The issues preventing the gig economy from reaching mass appeal
By Philipp Toth
The dream of the gig economy is one that allows workers the freedom to be their own boss and earn their living pursuing their passions or doing the kind of work they want to be doing, however much they want to do it. The unfortunate reality however, is that the gig economy in its current state is too flawed for this to be possible for most people.
Full time gig work is prohibitive due to delayed payments
Earning a living off of full-time gig economy work can be extremely difficult, particularly if the worker has no savings to help them get started. One of the main issues gig-workers encounter is delayed payments. Gig-workers, for the most part, need their payment as soon as they finish their job, but that’s not at all how it actually works. Most gig economy platforms follow the traditional NET 30 Days principle to process and release payments to their workers, which is just not feasible for many people who don’t have the money to pay their bills or keep themselves fed that month. This is a major roadblock for many potential gig-workers because it means they need to earn at least a full extra month of payment in advance, either through traditional work or loans, in order to feed their expenses before they can start doing gig-work full time. More than 80 percent of side-hustlers wish for an instant payment option, according to the Global Marketplace and Gig Economy Payment Satisfaction Report, released by Tipalti.
A survey by bill.com showed that 54 percent of gig-workers were unhappy with the amount of time it took for them to receive payment. In addition to this, many gig-workers receive very low income for the work they perform. An Uber driver I spoke to said he was only making 10 Euros per hour, which is hardly a living wage, especially when you consider the constant expenses such as gas and vehicle maintenance that are deducted from that.
The unbanked are excluded from the gig economy
Think about the many people in refugee camps or frontier markets. Even if they are set up through PayPal for work, they won’t be able to access financial solutions. Most of these require users to have bank accounts or credit cards, which people such as these don’t have access to. This accounts for at least three billion people, among which are those who would most benefit from the gig economy, that are excluded because of the situation they are in.
Unpaid administrative work
Another issue present in unmanaged marketplaces like Craigslist or Facebook is contract settlement. On top of the lengthy unpaid process of negotiating terms and conditions with their client, a very real and present danger is simply not receiving payment for the work they do. In order for gig-workers to ensure they receive payment for their work, they need create legally binding contracts with their customers, which is difficult and time consuming, and of course, more unpaid administrative work and for many a high entry level burden, due to their lacking legal literacy. The matchmaking for these services works really well, but everything that happens afterwards is unfixed and exploitable. They desperately need improved deal-closing services.
Heymate, the mobile solution to the flaws of the gig economy
Heymate is a portable deal-closing tool for the gig economy generation that seeks to solve these central problems. The heymate mobile app allows users to create legally enforceable digital contracts for peer-to-peer item sales, labour provision and equipment leasing, all within 20 seconds. When the easy-to-create digital contracts are agreed upon by both parties, neither of which need to actually personally communicate with each other to do so, payments are escrowed until the terms and conditions are met, at which point payment is instantly sent to the gig-workers account. This both ensures the worker receives the payment for the services they provided, and allows them to immediately start making money from their work. The heymate app also includes cancellation and prepayment policies and short-term gig insurances in case of damage or sickness.
Heymate was built and designed to be the plug-and-play solution to the gig economy’s problems. The app isn’t a marketplace, since the many available marketplaces have already fine-tuned their matchmaking capabilities, but instead creates the second half of the marketplace value chain. Heymate’s peer-to-peer side-hustler offers can be distributed via all messenger and email services, be placed in parallel to any available digital matchmaking platform such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram, as well as created on the spot for in-person and offline dealmaking.
In addition, heymate provides all its users with a digital wallet which allows a swift balance transfers to any bank account or prepaid credit card. As we mentioned, people in refugee camps or frontier markets have no access to digital payments for gig work due to their exclusion from the financial systems. But even without a bank account, all they need to do to use heymate is purchase a prepaid credit card. With heymate, those three billion people have everything they need to start their own business and earn a living for doing the work that should be available to them. This is something that makes heymate truly special and different from any other gig economy platform on the market.
With a powerful portable deal-closing tool like heymate which eliminates unpaid administrative work and pays out the moment a job is completed, gig-workers and side-hustlers will finally be able to realize the dream of the gig economy: having the freedom to earn their living doing what they want, without reducing their average per-hour income due to the unpaid administrative work that is required in the current gig economy.
The platform launched its invite-only alpha version in Sept. 2018, and will release to the public in Q1, 2019.
To learn more about heymate, please visit our website at heymate.works or join our Telegram community (@heymate_official) to keep up to date on recent developments!
Philipp Toth is the CEO and founder of heymate, a portable deal-closing tool designed for the gig economy generation. Philipp has 12 years of experience in corporate value creation and operational excellence design and implementation, accumulated during his careers in management consulting and investment management. Heymate seeks to solve the gig economy’s efficiency gaps and payment deficiencies by allowing users to create legally enforceable peer-to-peer contracts online or offline within 20 seconds.
