The Great Resignation. Heard of it? Of course you have, and that's why you're hoping you can find a way to keep your best employees from jumping ship and going to your competition. Never fear, WorqDrive from industry veteran Tracey Parsons is here. But they have some stiff competition from the likes of Eightfold, Gloat and Fuel50.
Can this little engine that could make it up that hill and survive the Firing Squad?
Gotta listen.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Firing Squad INTRO (0s):
Like Shark Tank? Then you'll love Firing Squad! CHAD SOWASH & JOEL CHEESEMAN are here to put the recruiting industry's bravest, ballsiest, and baddest startups through the gauntlet to see if they got what it takes to make it out alive? Dig a fox hole and duck for cover kids the Chad and Cheese Podcast is taking it to a whole other level.
Joel (22s):
Oh, I love the smell of startups in the morning. What's up everybody? This is your favorite podcast. The Chad and Cheese podcast. This is your co-host Joel Cheeseman joined as always by Chad Sowash
Chad (32s):
Work it!
Joel (33s):
And today on Firing Squad we welcome Tracey Parsons from Worqdrive. She is the founder and CEO. Tracey. Welcome to Firing Squad.
Tracey (44s):
Good morning everyone.
Joel (46s):
Oh, lovely voice. So sunny. So sunny that Midwest sun coming in
Tracey (51s):
Just shine and vitamin T all over you guys.
Joel (56s):
Vitamin T two, man. She's on a roll. Hey Tracey before we get into the nitty gritty of Worqdrive, give the listeners a little bit about you.
Tracey (1m 5s):
Oh my goodness. Well, I sit here in the sunny Midwest and I've built a really long career in recruitment marketing and employer brands. I've worked for some amazing companies like SmashFly, TMP Worldwide, Radancy. I've got my own consulting firm and we've just recently we'll have some software! But I love what I do and I get out of bed every morning, trying to figure out how to make more A players fall in love with different employer brands and make sure that they can find their dream job.
Joel (1m 33s):
And you love listening to TV Girl, a new band that I just learned about.
Tracey (1m 36s):
I do you love listening to TV Girl. We might go see them again at Ace of Cups.
Chad (1m 42s):
TV Girl. Wow. That's great. Great branding. That's easy. You can spell it. I hope they have the.com or Cheeseman won't like them.
Joel (1m 47s):
Yeah, I won't. It's two separate words by the way. Chad, this is Firing Squad. Tell her what she's one.
Chad (1m 55s):
You see, you will have two minutes to pitch Workqdrive with a q. At the end of two minutes, you will hear that bell then Joel and I will hit you with rapid Q and A. If your answers start to ramble or you get fucking boring, your going to hear the crickets, that's your signal to obviously tighten up your game and move it along. At the end of Q and A, you are gong to receive a grade from Joel and myself. First and foremost, a big applause. you might not have William Shatner on board, but we predict you boldly will go to the moon with this business. Golf clap. We see a lift off, but it's doubtful you'll even reach the Karmen line without some changes to your business.
Chad (2m 41s):
Or last but not least the firing squad, no amount of little blue pills will get this penis rocket off the ground. It's probably time to hang up that red shirt and live long and prosper. Are you ready?
Tracey (2m 58s):
Okay. Mostly, but my watch just told me to breathe based on that description.
Joel (3m 4s):
Sowash is a word smith now. Love it. Love it.
Tracey (3m 8s):
He is on fire.
Joel (3m 9s):
He is on fire. Tracey, are you ready for your two minute pitch?
Tracey (3m 16s):
I'm ready.
Joel (3m 16s):
And in three, two.
Tracey (3m 16s):
So Worqdrive is an internal mobility platform that makes it easy for your best people to stay. And in my lengthy 20 year career in talent, I've had the opportunity to work at some amazing companies. And every time I wanted to move internally, I was told we have a plan for you. And every single time I heard we have a plan for you. I left because I didn't know the plan. It wasn't my plan. I didn't have confidence that there actually was a plan and it was never shared with me. And none of my peers knew their plan or how to move internally either. And we'd all get frustrated and leave and we really kind of wanted to stay. We just didn't know how. So LinkedIn told us that 94% of people would rather stay at their company if they invested in their development.
Tracey (3m 56s):
And we see internal mobility as that investment. 69% of TA professionals believe internal mobility accelerates new hire productivity, but our data is showing us that an internal employee is five times less likely to apply on the internal job board than an external candidate. So it's like, how are we not getting this right? Well, in our research, we see employees feel held back by talent hoarding managers. They feel like they don't have a shot because they aren't someone's favorites. They don't know how to do it and frankly, we've always built programs to serve the organization, not the employee and our software kind of flips the script and changes all that. So with Worqdrive, your employees can be set up and matched to internal jobs In minutes.
Tracey (4m 37s):
They can apply for a job with one click because we already know them so they don't have to jump through extra ATS hoops. And your talent is anonymously matched to recruiters, open reqs, to be tapped for new opportunities, keeping your talent anonymous, so your recruiters can focus on the best skills for the job is what makes Worqdrive special because we're bringing real internal equity by eliminating bias in internal recruiting. We're really suitable for organizations over 500 employees because we found that that's where companies start to lose track of their talent. Our CTO has more than 20 years in tech and we currently have 25,000 employees across the globe, actively managing their own careers and their own plan and we launched in May of 2021.
Tracey (5m 20s):
We believe we've built a platform that makes it easy for your best people to stay by setting and executing their own plan. And you can learn more by visiting www.workqdrive, W O R Q D R I V E.com.
Joel (5m 36s):
I was a little lenient on the time there Tracey, that's that's for you.
Tracey (5m 43s):
Awww thanks!
Joel (5m 43s):
I have to start every Firing Squad with this. Let's talk about the name for a second. Worqdrive. Dig it. My favorite car song is Drive by the way, that's not here or there.
Tracey (5m 53s):
Nice.
Joel (5m 53s):
So it's spelled with a Q. So you have to kind of let people know what's going on. Now. If I go to workdrive.com today, the domain is for sale. So I'm curious, did you try to buy workdrive.com? Is this something that you will try to obtain in the future? Are you concerned about competitors going ahead and buying that and screwing you over? What's the deal with work drive with a Q Tracey?
Tracey (6m 15s):
So the cost of work drive with the K was beyond our budget. We're a bootstrapped company. We thought it would be interesting to go with the "q" for a visual aspect. Yeah, of course. We're worried about competitors buying up things, but we're trying to get ahead of the marketplace. Even when we talk about the one click apply, it's C L I Q apply, we're to use the "q". You know, I just worked, you know, we did the best we could with what was available to us and from a budgetary standpoint, we jumped on the "q".
Joel (6m 47s):
Good. Now let's talk about the idea. So you've been in the industry for awhile. You mentioned SmashFly you have a consulting business as well. You are well versed in this space. What was it about this idea and this opportunity, as opposed to some of the other ones that might have been swimming around your head that made you say we got to go after this.
Tracey (7m 6s):
It was really interesting because the consultancy helps companies reimagine their entire talent experience, right? So we were actually redesigning one of our customers talent experience from awareness to promotion. And we started looking at the data and we noticed that the original design like their future state design, when we executed, it was generating a 54% conversion from website visit to completed application because we've completely redistributed the friction in their candidate experience, right? So we've put more friction upfront in the candidate experience, lowered it in the application and what we saw was we saw people screening themselves out before they got to application, but when they got to the application, they were converting.
Tracey (7m 47s):
And then when we were designing the back half, so once somebody works here, how do they find their next opportunity? We found that they were converting at 11%. So their internal talent was five times less likely to convert than their external talent. So we were actually sitting on a software technology that we had shelved from 2014 that was designed to re-imagine the resume as visual and anonymous. And we'd launched it in 14. It was called CrowdHive. We had about a thousand, 1200 people using it. 40 employer hires were made, but we couldn't figure out how to make it easy to visualize your work and that's on us from a UX standpoint. So we had this code base, this code base actually was tried to two companies, tried to acquire it, both acquisitions were turned down.
Tracey (8m 30s):
And so I went to the customer. I was like, Hey, we've got this code over here. What if we repurposed it? Instead of being visual and anonymous, made it skills based and anonymous. And we use your employee data to kind of fill this in. And our roadmap was telling us that we wanted to do internal hives for people. So we just launched this for them and it turned into more than we could ever imagine from a productization standpoint. So we were like, this works, let's roll it out to the market.
Joel (8m 58s):
Gotcha.
Chad (8m 58s):
So I love the plan, right? I love you talking about the, you not understanding the plan. I do have a slogan for you though. You should write this down as we're using it.
Joel (9m 10s):
I'm writing it down.
Chad (9m 11s):
As we're using the "q" Worqdrive fuq the plan. Fuq is spelled FUQ the plan. Got it. Okay. That, that was free. You're welcome.
Tracey (9m 20s):
I wrote it down.
Chad (9m 21s):
You're welcome. We'll see if it's used. Yeah. Right.
Tracey (9m 25s):
Thank you.
Chad (9m 26s):
Okay. So the big question is how do you define internal mobility and who owns it?
Tracey (9m 31s):
Well, this initial cut at the product was owned in a dual partnership between talent acquisition and talent management. What is internal mobility is a much bigger question because I think if you look at every software vendor in the HR tech space out there, they're going to tell you we have that. And really what they mean is that they have the ability for somebody internal to the company to apply for a job, right? Everybody has that. You can do that today. But what we're trying to do is, we are trying to allow and empower employees to drive and craft their own plan. And when we found that when you do empower employees to move that ball forward for themselves, to actively manage their own careers, the ones that want to stay will stay.
Tracey (10m 17s):
We're seeing that right now with our early implementations. So internal mobility could mean up. It could mean over. It could mean elsewhere. It could be down, but that needs to be driven by the person who owns the career, the employee. And historically speaking, it's always been organization driven like succession planning or mobility plans, like we have a plan for you. Well, if it's not my plan, whose plan is it? What's the organization's plan? Well, guess what? I'm not always on board with what the organization wants. I'm on board with what I want.
Chad (10m 47s):
So how do you get companies to actually drive toward transparency? The biggest issue here is transparency who actually wants to go where? I don't want to stay in sales my entire life. I want to go to marketing or I want to go to product. Are there projects available to me? Who are my mentors? I mean, how do you actually get all of that opened up without internal politics and friction, because there's a shit ton of it there.
Tracey (11m 10s):
Well, and that's why I keep telling people that what we've done in the past is never going to work because you're trying to take a top down approach. Right? And look at all of the tools that are out there. The number one question I always tell people and the question I want everybody to ask me is about adoption, right? How many people are actively actively using this? You know, how many are using it? How frequently are they using it? How are they using it? Are they adding things to it? How are you making it sticky? Because what always happens and the same thing happens in the candidate experiences as it does the employee experience. If you make the rules, you're expecting people to follow them. If you let them make the rules, they're going to follow them.
Tracey (11m 50s):
Right? And so it's just this coaching and counseling to encourage the stakeholders that it's like, Princess Leia, you know, the harder you grip, the more star systems slip through your fingers. This is how people are viewing their talent and look at what's happening today. Right? They're trying so hard to hold onto the talent that they're not letting the talent have the power and they're going to leave. And that's the conversation that we have with hiring managers all the time, who may be reluctant to get on and have their people use Worqdrive because they're like, well, they're going to leave. I don't want them to leave my team. They're going to go leave, I'm like honey, they're going to leave anyway. They're just going to leave for somebody else. So do you want to keep that institutional knowledge or not?
Tracey (12m 31s):
Your call. Let go.
Chad (12m 32s):
I'm just happy that the Princess Leia thing had nothing to do with kissing her brother. So quick question on building tech, are you guys building your own tech? There's a lot going on here because if you want to match, you have to parse and to be able to go through just the parsing technology itself to build that. Are you working with partners to help you do that? Or are you building your own?
Tracey (12m 57s):
To a channel my inner star Lord, a little bit of both. We do have the basis of the parsing technology via a partner, but we've built our own proprietary tech on top of it. Fun fact, our CTO was the head of escalation for Microsoft's first search product. So this is a guy who understands search and matching and algorithms and making shit work.
Chad (13m 22s):
So what about the employee data? Where are you getting the employee data from? There are obviously all the HCM systems, et cetera, et cetera, but generally they don't have the data that you want to be able to match them against jobs. So where are you getting the data and what is that data?
Tracey (13m 36s):
So we get the data from the HCM. If the data doesn't exist, it's as simple as uploading your most recent resume. We parse it. We parse it out for your skills. And then one of the fun things that we do is, you know, there are a lot of technologies out there and I'm a huge fan of robots. Like I love when robots can do things that I don't want to do. It's one of my favorite things. But when it comes to my skills and my direction, I do not want the robots to match me to a job, which is why one of our setup pieces is taking a look at all of your experience, parsing out the skills, and then asking you as an employee to tell us, is this a core strength? Is it something you love doing? Or is it something you want to grow?
Tracey (14m 18s):
And then we use that data against the matching, as well as your aspirations. And then we use the growth to kind of see that learning and development that's going to need to happen as the next module that's rolling out and Worqdrive is that connection to L and D. So if you tell me that you want to grow in JavaScript, I should be able to serve you up learning and development around that help you get where you want to go. I do not want the robots to say, Tracey, these are your skills. You should look at these jobs. No, no, no, no, because there's might be skills that I don't want to use anymore.
Joel (14m 47s):
Tracey what triggers the employee to give you that data, whether it be upload a current resume or what skills have you garnered or what kind of changes in your career are you, are you hoping to make? So if you're not using bots, you're counting on the individual to do it. So what's the trigger?
Tracey (15m 2s):
Yup. So beyond the first setup, right? So as you get set up in the account, that's the first trigger, but we've actually created some really fun stickiness in the system. So there's this component called advocacy. So I don't want you to confuse this with like a LinkedIn endorsement. It's basically who at the company has your back for these skills, right? Who can say, give you a thumbs up. And so we're seeing these advocacy requests fly back and forth all day long in the system. And people are asking their peers and their managers for a thumbs up on their skills. We're also finding lots of people, selecting skills and saying, no, I'm not going to give this person a thumbs up.
Tracey (15m 43s):
So it's really showing an authentic read on that person's abilities. But that's one of the things that keeps people coming back is these advocacy requests. So advocacy requests, new matches to jobs because the what's in it for me and internal mobility is where I'm going to go next. Advocacy requests, new job matches. And then as internal sourcers see jobs that you may match, they will send you an alert via email. So there's three separate communications that go out to people to say, Hey, come back in and update your skills. But then there's also a twice month, every other month, we email everybody in the system. Hey, don't forget. Come add some skills and update your background.
Joel (16m 23s):
Gotcha. Let's pivot to the competition for a second.
Tracey (16m 24s):
Yeah!
Joel (16m 25s):
I don't know if you've heard this, but you have a few well-funded competitors.
Tracey (16m 29s):
So many!
Joel (16m 30s):
I'm going to go through a little short list here for you. Gloat $159 million invested, Anthill $4.4 million, Fuel 50, $36 million. And then you have the sort of the companies that have been around a while that have built this into their systems. 8fold, Jobvite, Phenom are a couple that come to mind. Now you are an itty bitty company. What is your plan around the competition? Is it we're going to go raise a similar amount of money? Is it we're going to zig when they zag talk about the competitive landscape and how you plan on impeding?
Tracey (17m 9s):
So those are all amazing companies that we truly do and genuinely admire. Our differentiator is that anonymity piece. We see this is going to play out in terms of adoption, really strongly in our favor. People will use what they trust. It's very difficult to trust when the organization sees what you're doing and knows who you are. So this is one of those angles that we really are focused on, is the anonymity. And quite frankly, we've demoed the people that demoed the competitors and they keep telling us over and over again, yours is just so easy. So while we may be itty-bitty, we're so focused on the user experience, we're so focused on ease of use and simplicity that will drive the adoption that we're looking for.
Tracey (17m 57s):
How we are planning to go to market. We are planning to drive everything we can. And all of our efforts into building really strong partnerships with the HCMS and the ATS is we're currently the only internal mobility tool in the iCIMS marketplace. So we intend to grow via our partnerships. But I think that over time, people are going to start to see that the adoption is going to be the driver of what actually happens to make this internal mobility, the promise of mobility work or not work.
Chad (18m 31s):
So talk about anonymity, but the company is still paying for this. So I get it. Yeah, I'm anonymous but am I really fucking anonymous? I mean, seriously. So how do you get past that? Because we don't trust systems today. We don't trust Facebook. We don't trust them. There's just no trust. So how do you actually gain that trust?
Tracey (18m 50s):
Well, it's fun because we do, we, again, we are live. We do have a lot of people using this tool. I will say that we've received more thank you notes and love letters from employees than support tickets, which is good. I think that's a good thing. The bulk of our support tickets are really fun because they're all, Hey, I don't know my employee ID and our team goes back to them as, Hey, we can't tell you that. And they, and when we tell them, we can't tell you that, they know that we can't tell you that because we don't have access to your data. And if we don't have access to your data, then the company doesn't either. Now the company will be able to tell you your user ID, but the admin screens that our clients have, they don't even see their employees.
Tracey (19m 38s):
They just see the counts. And going into it, this is one of those instances where a company is going to have to roll the dice and let it go and really prove that they're letting it go. We're happy to send screenshots to any of the employees that use our system to say, this is what they actually see, but we can't see it. So they can't see it.
Chad (19m 60s):
So now Joel is actually singing Frozen in his head.
Tracey (20m 2s):
Let it go.
Chad (20m 4s):
What are the major hurdles you're actually up against adoption is obviously huge.
Tracey (20m 9s):
Competitors!
Chad (20m 9s):
But what specifically are the major hurdles? You think it's competitors?
Tracey (20m 13s):
I do, I mean, we are up against some really deep pockets. We are up against a market that has unbelievable obsessive shiny object syndrome. This industry loves the shiny object, right now. And we've all been talking about it all year is internal mobility. That's the shiny object. This is the thing we're talking to. And the thing that we are really up against is status quo and not making a decision and deciding that what you have is good enough or deciding to wait on some of your existing techs roadmap to be executed. That's what we're up against. Like, we're, the industry loves to talk about the new thing and then never buy it.
Tracey (20m 55s):
And then two years later go, oh, well, that didn't work. So really we're up against, you know, strong, strong market, big competitors. But for me, having a lot of deep pocketed competitors just means that we've proven the market for it, right? This exists for a reason, but really our biggest challenge is status quo. Like we've never had to pay for mobility before. Why are we paying for it now? And then I send them to our ROI calculator and go, okay, so what was your number? How many zeros did it have based on what's walked out the door so far for you this year, can you afford not to?
Chad (21m 33s):
You see, and just clarifying you see competitors more than adoption as your biggest hurdle. So what's the biggest, what's your go to market model at that point? Because you are bootstrap, you can't throw a lot of cash at it, right? You have to be smarter. You have to work harder. What is your go to market model?
Tracey (21m 49s):
Yeah. So our go to market model is that partnership route. So we want to begin in as many marketplaces as we can, to be that partner of choice that's automatically integrated with the systems that either say they do it via an internal job board, but we offer a better solution. And they know that. And we're intending to go to market via partnerships,
Joel (22m 11s):
We did an interview, I think last year with the Sherwin Williams TikTok guy. I don't know if you are familiar with this. You, you talked about it in an interview, I believe, but for those listeners that don't remember essentially, a Sherwin-Williams employee was publishing TikToks to the tune of like millions of viewers, where he would mix paints. He would put in, you know, fruits and paints to get, you know, different colors. And he would sort of do this, I think, at the Sherwin-Williams store. Well, they ended up firing him. Obviously, your argument is that that was an opportunity...
Tracey (22m 42s):
Huge!
Joel (22m 42s):
To have someone really talented, you know, move up in your organization and, and hold on to them. So I'm curious, how would your tool have identified this employee and put them on the fast track to success within the company, as opposed to, gee let's fire the guy with millions of TikTok followers?
Tracey (22m 60s):
Well, and we refer to that, like, we refer to that in all of our marketing materials as finding your hidden figures. He did, they didn't even know that they had a digital marketing goldmine on their hands. So what would happen if they had Worqdrive is that this person would have their immense social media, TikTok skills, their penchant for creative and creating and being a creator. And they could be matched to jobs in the marketing team that might've been opened that they could have applied for. In addition, the recruiters could have said, oh my gosh, this person is a TikTok aficionado, this is something we need to go. And they could have tapped him for new roles without any hassle on either side of the fence.
Joel (23m 40s):
In describing our product just let me get this right. So other employees would have recognized this employee as someone special, and they would have created notes on him in the system that he's special and he's doing really incredible things. And they would've found out early that this was going on, or am I getting that right? In terms of how it Worqdrive would have identified this employee?
Tracey (24m 1s):
Not exactly.
Joel (24m 2s):
Ok.
Tracey (24m 2s):
He would have self identified by his skills that he would have inserted into the system and how he would have, how he would have been marking himself as something that was passionate about social media, passionate about TikTok. And then that could have matched him to jobs that he could have seamlessly applied for. Now, he could have also obtained a lot of advocacy for his TikTok skills, which would have put him at the top of the list if any recruiter were in there searching for somebody using social media or TikTok.
Joel (24m 33s):
Gotcha. How do referral programs fit into this technology? Because to me, it seems like a really ripe opportunity for people to be incentivized, to create notes on people or endorsements, and then refer people to jobs internally. Is that a technology that you're looking to add? Or is that something, am I off base there?
Tracey (24m 52s):
No, you're definitely not off base. It is 100% on the roadmap and we kind of to be really transparent haven't fleshed it out yet. One of the things that is next on the docket is alumni. What do we do and how do we handle people that have left the organization? How do they keep their Worqdrive accounts? And how do we mark them in the system as somebody we would like to recruit back, for the recruiters and how do we keep them engaged, but referrals and mentorship and learning and development are all components of our go-forward roadmap.
Chad (25m 25s):
So besides competition, what is the biggest threat to internal mobility in the next 18 months?
Tracey (25m 31s):
Companies continuing to ignore the great awakening that's happened with their talent and people in general. If we just continue to ignore it and keep our head in the sand, nothing will change and we'll continue to lose money and talent acquisition and talent management will continue to barely tread water in the eyes of leadership. I think that this is a huge risk that companies are not paying attention to, with their wallets.
Joel (25m 59s):
Tracey, is raising money, something in the future for you, or are you going to continue to bootstrap the organization?
Tracey (26m 5s):
I've had a really horrifying experience trying to raise money in the past.
Joel (26m 8s):
I think you just answered the question.
Tracey (26m 11s):
Yeah. So we're going to continue down this current path. It's not out of the question. We did get a ton of amazing interests after PitchFest at HR tech. A lot of really nice investors, you know, made the stop by the little mini booth and had some conversations with our team, but it's not something that we're actively pursuing. We've developed a really nice pipeline of sales as it exists, and we see a pretty solid path for growth ourselves.
Joel (26m 42s):
Good for you. So let's talk about pricing for the product, and I guess, is there an exit strategy? And it sounds like there isn't one, it just sounds like a nice little business, organically grown, and we'll see what happens.
Tracey (26m 56s):
Don't get me wrong. You know, we're always listening and the same thing with investors like we're always listening. We are profitable today. We have about a year's worth of runway on this product so far, which is amazing to us! In terms of pricing, pricing is typical SAAS model. There's a small setup fee. And then it's based on the size of the business. We're looking at an average and I'm super transparent about this, but at the pricing today, midsize like, you know, 10-15,000 people, it's probably $80,000 a year to have your Worqdrive. We try to price it so that if you save, you know, three or four to 10 people, it's paid for itself.
Tracey (27m 36s):
And that's what this product is designed to do. It's designed to save people from leaving your organization and therefore it should be an ROI positive investment for an organization. So it's typical SAAS, like the larger the employee count the larger the fee, but we want to keep it at a level that's priced for people to use, because we definitely think that this is something that, you know, everybody over 500 employees should have.
Joel (28m 6s):
All right, Tracey, that's the bell. You know what that means?
Tracey (28m 10s):
It's time!
Joel (28m 11s):
It's time to face the firing squad. Are you ready?
Tracey (28m 16s):
I mean, yeah. Okay.
Joel (28m 16s):
Chad have at it.
Chad (28m 17s):
So Tracey, first and foremost, I don't think your biggest obstacle are your competitors. Most of those companies have no focus and they don't know what the fuck they're doing, but, I think finding someone in TA or HR to pull internal mobility out of the quote unquote "great area," and then take full accountability for the program will be a major feat. You have to find someone with vision and a spine, which really isn't easy in this industry. So once you've achieved that fee, you'll have to then worry about internal politics, squashing, broad based adoption managers don't want their people, which we talked about. They don't want their people to leave and basically it's the daily routine of guarding against internal moves, which as Chicago, once sang, it's a hard habit to break.
Chad (29m 4s):
But on the bright side, "I am" is feeling stronger every day. The tech to me is the easy part because it's all out there. The big question revolves around building your own or partnering with vendors and building a fluid experience and you talked about building that secret sauce. And that's the key because today, if you think about it, do you really need to own the tech? I mean, who today, what company today actually owns their own servers. That's how we're evolving and I see that that's where you guys are actually focused as well. The addressable market is huge and since internal mobility is a big topic right now, look at the fucking talent market landscape with all the quits.
Chad (29m 47s):
You've got a strike while the iron is hot, because this moment, which you said, this opportunity will not last without gaining a foothold within the next 18 months or so with core integrations to talent platforms like iCIMS, you talked about, within the next 18 to 24 months. So last but not least pulling all this together and executing it all focuses on experience, leadership and connections. Because knowing the terrain and obstacles in this industry is the biggest factor of all. And needless to say, Tracey, this is just another Saturday in the park for you. So this to me is a big applause.
Joel (30m 27s):
Way to go Tracey!
Tracey (30m 29s):
Woohoo!
Joel (30m 29s):
Chad and I have been around a while and we know that just getting a lot of money does not equate to success. In fact, in many cases, the worst thing you can do to a company is give them a bunch of money and hope for the best. So I have a soft spot in my heart for businesses that bootstrap, that grow organically, that do the hard work that do the day in and day out. I love the fact that you're sort of working with your husband. I enjoy that dynamic. We really didn't get into it on the show cause it's sort of irrelevant for the business, but your story is great. Your experience in the industry is deep. I think you understand what the employers need. The tech, I think you're probably gonna have some challenges with keeping up with some of the big funded players out there, but it sounds like you have a pretty good hold on technology.
Joel (31m 19s):
I would love to see some automated tools that help you understand where an employee is going. Just some basic scraping and getting updates on employees would be interesting. But that said, I think that this trend of keeping the people that you have is only going to be more and more important. Hiring in a work from home environment is only going to get tougher and more frustrating for employers, so keeping the folks that you have is going to be that much more important. We're seeing trends of younger and younger people leaving jobs sooner and sooner. Obviously the allure of the gig economy is one thing that's going to be a challenge for companies to keep people on board. I would like to see you raise some money, but if you don't that's okay and that shouldn't be a prerequisite for success on the Firing Squad.
Joel (32m 7s):
So for me, as well as Chad's sentiments, I'm going to give (applause) Worqdrive and then hope that you get those funds to buy the Work with a "k" drive in the near future.
Chad (32m 27s):
Stick with the "q"
Joel (32m 28s):
Otherwise, congratulations, fuck the "q" with a "q" I say.
Chad (32m 30s):
FUQ baby. FUQ the plan. F-U-Q the plan.
Joel (32m 32s):
Tracey, congrats. How do you feel?
Tracey (32m 34s):
I feel relieved. Thank you guys so much for this opportunity to talk about this tool and this product and this journey. And thank you so much for the kind words I've actually made a tremendous amount of notes from your feedback and you, I appreciate your support and how you know, how you're looking at this market because it is, you guys are right. It is the relationships, it is the partnership, and it's all about keeping the talent here and happy and the only way you do that is by trusting them. It's just, you know, we have this, we have this thing that's written on our wall and if it's not good for the employee let go.
Joel (33m 9s):
I see you, you've already got the big applause. You don't, you don't need to keep pitching the business.
Tracey (33m 19s):
I know.
Joel (33m 20s):
Just tell our listeners where they can learn more.
Tracey (33m 23s):
Yeah. www.worqdrive.com. Come visit our site, check out the ROI calculator, see what we can do to help you.
Chad (33m 31s):
Beautiful.
Joel (33m 31s):
Chad, another one in the books.
Joel and Chad (33m 33s):
We out, we out.
Firing Squad OUTRO (33m 38s):
This has been the Firing Squad. Be sure to subscribe to the Chad and Cheese Podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a startup who wants to face the Firing Squad, contact the boys at chadcheese.com today. That's www.chadcheese.com.
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