The Interesting Bits from my YC 16 application

Below are the more interesting parts of my late application to YC16 directly copy-pasted (and slightly reformatted) below. The idea has evolved since this original submission but please feel free to comment.

Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing the founders. (Follow the Video Guidelines.)

Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together. Include urls if possible.

I built a smart android notification filter which helps differentiate different streams of notification. For example, urgent notifications you should respond to versus ones that can wait. It effectively provides the ability to use @username (like slack or hipchat) to get someones attention in any app (eg Fb messenger, Whatsapp). I’ve found it super useful at work because now I know that every time my phone rings it’s important and I’m legitimately excited to see the notification.

Check it out: http://filtrateapp.com

How long have the founders known one another and how did you meet? Have any of the founders not met in person?

It’s just me.

I know a couple specific strong engineers from my past at Amazon and Palantir who I’ve talked to but haven’t really worked on recruiting yet. I’m woefully lacking in non-engineer acquaintances but I’ve been going on random startup dates recently (aka see some interesting startup online, email them, chat about stuff over coffee) to try and meet people.

PROGRESS

How far along are you?

I thought about this idea last week.

I think the first step is to build a simple business using contract workers to flesh out the right api and infrastructure for a public contract worker management api. One idea I have is grocery store checkout as on-demand work since it’s a relatively low skill job that most people can do (eg self checkout). Another idea is pilots and stewardesses. Fundamentally, any job composed of tasks with a binary outcome (eg I made it to my destination) and has a consistent set of skills (eg can drive a car) can be modified to use contract labour.

If you’ve already started working on it, how long have you been working and how many lines of code (if applicable) have you written?

Not long, it’s far to early for code.

Which of the following best describes your progress?

Nothing Built

When will you have a prototype or beta?

[BLANK]

Do you have revenue?

No

IDEA

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area? How do you know people need what you’re making?

I have domain expertise in building software systems but none in the business area in question.

I got really excited about this idea after reading a couple books (reactiverobot.com/reading) but in particular The Third Wave by Steve Case. Honestly I’m not sure exactly what in the book put this idea in my head.

Clearly, companies can write their own software to manage their workforce. Whether they _need_ this is questionable. If multiple companies are building it, there is clearly technical debt on an industry wide scale. I believe a single entity building a solid platform can do it significantly better than every company rolling their own version.

However, I’m absolutely certain that society needs this. It’s imperative that we provide a way for businesses based on contract workers to grow in such a way that the workers are protected. We need to set the standard now that contract workers can be given standard benefits (eg insurance and sick leave) without negatively impacting the company hiring the worker. I believe the right way to do this is slide a layer between the contract worker and the hiring company such that the company doesn’t need to invest the extra engineer and lawyer hours to provide those services which aren’t strictly necessary for their business model.

What’s new about what you’re making? What substitutes do people resort to because it doesn’t exist yet (or they don’t know about it)?

In general, companies build their own platform, tightly integrated with their product.

The idea of software for managing workers is not new and neither is software to manage contract workers. The new concept is building this system as an API for other companies to build on top of and positioning the business to protect the interests of the workers. If we can’t do this such that the contract workers employed through the platform are happy about their jobs, we shouldn’t do it.

Who are your competitors, and who might become competitors? Who do you fear most?

The biggest competitor is companies building this technology themselves. So far that’s what companies have done.

The huge obstacle to overcome is is beating the “wasn’t built here” syndrome which plagues the software industry.

What do you understand about your business that other companies in it just don’t get?

That this is a fundamental piece of technology that is repeated across industry that should be abstracted away and optimized. We can improve the lives of the contract workforce and free companies to dedicate development resources to their product.

This is necessary to sustain growth of the on-demand businesses without creating some sort of serf-esque social class.

How do or will you make money? How much could you make?

It will make money by selling the platform to businesses.

Formulation:
A reasonable way to charge for such a service would be proportional the number of hours of contract labour the purchasing company uses.

$ / month = ($ per hr per worker)*(average hr per month)*(# worker per company)*(# company)

Conservative Estimates:
$ per hr per worker: This is the product pricing so completely up us to figure out what works, say $0.03
Average hr per month: Say 80 hrs, some will be
# workers per company: Say 20,000 or roughly number of lyft drivers in the Bay Area. Reasonable estimate for a labour force for smaller future business based on contract workers.
# company: Say we acquire 10 clients, seems reasonable because in any new area where contract workers begin to take over, there will be competition.

Result: $ / month = 480000
These estimates are clearly quite conservative for the entire scope of the space. Particularly the number of contract workers worldwide is significantly higher (last year lyft and uber both had >100k drivers in the US).

How will you get users? If your idea is the type that faces a chicken-and-egg problem in the sense that it won’t be attractive to users till it has a lot of users (e.g. a marketplace, a dating site, an ad network), how will you overcome that?

The plan is to first build a model business with contract workers. In this case we will have a specific job working in a specific function. This will seed interest and add legitimacy to the larger platform once that is in a solid state.