Talent-on-Demand - The pitch

If uncertainty in future demand is preventing you from hiring the people you need to grow your business, then use Talent-on-Demand to help you stay nimble.  Whether you only need help for a short time or you are experiencing a temporary slow-down, Talent-on-Demand will make sure you have the best people when you need them.

Talent-on-Demand - The fun part

The goal here is to make this opportunity beneficial to all parties and to find good matches. Getting word-of-mouth out about this for a target industry would be a good start. This program would work pretty well for software engineering and engineering in general, but less in very specialized industries.

Talent-on-Demand - The growth potential

This is a bit hard to estimate, so here goes. The US has a labor force of about 150 million people. If at any given point about 1% of those people are idle (or underutilized such that they could be idle if others picked up a little slack) and make around $40,000/year, then Talent-on-Demand could make at most $3 billion in revenue.

Talent-on-Demand - The monetization

Talent-on-Demand would take a small percentage cut of all transitions. For example, if Abe’s Custom Chairs rents 5 woodworkers for 80 hours at $20/hour ($8,000 total) and Talent-on-Demand took a 5% cut, it would make $400 from the deal.

Talent-on-Demand - The idea

If you are running a small business and business slows, then you have some unpleasant options to consider. First, you could do nothing and continue to lose money via idle workers. Second, you could keep all of your staff and cut hours (furlough). The last, and hardest option, is to fire some of your workforce. None of these are great options.

That is where Talent-on-Demand comes in. When work starts to slow, you post that you have idle workers with a given skill set. Another company who is experiencing what they think might be a temporary spike in demand, could request to “rent” your employees for a few weeks to a few months. Your employees would then have the option to temporarily work for the business experiencing a spike in business while remaining on your payroll. The business needing the help would pay you and that money would help you keep the idle staff while your demand is low.  When business picks up, your employees could return and everything goes back to normal. When you hire a new employee, they can opt-in (or opt-out) of this program.

This idea benefits all parties: the worker doesn’t get fired or furloughed, the original employer gets some value from what otherwise would be an idle resource, and the other company gets skilled temporary workers at a discounted price.

Talent-on-Demand - The motivation

There have been a number of startups that have aimed to monetize otherwise idle capital, e.g., Relayrides, Airbnb, and TaskRabbit. Talent-on-Demand is most similar to TaskRabbit, but applied to skilled labor.