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Firing Squad: Gage's Justin Henshaw

Justin Henshaw, founder and CEO of Gage, joins the Chad and Cheese podcast to pitch his company. Gage is the first and only universal employment recognition system and engagement community built for shift and hourly workers. It allows employees to own and transfer their employment data, providing a complete and portable employment record. Gage also fosters community and connection among employees, allowing them to connect with peers, coworkers, and managers. The platform emphasizes engagement and rewards, with the goal of motivating and retaining shift and hourly workers. Gage is an employee engagement platform that aims to recognize and celebrate the hard work of every person in the workforce. The platform provides a gauge score to employees based on their reliability, trustworthiness, and performance. Gage's go-to-market strategy includes both a sales approach targeting mid to large enterprises and an organic approach with end users. The platform is primarily focused on the hourly workforce and younger generations who are not active on LinkedIn. Gage aims to become an industry standard and a language within businesses, where employees' gauge scores determine their pay and opportunities.


PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION (blame AI for errors)


Joel Cheesman (00:24.987)

everybody. It's your favorite guilty pleasure aka the Chad and cheese podcast. This is firing squad. I'm your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always, Chad. So washes in the house and today we welcome Justin Henshaw, founder and CEO of gauge Justin welcome to HR is most dangerous podcast. Thanks for being here. All right, before we get into the business stuff.


Justin Henshaw (00:39.374)

How's it going?


Justin Henshaw (00:44.334)

Thanks for having me. Thanks, man Thank you. Thank you for having me


Joel Cheesman (00:49.787)

Most of our listeners don't know who Justin Hinshaw is. Why don't you give them a little flavor of what you're bringing to the show? What's your Twitter bio?


Chad Sowash (00:56.39)

SLAVA


Justin Henshaw (00:58.734)

Right. I spent my 20s in the Marines, in the military. I was chasing childhood dreams when I was younger of becoming an actor. So out of high school, I moved to Manhattan to become an actor. Did some small little odds and ends, extra work and stuff like that. I was living in Manhattan when 9 -11 happened. Matter of fact, we were actually filming a, I don't know if you remember the old soap opera, Guiding Light. I did some extra work for them.


Joel Cheesman (01:26.588)

My mom does.


Justin Henshaw (01:28.046)

yeah, that was my regular paycheck I got every week. but, yeah, that was, that was, that was fun. did some off, off Broadway stuff, if you know what I mean. And, just, just plugging away in New York. of course that September morning kind of changed everything. and, we were literally filming, on Midtown, like kind of on the West side.


Chad Sowash (01:28.166)

No shit. No shit.


Joel Cheesman (01:36.219)

No shit.


Chad Sowash (01:44.822)

huh.


Justin Henshaw (01:58.222)

And, they, national guard showed up. We were actually close to the UN building. So that was like a concern. and they shut us down. We all got the hunker down and watch everything unfold that day. Went back to my apartment later that night. spent a couple of weeks thinking about it and then went down to Times Square. Back then the recruiting office, it was right in the center of Times Square. Of course, it looks completely different now. walked right in, one of the Marines, you know, I was, I was pissed off and.


Chad Sowash (02:04.006)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (02:27.278)

Just, just wanted to mess things up. And, so the Marine guy, the staff sergeant there, I'll never forget him as staff sergeant Newsom. he was on break or something on lunch. And so you walk in all the, all the other branches are just like, Hey, come here and join army, join Navy and whatever. I was like, nah, I'm gonna wait for the Marines. And so, Newsom showed up and, signed me up. he actually tried to talk me out of it.


Chad Sowash (02:37.542)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (02:52.814)

And he's like, listen, I think you're really emotional right now. You need to think this through. You know, you're doing pretty good here. You know, and I was like, all right, wow.


Joel Cheesman (02:58.267)

He heard, I'm on the guiding light soap opera and said, maybe the Marines aren't for you.


Justin Henshaw (03:02.126)

Well, yeah, to be clear, I'm the guy in the background that's fuzzed out on guiding light, you know, drinking coffee in a bar. So I'll make more out of it. But I was on like a section of city for two and a half seconds. That was, that was exciting. But anyway, join the Marines.


Joel Cheesman (03:08.283)

Yeah.


Joel Cheesman (03:19.131)

Sometimes two and a half seconds is all you need on Sex and the City.


Justin Henshaw (03:23.79)

Yeah, it was one of those situations you ever see those like say comms where they cut the guy's scene, you know, like, because I actually had a speaking role. Like I literally had, this was my, this was my debut. You know, I was like, man, I'm going to make it because of this. I'm going to make it and told my family and everybody. And they literally cut the scene and, it was so embarrassing. I was like, yeah, but you saw me at least, but it was like, I, I wasn't, I was in and out and, it was funny. It was. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. My bad. My bad.


Chad Sowash (03:41.222)

damn.


Joel Cheesman (03:46.203)

Yeah.


Alright man, let's go to Twitter bio not not your war and peace. Let's go.


Justin Henshaw (03:54.318)

Marine Corps, six years in two tours in Afghanistan, Iraq. and, did, did some time in Cuba. and then after that, went to college, started a business in college and DJ company. and then the DJ company, actually blew up. It's still very successful today. we do weddings primarily, like we'll do 20 or 30 weddings a week. and we're kind of all over the Eastern side of the United States. Yeah.


Joel Cheesman (04:22.587)

I'm sorry, Justin, your Twitter bio is just going on a little too long. Chad, let's tell him what he's won by being on today's episode of The Firing Squad.


Chad Sowash (04:30.406)

Well, Justin, this is how firing squad's gonna go, my friend. At the sound of the bell, you will have two minutes to pitch gauge. At the end of two minutes, we're gonna hit you with about 20 minutes of Q &A. Be sure to be concise. You're gonna get those crickets that you heard earlier. That just means tighten your game. At the end of Q &A, you're gonna receive either a big applause, you've gauged the market correctly. See what I did there? Get ready for a high five and a big exit. Golf clap.


Justin Henshaw (05:01.134)

Alright.


Chad Sowash (05:02.15)

I believe Gage needs a nudge before it's ready for prime time. And last but never least, the Firing Squad. No matter how many nudges or high fives you get, this platform is headed toward the bend. Start again. That's Firing Squad. Are you ready?


Justin Henshaw (05:19.598)

I'm ready.


Joel Cheesman (05:20.795)

All right, Justin, your pitch begins in three, two.


Justin Henshaw (05:26.798)

All right, there are 80 million Americans in the shift in hourly workforce. Did you know that's nearly 60 % of our entire workforce and our economy, our way of life are because of these unsung heroes. They keep our streets clean. They box up those little brown boxes we enjoy getting in the mail. They pack our grocery shelves. They service our coffee in the morning, our lunch in the afternoon. They'll greet our families in hotels and they'll even take care of us when we're sick. But this segment of the workforce, the shift in hourly workforce is struggling at historic levels.


employees are lost, yearning to find meaning and direction in their work. Employers are desperate to find new ways to retain, recruit, and motivate their team members. So we built Gage. Gage is the first and only universal employment recognition system and engagement community built for shift and hourly workers. Our patent pending system takes an employee's accomplishments.


quantifies it, solidifies it in order for them to own their data and for the first time be able to own the product of their work and take it with them. It transfers from job to job. At the core of our system is a metric. We call it the gauge score. Now metrics are all around us. It's in every other facet of our life. When performance matter, metrics are there. We love metrics, whether it be fitness, health, education, finances.


Where metric doesn't exist, we actually build one, right? Sports, all around us. So we built one for the workforce. It is a private and personal lifelong career builder designed to travel with you from job to job. This is what makes us so unique. With Gage, employees and employers are both loving the new workplace experience. With Gage, employees get to replace their resume.


delivering to any future employer a complete and portable employment record and transcript that is verified, real actual data of what they've accomplished. It instills ownership and empowers them to own their work. It gives them community with coworkers, managers and employers. It bolsters connection, celebrating team and individual successes and infuses the workplace with positivity and above all, meaning and purpose. But with employers get something too. Employers get a highly... There you go.


Joel Cheesman (07:48.603)

All right, Justin, that is your two minutes. They are up. All right, let's get into some Q and A here. I'm always curious about the name. Your military guy. I mean, 12 gauge shotgun. Like where did the name come from and how is it relevant to what you guys do?


Justin Henshaw (08:03.598)

Well, the keyword in future of development, future of work, the keyword is engagement. That is what's happening right now. The employees are not engaged. They are disengaged. And it just kept coming up. Of course, gauge is a gauge, something that measures something. But it just kept coming up. There was engagement. We need to engage with our team members. We need to engage with our employees. So it just came out.


Joel Cheesman (08:27.963)

Got it. Makes sense. So you are a entrepreneur, a long -term entrepreneur. You're, you're Jimmy John's guy. By the way, their new, firecracker, rap is great, but that's beside the point. So it looks like you're still a Jimmy John's franchisee. Like talk about that and how that's either impacted the business in a positive way, or whether, is it like taking up time that you're currently involved with?


Justin Henshaw (08:55.31)

Yeah, my, my dismal Twitter bio didn't get there. yeah. So I opened up a bunch of drugs and yogurt shops, Jimmy John's smoothie Kings, a lot of salad kitchen, a bunch of restaurants at the peak of my career in that, in that regard, I owned like 13 businesses and 10 restaurants. Gage was built within those restaurants. You know, we, we built this within the past five years. I have since.


Joel Cheesman (09:17.211)

So you incubated them within those businesses, if you will. Okay.


Justin Henshaw (09:20.75)

With my team, with my managers, with my team members celebrating them. They loved it and they wanted to see it in the world. So that's what we did. now the, the, I sense Gage's success and we got, initial investment. I started divesting from the restaurant so that I could focus on Gage. So I'm down to basically three frozen yogurt shops, two Jimmy John's and, what the Island sound, the DJ company.


Joel Cheesman (09:38.555)

Okay.


Joel Cheesman (09:46.715)

Okay, so you've raised $350 ,000 it looks like. You started in 2020 -ish. Are you looking to raise more money? Are you bootstrapping this whole thing? Talk about the money.


Justin Henshaw (09:55.886)

We have, yes, so right now our.


Justin Henshaw (10:03.214)

Sure. I bootstrapped it from the beginning. We just started a seed round of 800 to get to the second generation of our product. Of that 800, we have half of it raised or committed. We have 400 committed, so we have another 400 in this raise. That's at a 9 million post -money cap, but I believe that obviously we're going to need more money after this, but we have a few things percolating in the background. Not only Gen 2, but a couple of big organizations that are looking at us.


Can't name any names, don't want to get in trouble, but there's some big news coming within the next couple of weeks.


Chad Sowash (10:37.702)

So how many companies are currently using it? Other than yours, other than yours.


Justin Henshaw (10:40.878)

We have 60, other than mine, we have up to 60 business accounts that have activated, actually signed up for the system. And that accounts to in between 2 ,000 to 3 ,000 actual users, the employee.


Chad Sowash (10:56.358)

Okay, so do you have engagement stats on those employees? How many of them are engaged? What does engaged mean versus ones that are not?


Justin Henshaw (11:07.502)

Well, I can give you a quick story, but the problem is we are in an MEP, like it's a prototype. It was built as basically a very rudimentary HRAS system. And they're using it, they're loving it, but the employees really want the keys to it. They want, it's theirs. I mean, this is the whole idea is that for the first time there's an HR management system that is for the employee. How does the unique proposition for Gage? Because every other HR system out there is owned by the business.


Chad Sowash (11:13.702)

Gotcha.


Chad Sowash (11:17.926)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (11:37.71)

The data is owned by the business. It's basically a digital filing cabinet, meaning that when the employee leaves, all of the information goes away. It disappears. Poof. Meaning, why do I care about it? If I don't get the key, then why do I care about it? So Gage is the first.


Chad Sowash (11:50.342)

What if the employee doesn't like the information that they got from their last employer because their last employer was an asshole? So, I mean, can they start all over? I mean, that's the hard part, right? You're keeping all the stuff, but you're also keeping some of the bad experiences that you have, and those are still coming forward with you. So tell me a little bit about that.


Justin Henshaw (12:09.486)

Well, consider it to be a personal private system that you can delete at any time. You can delete it period. End of sentence. This is not a controlling, this is an opt -in voluntary system, just like your Fitbit account. There's a lot of analogies out there. There's gauges like LinkedIn, Instagram, and FICO had a baby. LinkedIn, it's a place for work, professional place. But we all know that LinkedIn alienates the younger generation and the shift in hourly workforce. So we need a place for them.


Chad Sowash (12:13.958)

Okay.


Chad Sowash (12:30.906)

Yeah. -huh.


Justin Henshaw (12:38.798)

Instagram is that for celebration, for recognition and for the younger generation. FICO and simply that it's just for metrics, like a place for data and actual performance data. Now I actually prefer the Fitbit analogy. Like a Fitbit account is private, it's mine, but I use it. And if I have a bad week, I don't work out. I just try to get better next week. Right? So what we're finding is that the employees are not deleting it. They're keeping it because it's their personal private property and all they're doing is trying to make it better. If they want to delete it.


Chad Sowash (12:43.59)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (13:09.006)

Delete it, start over, no problem. But they're not doing that.


Chad Sowash (13:11.622)

Okay. So what about on the performance side? So employees get feedback and high fives or nudges. Can that also go upstream to managers in being able to provide high fives and also nudges? Because we all know there are a bunch of shitty managers out there.


Justin Henshaw (13:30.862)

Absolutely. I mean, your heart is for the employee and I can hear that in your voice and you got to understand that was the original problem. That might be why this has never been done before because everything we do, every decision we make has to protect the employee and that is our heart. Gage, there's a vision statement that we have within our company. Gage was never about punishing anyone for doing anything. It was about rewarding those that do well. The only punishment in Gage is the absence of a reward.


If you lift those up that do well, you don't need to hold those back that don't. Does that make sense? And so every decision we make creates a fair and


Chad Sowash (14:08.07)

It does, but you didn't answer my question. My question was, can I send a high five up or can I send a nudge up to my manager? Okay, that was it. So good. So there's that bi -directional piece that's happening there. So what about...


Justin Henshaw (14:14.222)

Yes.


Justin Henshaw (14:22.254)

Yeah, and that's going to be built out more with Gen 2, too, because people wanted that two -way communication. So that's going up and downstream, absolutely. And that gives the employer an incredible tool, too, because if my managers are doing a bad job, I want to know about it. And with Gage, they can see that.


Chad Sowash (14:25.094)

Okay. yeah.


Chad Sowash (14:36.838)

Exactly, exactly, exactly. So you said community, expand upon that a little bit with regard to what does that actually mean? Can I connect with my other peers and actually message with them? Is there like a friending aspect of this where there's community and you can message? How does that actually work? Help me out, help me understand that.


Justin Henshaw (14:58.062)

So that's in our pipeline for Gen 2. So the idea is that we are a hybrid. We are for both the business as a B2B, but we're also for the employee, the end user, the ones that get it for free. We have to service both of them. For right now, with MVP, what we did was we wanted to prove revenue and we wanted to prove product market fit. We wanted to make sure the businesses were willing to pay for this. So we had to emphasize the business tools. So we gave them access to the system. Now with Gen 2, we finally get to unlock


Chad Sowash (15:04.39)

Mm -hmm.


Chad Sowash (15:10.086)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (15:27.95)

the employee features. Now the employee features are that social element, that social component where they're able to connect to peers, to coworkers, to managers. They're able to connect to a place of business and build teams within a business without the business participating in it yet. Okay. The idea is that they get in it and then the business comes along because they don't want to be left out of the conversation. And Slack did this very well. Yes.


Chad Sowash (15:44.422)

Gotcha.


Chad Sowash (15:49.158)

So it's on the roadmap, it's next phase. Yeah, okay, cool.


Joel Cheesman (15:55.483)

Is this a native app? Is it? Sorry, is this a native app that you download? Is it just a responsive website? What's the interface that that a user engages with the with the product?


Justin Henshaw (15:55.534)

Yeah, Slack did this very well, right?


Justin Henshaw (16:10.862)

Right, so the app is built for iOS and Android and then there is a desktop portal for F administrators. So the administrators can see all the data of everything that's happening within their place of business. They're able to track like who our high performers are, you know, what their best evaluations are. They're able to store all of their evaluations and all their employee data. So it's both. We have...


Joel Cheesman (16:30.491)

So when I leave a company and I join a new one, assuming they are using Gage as well, how do I enter that company? Is it a username and the company just adds it? Or what's the protocols for joining a new company?


Justin Henshaw (16:36.27)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (16:46.254)

Yeah.


Yeah, it's essentially like a friend request, right? It's an invite. So like if an employee, both employer and the employer are able to connect with each other, okay? But once they're connected, by the way, and again, voluntary to Chad's point, this is a voluntary system. So if I say that I don't want to work for that person or I'm not working for that person, I don't accept it, right? So it's an invite. But once I'm connected, then I'm able to contribute to each other. We're able to contribute to each other, similar to, like I said, a friend request. And then when a transition happens,


Joel Cheesman (16:52.731)

Okay.


Joel Cheesman (17:15.182)

Okay. I mean, no one's going to decline a new employer access to my gauge score, right? Like that'd be a red flag, I would think.


Justin Henshaw (17:26.926)

If they have gauge, maybe, but you could all again, you could delete it if you didn't want to do that, but you're right.


Joel Cheesman (17:28.987)

Yeah, which is my, which would. Okay. And start over with the new account is what you're saying. If you don't like your, your current score. So, so help me with this part of it. Part of me thinks this is like really smart marketing, because if I go to a company and I have gauge, I had gauge at my last company and I'm like, Hey, we should use gauge because it's really cool. And I got high fives. but then I also see some major network effects challenges in that.


Justin Henshaw (17:35.118)

Yeah. Yes.


Joel Cheesman (17:56.059)

If I go to a company right now, most of them are not going to be on gauge. So it's sort of like there's nothing there. What are you seeing with current user user user base? Are they dying when they go to a new company or are you adding new clients when people move to new companies because they're endorsing gauge and telling their current employer that they should use it.


Justin Henshaw (18:17.134)

Well, with MVP, we're seeing both. We are seeing employees recommending to new businesses that they should use Gage and that has happened. But again, without that organic component, without that social media component for the employee, that's what we're really trying to lean in on. Because basically our go -to -market strategy is two -fold. We're always, we're going to have a sales approach to go after mid to large enterprise sales where you can get one big fish and land a thousand units. But we're also going to have an organic approach with the end user. You know, and again, going back to.


kind of the Slack analogy, Slack did this really well, where they gave the employees free access to this, the end users free access to that, and then they get in the business and eventually the business has to pay for a subscription to participate in it. That's kind of our organic growth, what we're hoping to achieve.


Joel Cheesman (19:02.107)

Okay. Well, talking about Slack, let's talk about competition. I mean, when I first read about this, I'm like, Holy cow. You got work human achievers, kudo board, bonus Lee linked in with their recommendation. You know, their recommendations are potentially a competitor. Slack has a ton of integrations around engagement with employees and giving sort of high fives or what you would refer to that. Like talk to me about the competitive landscape, where you think you guys are. How are you different? Because from my viewpoint,


You have a ton of well -funded, well -known competitors out there.


Justin Henshaw (19:38.094)

Well, I would say they're not direct competitors. They're indirect competitors, meaning they're HR systems where the business owns the data, the employee doesn't. That's LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really, I mean, you can say that LinkedIn is a competitor and that's kind of at the top of my list just because it's a place where you're able to build out a profile. You're able to get some endorsements. You're able to get some feedback. So when I, whenever I look at somebody, I can say, okay, this guy's legit. He's got this experience. He's got this.


And it kind of helps verify that person. But we all know that LinkedIn is not for the younger generation. They hate it. They do not use it. And they're also not for the shift in hourly workforce. They're for upper level, college educated, mid 30s, mid 50s, et cetera. I believe we need a platform for the younger generation. All those other platforms, the HR management systems, again, the business owns the day that the employee does it. That's why they don't care about it.


Chad Sowash (20:34.118)

So let's talk about GoToMarket a little bit deeper. Are you going direct to customer? Are you looking to try to connect with some of these other bigger core players to actually partner with them to get penetration into their portfolio?


Justin Henshaw (20:48.11)

Yeah.


Justin Henshaw (20:52.718)

Yeah, so we do have kind of a two pronged go to market strategy. We right now we're pursuing that. But the like we have to our two our first two paying customers were two Chick -fil -A's. Chick -fil -A's we're obviously in my brands, which is, you know, Smoothie King, Jimmy John's, etc. We're also in StretchZone, which is another small brand. So the idea is that if you want to get into a big company like Chick -fil -A, then you go door to door with all these individual franchise owners. And then eventually you get too loud where the corporate can't ignore you anymore.


Chad Sowash (21:02.342)

Mm -hmm.


Justin Henshaw (21:21.326)

And so you get those big meetings. So we have a lot of pilots lined up. We have pilots lined up with, you know, we've had a lot of discussions. I don't want to get my team in trouble, but we have a lot of discussions with national brands about pilots that are coming down the pipe. And then, so once you get into one, you can get into multiple.


Chad Sowash (21:40.326)

But there are already companies who have a lot of those franchises locked down at corporate. Wouldn't it be easier just to go and look at because again, there's really nobody out there that has this type of this platform, at least the roadmap that you're talking about vision wise. So wouldn't it be better to partner with those types of organizations and try to gain access to corporate right out of the gate instead of knocking on doors, 1 ,100 Chick -fil -A doors.


Justin Henshaw (22:10.286)

It depends on the brand, right? Of course I would want those meetings, but you know, they get pounded every day by thousands of, you know, platforms that want their business, right? I mean, you just, you just have to keep at it. I mean, I want to go after those big accounts with, you know, those single meetings, but that's going to take time and connections and just us plugging away. And I think the best way of, so it's not like we're not doing that. We are doing that, but that's very difficult. But we are going door to door and the idea is that eventually they can't ignore us.


Chad Sowash (22:41.638)

Yeah, you can only hope, right? Let's talk about the geography. Are you starting in and around Georgia and trying to land and expand from there and blow out? How are you attacking the market from a geography standpoint?


Justin Henshaw (22:43.822)

Right.


Justin Henshaw (22:53.07)

Yeah.


Justin Henshaw (22:57.742)

Well, there is a very big community based aspect to this, right? I mean, once you get into Gage, like once I get into one hotel in a community, the other hotels want to join them, right? Because they want to use it if the other employees are using it. Same with restaurants, same with hospitality. We're in banking right now. You know, that's the, it speaks to the universal nature of Gage. Banking loves us. So to that point, whenever you do get into a community, we're able to expand, you know, pretty quickly. Right now we're mainly in this area because this is where MVP launched.


which into we're going to be going to other areas. We do have an account out of California. We have a couple of accounts in Texas, I believe, and then Atlanta, we have an account that's percolating. so we do have some other regional areas, but again, we're just at MVP.


Joel Cheesman (23:43.899)

I'm curious about marketing, particularly because you're kind of spending this as a consumer brand, like a community and workers are joining and connected to each other. From what I can see on your marketing side, I mean, you have 180 followers on LinkedIn, you're a four -year -old company, you have 19 subscribers on YouTube, but yet you have 53 videos. You have more videos than you have subscribers. On X, you have six followers.


I don't see any ads for you when I do employee engagement on Google, et cetera. so convince me that your marketing plan is, is aside from that. And it's, it's working. Like, what are you doing marketing wise? Cause the public facing doesn't look all that hot.


Justin Henshaw (24:29.998)

Yeah, I mean, we're young, you know, and we make no apologies for that. We bootstrapped this from the beginning. You know, this is a, there's no outside funding other than this, the past few months with our lead investor, Eagle Venture Fund. We just got our first check in January. So I think that all of that, yes, this has been a four year. Well, no, absolutely not. No, we launched, we launched MVP. We went to market in January of last year.


Joel Cheesman (24:47.323)

You launched in 2020, correct? You launched in 2020?


Justin Henshaw (24:58.222)

2020 was when we really started building the thing. You know, like I've been working on this.


Joel Cheesman (25:00.731)

So 23, so you're a year and a half old. A year and a half old that you've been on the market. Okay. Okay.


Justin Henshaw (25:05.838)

Yes. The idea was last year we were going to raise money and we struggled to do so in the beginning. It wasn't until the end of last year or January of this year that we got our first checks in. And then that's when we really started getting the attention that we're getting from these larger organizations. But again, this is basically a community launch at this point. And we're an HR system.


Joel Cheesman (25:28.635)

Okay, talk about.


Justin Henshaw (25:35.598)

It's not very sexy on social media.


Joel Cheesman (25:39.867)

Okay. Talk about integrations. Certainly getting into Slack would, I think, help the organization grow quite a bit. I don't see any evidence of integrations. Maybe I'm not seeing them. Are they on the roadmap? Certainly, ATSs. Certainly, there are ATSs that are skewed toward more hourly workers. More and more companies are coming up that have marketplaces. Talk about your integration strategy, if there is one.


Justin Henshaw (26:09.07)

It's definitely on our roadmap. As a matter of fact, we'd have a lot of... There's one significant resort that we would have if we were able to integrate with their system. But I also think that the organic nature of the employees giving the keys to this is going to help that. But integrations will be key, whether it be Intuit, Homebase, all these other platforms with scheduling and all these other management systems, integration will be key. But we wanted to make sure like...


Joel Cheesman (26:34.811)

Okay.


Justin Henshaw (26:35.95)

We would have a national pilot going on right now if they wanted, if we were willing to white label the product, which we're not willing to do so. But integrations will definitely be part of it.


Joel Cheesman (26:46.971)

Okay. What's, what's the ultimate goal of the company? Is this thing you want to sell this thing? certainly your history says, you know, franchise, you know, being a franchisee of, of, of companies. Do you want to grow this thing global, national, are you hoping to flip it in a few years? Like what's sort of the ultimate goal of the business?


Justin Henshaw (27:07.694)

We want cultural change. We want to make sure that every person in the workforce that works hard, that it gets recognized, that they get celebrated. And that is what we're experiencing with our product, even at a community level. I mean, we're getting people that are paid more because of their Gage score. We're getting people that are hired because of their Gage score. And that makes all the sense in the world. Somebody walks in off the street, you know, I don't know them from Adam, I'm offering them a job. What do I do as a business owner? I hedge my bets, right? I pay them here because that's what my margins say I should.


Right. But if somebody comes in and they're verified information, they know that they care with their reliable, their trustworthy, their awesome, then I'm going to pay in here. I'm going to pay them up here because it's in my best interest to do so. So I want every person in the workforce celebrated and recognized for the hard work that they do. I don't want anyone feeling left out or left behind. I want to be an industry standard, a language within businesses saying, Hey, what's your gauge? Are you engaged? If you are, I'm going to pay you this.


because you're incredible and you've proven it over and over again. You know, if you think about gauge in the long run, you know, we are even, we're an option to an affordable free option to just a traditional college degree, right? you know, like people get into debt, $40, $50 ,000 in debt, just to prove that they're reliable and trustworthy by getting a piece of paper. You know, that's what it is. That's what a college degree really is.


Joel Cheesman (28:27.451)

All right.


That's heartfelt and talking about affordable, Chad, this sounds a little pricey. It sounds like a lot of stuff that I'm going to have to pay for. Justin, talk to me about your pricing model and what I'm going to have to pay for this thing.


Chad Sowash (28:40.038)

You


Justin Henshaw (28:44.014)

No, we didn't want price to be. Matter of fact, we've proven that retention increases, so it doesn't come from your bottom line. It comes from retention, turnover cost. It comes from all the expenses. Like an average QSR spends $140 ,000 a year in turnover. So if you can increase that retention, then you pay for the subscription. Right now, our subscription with MVP is averaging $2 a month per employee. So depending on the size of the company, different tiered options.


Chad Sowash (28:59.686)

Mm -hmm.


Chad Sowash (29:08.486)

.


Justin Henshaw (29:12.269)

We believe with Gen 2, our target price is going to be $7 an employee a month. But again, we believe that that comes from your turnover costs, not your bottom line.


Joel Cheesman (29:24.602)

Alright Justin, that is the end of Q &A. Are you ready to face the firing squad?


Justin Henshaw (29:32.302)

Bring it. Come on.


Joel Cheesman (29:33.755)

All right, Chad, you.


Chad Sowash (29:36.55)

Yeah, Justin didn't say this out loud. I would have. It's up to 100 users at $1 ,200 a year. That's $120 per user. That's cheap. That is ridiculously cheap. Crazy cheap. Need to be more expensive. You'll get there. LinkedIn is not a competitor. They do not do this brand of the workforce, right? Which is the very heavy side of the workforce and does not have representation.


in at least one place. Joel mentioned a bunch of different places where you have a bunch of different companies who have many different initiatives that are going on, but that might be just one of many, right? And this is your focus, which I love. I love the hourly workforce framing in your story right out of the gate. Lean heavy into that. That's your sweet spot, man. I love that you built...


this within your system. You ate your own dog food. You ate your own smoothie. You ate your own Jimmy John's, right? You did it right, right? Because you knew that it was working because you were actually trialing it yourself. The FICO score idea, people have tried that over the years. Once again, it's fallen apart because they didn't focus in a specific area. Go to market. I think you're falling down and here's why.


As a couple of industry veterans, Joel and myself, we've been around for 25 years. There are core systems that you can get into to actually set fire.


to users and big meetings and portfolios. They're out there and I can guarantee you they are not focusing on this aspect. They are focusing on the experience, but not how you're focusing on the experience and the portability, right, of being able to have your information imported, right, from one job to the next. That's incredibly, incredibly important. You're still early stage. Totally appreciate that. And again, you are cheap, cheap, cheap.


Chad Sowash (31:38.494)

I'm not ready for a big applause yet, but I am going to give you a big golf clap. I think this is something that if you lean into and you find the right go -to -market and you find the right partners, this will catch fire. And I know you want to change culture and all that other fun stuff. You're not going to be able to do it by yourself. You're going to get acquired into a much larger system. And then that is where you have your opportunity. Good luck, man.


Justin Henshaw (32:04.59)

Thank you, Chuck.


Chad Sowash (32:08.817)

Yes. Are we having, are we having a dog issues? okay. He's giving you, he's giving you the, yeah, no worries. No worries.


Justin Henshaw (32:11.566)

I


Justin Henshaw (32:17.474)

it looks like he's muted. Chad, to your point, thank you so much for the feedback. I heard. We are on it, man. We'll get it done.


Chad Sowash (32:28.518)

Cool. Are you ready Joel? No, you're good now. That's why we have post editors. No worries.


Joel Cheesman (32:29.435)

Sorry about that.


I know that's why you're so amazing. All right, Justin, that's Chad sounding off on the company, but you are not done yet. I still have a turn. First of all, thank you for your service. I'm always appreciative of working with a veteran guy and what you guys do. So I want to start off by saying thank you for your service. Now on to the company, which is the reason that we're here.


I like to use the term bringing a knife to a gunfight quite a bit. with a military man, I feel like that probably, makes sense to you. You are, you are embarking on an incredibly challenging mission. My friend, you're not only trying to conquer the employment side and by the way, selling to.


Justin Henshaw (33:08.27)

and


Joel Cheesman (33:22.299)

Jimmy John's franchisees, and also the national organization, like it is not easy. I mean, we deal with companies like paradox who are selling to McDonald's and you have agencies that oversee like the employer side alone is incredibly challenging. And then, and then you kick yourself in the nuts again and say, we're going to like, penetrate the consumer market. We're going to be like the FICO score. Although in FICO score, I have no say over that. Unless I pay my bills, like I have like.


I don't volunteer for it. It's something that happens. So unless, unless this becomes a universal system that everyone gets a credit score, a gauge score, no matter what you are in for a very challenging, thing to like, this is, this is a myth. So you're taking on two incredibly huge challenges. Okay. From what I can tell the consumers aren't embracing you like social media. They're not like, this is awesome. I want to be a part of it. so


from what I can tell, you're not quite hooking in the consumers. This isn't like a hot thing that all the kids are doing. I know you said LinkedIn isn't important. So you're not trying to get into those people. From what I can tell, the kids aren't really hot on your product. So you have a huge challenge there. You don't have $100 million to like do a Superbowl ad and get major penetration from a consumer side.


And then you have incredible competition. I know you don't think LinkedIn's a competitor. I think they are. I think they could launch something like this. There's probably a reason why they haven't. there's a ton of employee engagement solutions out there that are, that have sales forces that have huge money that have been around for a decade that have brand awareness, that you're dealing, that you're competing in. So you're not only on a two front war, my friend, you're, you're trying to defeat three different.


Justin Henshaw (34:52.782)

Thank you.


Joel Cheesman (35:15.451)

entities here. And unless you, unless you were coming at me, like, we're going to raise a bunch of money and we're going to blow this thing up, which doesn't sound to me like what you're doing. it, it almost sounds like a charity. Like we want to be this thing that we can empower employees and they can take their score and show showcase their skills and they'll feel good at work. you're not talking acquisition, you know, if you, and most employees, most


founders do not say we want to flip this thing in three years, but you can kind of read between the lines when they say like, well, we want to do best by our shareholders. We want to build a long -term product, blah, blah, blah. You're not saying those things. So it's not like a job case or someone with a lot of money is going to come in and buy this thing. So I think your heart is in the right place. I think the vision is huge. but like there, you just don't have the, the, the forces.


to take on the mission that you are hoping to achieve. So for me, unless I see some major differences in money raised or traction with consumers, I have no other choice, my friend, but to give you the guns at this point and recommend, go back to Jimmy John's franchisees, which I love, and do what you know, because this is a immense mission that you're on. And I think you're gonna...


Chad Sowash (36:27.814)

Chad Sowash (36:32.902)

Yes, you do.


Joel Cheesman (36:38.555)

You're going to be a sore at the end of it. And, I think, yeah, I'm done speaking. I think you get my message, but yeah, I would go do something else because this is kicking yourself in the nuts every day, for not much reward from what I can tell. So that's it, Justin, one golf clap, one guns for me. How do you feel?


Justin Henshaw (37:01.166)

I feel great. Joey, you ever like to back down from challenges on a regular basis? Like, I mean, I...


Joel Cheesman (37:08.539)

The show is over my friend. You can turn this on me if you'd like. So let's send it here. For those listeners out there that want to know more about Gage, where are you going to send them Justin?


Chad Sowash (37:10.694)

Hahaha


Justin Henshaw (37:22.862)

gagework .com g -a -g -e work .com


Joel Cheesman (37:27.195)

Fair enough. Good luck my friend Chad. That is a firing squad in the can. We out.


Justin Henshaw (37:30.318)

Thank you so much.


Chad Sowash (37:33.126)

We out.


Justin Henshaw (37:34.254)

Thank you both. Thank you both.


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