Startup Shiftsmart Grew Users By 300% By Connecting Hourly Workers With Unfilled Shifts…

Within days of the pandemic-related economic shutdown last March, Patrick Brandt, cofounder and president of workforce marketplace Shiftsmart, noticed a significant portion of his users in the hospitality industry were suddenly unemployed. He got to work on a plan.

Shiftsmart, which he cofounded in 2015 with CEO Aakash Kumar and CTO Pavan Patel, enables those who work hourly jobs in settings such as call centers and warehousing to seamlessly sign up for open shifts at multiple employers. Brandt used the platform to help his out-of-work users sign up for shifts at in-demand food banks, raising private money to pay their wages. 

“I thought it was going to last eight to 10 weeks,” he says. One year later, this nonprofit initiative, called Get Shift Done, has paid out more than $15 million in wages to some 28,000 workers in 12 regions across the country.

And in roughly the same span of time, the startup—with $22.5 million in funding and a valuation of more than $100 million—saw revenue surge by nearly 400% and users grow more than 300% to upwards of 400,000 workers in 50 countries.

With customers including Apple, Google, McDonald’s and Facebook, Shiftsmart matches workers with employers based on their credentials and work experiences. Using its software, companies can screen candidates, train workers and send available shifts (via in-app or text messages), with high-performers getting the first pick. Employers can also pay workers within 24 hours of their shifts with real-time transfers to debit cards. Job seekers can use the platform for free, though employers pay a platform fee and a per shift fee, which vary based on need.

“An average worker can pick up work from two to three different employers, and it’s really just a function of choice. We never specify exactly what shifts you have to work or don’t have to work,” says Kumar, who was featured on Forbes’ 2020 30 Under 30 Enterprise Technology list. “Our mission became flexibility and access.”

For example, a McDonald’s food service worker could use the platform to pick up shifts at other, similar employers. And with Shiftsmart training, that worker could eventually grow into higher level jobs, Kumar says.

“We want to be able to allow workers to stack shifts across employers and across verticals,” he says. “So someone who could start as a mystery shopper or a retail auditor could then get started doing inbound customer service, then graduate up to technical support, then graduate up to the next thing as we keep upskilling and uptrending to higher paying jobs, based on performance, over time.”

The concept of connecting temporary and skilled workers with employers is nothing new—firms like Robert Half, Randstad and Korn Ferry have been doing it successfully for decades. And in recent years, a number of employee onboarding startups, such as Gusto and Zenefits, have helped companies train new hires. But Kumar says Shiftsmart sets itself apart by combining all of these elements on one platform, catering to both employers and job seekers, and allowing the latter to be “micro-entrepreneurs” in the process.

“Our view was to create a horizontal platform—one platform that can let you do recruitment, workforce management and scheduling, integrated messaging, payments, as well as tapping into our workforce to fill unfilled shifts,” he says. “Otherwise, your normal staffing company never wants you to schedule better or recruit better, and your recruiting tool never wants you to schedule better or staff better, because the worse you are, it feeds into that loop.”

The pandemic has only helped prove that this business model works, Brandt says. Last spring when restrictions forced restaurants and stadiums to close their doors, he says Smartshift helped jobless valet and parking attendants get jobs with logistics and audit companies. And when the Small Business Administration needed to set up a call center to support its newly launched Paycheck Protection Program, the company dispatched 2,000 trained call center workers in just 36 hours.

“Think of us as a platform working horizontally across multiple verticals,” Brandt says. “We like to think of ourselves as the Amazon of shifts.”