The shift of power, from companies to gig workers
By Philipp Toth
When the gig economy first started to hit the mainstream, it came with the promise of being your own boss and choosing your own hours. But those two points were, for the most part, the only real freedom that came from being a gig-worker.
The gig economy in its earlier iterations was very limiting for gig-workers, who basically just did the tasks of companies on behalf of them, and according to their rules and payment models. This meant that gig-workers had little freedom to change how much they were being paid, or even when they would receive payment, often having to wait upwards of one to two months before the paycheck reached their bank account.
As with any industry, the gig economy has grown in recent years and is starting to take shape as the “be your own boss” mentality it sold itself on. There are now many more gig opportunities than ever before, with workers being able to do what they want, how they want and for whatever pay they find reasonable. This is what we consider to be the second generation of the gig economy.
Earning money in the gig economy
There are three main ways to earn income in the gig economy, each of which applies to different skills and things you need to own and be prepared to use for work.
Selling Goods
The first way to earn money as a gig worker is to sell items. This can be food, personal items that you are selling used or second hand or even hand crafted items. For example, people on Etsy create and sell their art from paintings and drawings, to knitted clothing or carved wooden sculptures.
Renting items
Similar to selling goods, gig-workers can rent out their property for any number of instances. This includes AirBnB, where people can rent their homes out for temporary lodging akin to a hotel service. But it can also include renting out your lawnmower, power tools or even entertainment items such as a 4K TV and video game console.
Providing services
Service providing is what people most commonly associate the gig economy with. It is also the most diverse in its potential and populous in terms of platforms to do it through. Service gigs can be anything you can think of from driving cars, mowing lawns, custodial services, cleaning and walking dogs to name just a few.
Gig economy Generation One
The first generation of the gig economy came with platforms such as Uber and Lyft. For these, workers were simply selling their time. They would do what the platform asked of them when they chose to work, and had little freedom to develop their talents and be their own boss. The work for the first generation was generally low skill and based around performing a menial task for a fixed pay. Full time generation one gig workers were often unskilled and excluded from corporate work due to their lack of qualifications or had few satisfying opportunities to earn their living. There were also many people who supplemented the income from their careers, but for most, platforms like Uber simply didn’t offer a high enough level of payment to justify the time they needed to commit to it.
Gig economy Generation Two
This new generation of the gig economy has really opened the doors to gig-workers to truly take charge of their work and pursue their passions. There are now an overabundance of gig economy apps for pretty much any marketable skill available, which has brought in many workers who would otherwise never have found gig economy work suitable to their capabilities. This is the generation where gig economy companies are really starting to give gig-workers more power over the work they do, rather than dictating everything to them outside of hours.
Generation Two allows gig-workers and micro-entrepreneurs to monetize their skills and talents, whatever they may be, and that generally has lead to higher income, access to their local micro-market and an overall level of worker fulfillment. A lot of people who previously maintained attractive corporate positions are now deciding that they don’t want to work the same nine-to-five position and are seeking more personally satisfying work within the gig economy. A recent study by PYMTS found that 47 percent of gig-workers had a full time job in Q2 of 2018, which was down from 55 percent in Q1. They also found that the younger the surveyed gig-worker was, the more likely they were to attribute flexibility as the key reason they participate in the gig economy.
The biggest problem in Generation Two is the efficiency of work. Gig workers are subject to extremely time-consuming administrative work from job to job. Because they aren’t working for a streamlined platform like Uber, where all they have to do is press a button and everything is handled and decided for them, they have to manage their work themselves. This includes lengthy terms and conditions negotiations, planning, email or telephone communication and deal settlement. This makes up a bulk of their working hours and is of course, entirely unpaid.
The gig economy is also called the “on-demand economy.” The work is handled ad-hoc because gigs will rarely be booked in advance, with a few exceptions such as AirBnb. From the consumer’s side, this efficiency is completely fine and it is something they never really have to think about. But for the gig-worker, it is another story entirely. The gig economy needs to adapt to fill in the efficiency gap that creates too much unpaid work for the gig-workers in order for the market to become more widely appealing.
Heymate, the next step for the gig economy
Heymate seeks to fill that efficiency gap. Heymate is a portable deal-closing tool for the gig economy generation that works in tandem with any gig worker market. The mobile app allows users to generate, negotiate and close on legally enforceable contracts within 20 seconds. By eliminating the need to personally communicate and negotiate every deal they make, workers will be able to minimize the revenue losing administrative work greatly increase the efficiency of their daily schedule.
Gig-workers will be able to paste a link to their heymate offer-for-work contract to any marketplace, email address, or even offline in person, and the consumer can accept the simple to understand contract as is or make adjustments to negotiate per their own needs. It is through this simple and fast approach to the gig economy that heymate seeks to solve the current problems with the on-demand economy and help usher in the third generation to the gig economy, where workers will be able to truly become their own boss and do what they want, however much they want to.
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.
