The Future of Work Starts with 60MM+ Working Americans Without a College Degree : Why I Invested in Strive

At Upfront, we aspire to fund really big ideas that solve hard problems, are technology-led, and if successful will both improve lives and drive great returns. As such, over the last few years, we have sought out founders focused on skills development and job creation for middle-class workers. While we have seen many great companies, we have not invested in most, typically because the approach was too incremental or the business model put undue burden on the job candidate.

All of that changed when I met Will Houghteling, the founder of Strive Talent. Today, I am thrilled to announce my investment in Strive, which will help companies hire and train candidates for “middle skill” roles, starting with sales roles. Strive does this by developing a hiring platform that enables companies to hire a candidate based on competencies, rather than credentials. Additionally, Strive works with employers to launch variable-length, “last mile” training programs to close skills gaps and prepare job candidates for a broader array of jobs in the market.

There is no question that the economic landscape is changing and traditional education is not keeping up, leaving many with high levels of debt but no way to service it. The American middle class standard of living is at risk and inequality is only increasing with both inert public policy and advances in automation.

And yet there are millions of middle skills jobs in the United States that remain unfilled. There is more demand than supply in this growing jobs market — roles that require more than a high school education but less than a four-year degree, like entry-level sales, customer service, and IT. These are the roles that are often the best route to a family-supporting income for the approximately 66% of Americans without a college degree.

Yet, many of these candidates are not considered because companies and recruiters have been using the same arcane assessment tools for years, primarily vetting via achieved degrees and university reputation, extending the time to hire by 40% in some roles. US companies are deploying huge amounts of capital — in the form of HR teams, external recruiters and training — to find and train employees for these open jobs. Overall, US employers spend $150B in third party staffing, and the average US employer also spends time in addition to money; filling an open position takes on average takes 52 days and costs $4,000.

This is why Strive is building a candidate-first marketplace in which the core revenue stream comes from existing job placement fees. Sales is an attractive go-to market vertical precisely because results are measurable. In addition, success correlates to intrinsic skills and the market is large (over one million open jobs in sales). Finally, right now, only 100 of 4,000 universities offer a sales training program. The opportunity is rich to develop a proof point for Strive.

Strive deploys recruiting fees more effectively to reduce time to hire and bring in higher quality candidates (from a larger, better trained pool). Employers pay Strive to source, train and place. The candidate will be provided last mile training for free. When recruiting funds are reallocated to a company like Strive who offers a more effective training platform and alternative career path than a traditional four-year institution, the financial burden (e.g., student debt) is removed from the future employee. The entire ecosystem becomes more efficient and benefits from quicker matching at lower costs systemwide.

Employers have much to gain from utilizing the Strive platform in the form of both internal time savings (recruiting teams, hiring managers’ time) and higher-performing employees. Strive candidates are dramatically outperforming traditional hiring channels. One of Strive’s large customers reported Strive-placed candidates were twice as likely to get hired, had 12% higher sales performance, and 70% lower attrition than candidates from their other major recruiting source. These candidates were qualitatively described as “far and away the best salespeople they have had.” Current Strive customers range from a top 10 bank to a national home repair chain to Uber. Of Strive-placed candidates across their customers, 70% do not have a college degree and likely would not have been considered if not for Strive.

We need to stop overlooking “high competency/low credential” candidates. To change the societal mindset and practice that a 4-year college degree is the gateway to a middle skills job, the best case studies are the candidates themselves — their success metrics, their employer satisfaction rates, their performance.

While Strive’s solution is of the most compelling we have seen, what stands out most about Strive is the founder and CEO, Will Houghteling. Will is both a visionary and a doer with the raw horsepower, energy and humility that inspire people to follow him to the moon and back. Professionally, Will has leadership experience at the Minerva Project and was an impactful young leader at Google. Personally, he is the son of an educator and has a genuine passion to solve a global problem. Will built the initial product himself, ran extensive customer interviews and sold into early revenue with big logo customers before taking a dollar of venture funding.

We are thrilled to support Will in his journey and become an investor in Strive Talent. Venture Capital as an asset class now has the potential to make a huge impact on real societal issues. VCs are constantly on the lookout for “the next global platform” and I could not imagine a more impactful place to spend time than building the training and placement platform of the future. The next generation of productive, properly compensated workers depends on it.