah Schwartz.
The Business Journal recently sat down with Goldman to talk a little bit about his business and where he sees growth opportunities.
So can you tell me a little bit about Layoff Lookout and what your platform does?
We aggregate WARN notices from every state when a company that employs more than 100 people conducts a layoff. Each state varies on the amount of time before the layoff begins, but it is usually 60 to 90 days. Each state has a database, but it is spread out among 50 different databases.
So our program aggregates all that data and compares it to our users' data. After a user sets up their profile, they would get an email alert about their employer.
Where are you looking to grow?
We're working on building out our premium tier. It'll be like a subscription-based service that will have more data points and will be searchable from a larger perspective.
What has been the reception so far?
I participated in a pitch competition at Flagler in April 2023. There were about 15 different teams pitching their ideas over two days. After a round of voting, the top teams did a five-minute, Shark Tank-style presentation. We won one of the awards and received some seed money that has funded us so far.
My cousin and co-founder Noah Schwartz also pitched our business at the University of Vermont and also won a pitch competition.
What's next?
We want to grow and build some brand notoriety and continue developing our user base before we look at any partnerships. As far as seed funding, it would have to be the right fit. But in the meantime, we are just focused on growing our user base.
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