When the Side Gig Takes Center Stage: How Shane Leveraged Fractional Work to Boost His Founder Salary and Build a Thriving Agency

I had the pleasure of interviewing Shane Lykins. Shane has built products in the heart of Silicon Valley for the last decade at some companies you may have heard of — Airbnb, Outdoorsy, Pinterest, Thumbtack, and Hopin.

But his path to tech was far from traditional, growing up on the beach in San Diego with zero connections.

In 2013, he landed in San Francisco after a brief and sweaty stint in Dallas, TX and hustled his way into the startup game by driving for Lyft/Uber and renting his rented apartment on Airbnb.

After submitting way too many bugs and feature requests to Airbnb as a host, the joke became that he should probably apply to Airbnb as he could maybe fix some of these issues. Fortunately, Shane landed a job at Airbnb, his first job in tech, and was off to the races.

He started answering phone calls from angry guests who were locked out and ghosted by their hosts and grew into a product role, working directly with Brian Chesky on Airbnb Experiences (which was called magical trips at the time).

After a few years at Airbnb, Shane got the startup itch and left to join Outdoorsy which was dubbed as “Airbnb for motorhomes”. Shane was hired as the first PM, around employee #20 and led supply and international growth all the way past unicorn status and $100MM GMV.

Eventually, Shane decided it was time to start his own business and launched Bigfoot (www.meetbigfoot.com) to help you plan your best weekends. Bigfoot raised $2M in venture capital to grow the product and build out the team, but Shane’s salary was a fraction of what it was working in big tech (founders know this all too well).

He had to get creative and fast, as he was the primary earner in his growing family and just bought a home in SF, one of the most expensive markets in the US.

Shane thought there has to be a way to share his experience with other early stage startups that are seeking expertise to kickstart their business but cannot afford or aren’t yet ready to hire a full time employee.

He was right and before he knew it, there was increasing demand for operators who have been in the trenches and could accelerate startups by offering a fraction of their time.

Prodjoy (www.prodjoy.com) was born and recently crossed $25K MRR as a side hustle.

What motivated you to launch your startup?

I’ve always wanted to start my own company and entrepreneurship is literally in my blood. My dad and both grandfathers had their own successful businesses and I grew up seeing what entrepreneurship could do from both a monetary and lifestyle standpoint. I knew I wanted that early on.

After several years in big tech, I jumped in to found Bigfoot which became one of the biggest moments of my career and was a huge validation on the path I’ve been working towards. I was in my early 30s and had more responsibilities so I had to make some side cash to keep the lifestyle I was providing for my family.

That’s where I fell into and fell in love with fractional work.

What is it that excites you about what you’re building?

Few things, one is I grew up with ADD (or was at least diagnosed with it) and as a kid I thought it was an ailment but grew to appreciate it and naturally love working on many things simultaneously. Fractional work allows you to impact so many different businesses and work with so many incredible people at the same time, whereas traditional work silos you into one business which is kinda boring.

Secondly, fractional work has been this big realization that there’s a different type of work out there and a potential option for many people when full time employment isn’t an option. Whether you are unemployed or have been laid off in a weak economy, looking to augment your founder salary, or are looking for a lifestyle change to spend more time with your family, fractional could be a great option for you.

What has been your biggest challenge when growing your startup?

Running a fractional business has supply vs demand economics similar to a traditional marketplace startup, which I’ve been fortunate enough to be focused on for the last 10 years and have a deep knowledge of and respect for.

With most marketplaces, you are traditionally demand constrained. I found a huge unlock here by identifying LinkedIn as my primary acquisition channel and keep up with regular posting which has flooded my inbox with demand. Funny enough, memes work the best!

We’ve now hit the tipping point and demand is outpacing supply, which has forced me to look for other great product managers to partner with and has morphed me into an agency.

What are your future plans for your startup?

I want to help as many people as possible experience the freedom that Fractional work brings. To do this, I need to make it less scary to start and help people become successful. I’m actively building an OS (Operating System) for fractional workers to manage and grow their business.

We are starting with professional meme generation as memes hit the hardest and we can create some really interesting ones with the power of AI.

If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?

Just get started. You are going to make mistakes along the way and that’s ok. In fact, it’s part of the process so the quicker you can get to failure, the quicker you can learn, grow, and succeed.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I guess I’m a Linkedin influencer of sorts (a joke, kinda.. haha) so feel free to reach out there! Here’s my handle www.linkedin.com/in/shanelykins

This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!