Over the last decade, Adam Alpert has been a champion for all things Rhode Island, even though he never dreamed of staying when he first arrived at Brown University.
After graduating, he co-founded Pangea App, an online marketplace for freelance talent, in Providence. Alpert and the Pangea team have spent the last few years honing their product, joining Y-Combinator and growing their user base to 40,000 strong.
But this week, he announced he's moving to New York City to start a new chapter.
"Rhode Island is a truly wonderful place," he wrote on LinkedIn. "The community is small and incredibly supportive (we met 6 of our earliest investors there). And everyone genuinely truly wants you to succeed. Over the past few years, it's been incredibly encouraging to see more recent grads choose to stay and work on something of their own creation as they find their footing in the world."
The Pangea App co-founder was named to Rhode Island Inno’s 25 under 25 in 2018.
Alpert told RI Inno that he's not leaving Pangea App, and three of the other founders are staying in the Ocean State. After working out the kinks of remote work over the last few years, Alpert said it seemed like the right time to make the move and branch out.
"I grew up in New York, my family is there and right now I'm looking to expand my network, along with the company's. I think this is more of a success story and it proves that you can stay in Rhode Island and build something great here," he said.
Launched in 2017, Pangea began as a peer-to-peer marketplace looking to connect college students looking for contract or part-time work with other college startups or companies. According to Alpert, it looked closer to something like Craigslist in the early days. In 2019, Pangea pivoted and began focusing on connecting college students on a project or contract basis with larger companies as well.
A lot of the college students that initially signed up went on to find work and most are now two to six years into their careers, Alpert said. While contracting has been around for decades, its gained traction over the last five years in the job marketplace.
“We’ve seen a lot of cases with companies using contracting to try folks out, see if they’re a culture fit and then bringing them on full time,” Alpert said. “So, we have a lot of updates due today and set to roll out over the next few weeks centered around modernizing the contract to hire model.”
Over the last few years, Pangea App grew from only serving students from Rhode Island schools to accepting students and young professionals from more than 1,800 secondary education institutes nationwide.
“I’ll be back in Rhode Island often, I’m part of the first Newport Founders Dinner group and I want to stay connected to the community,” Alpert said. “I started taking advantage of remote work by attending more events in New York and Boston last fall and I’m hoping to continue that momentum.”
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