There is a new player in the world of independent markets. It’s called Braintrust, and like the headlines TaskRabbit and Upwork, it provides a website to connect hired workers and companies looking to hire them.
Until now, Braintrust has chosen to operate in what the Silicon Valley guys call “stealth mode,” relying on word of mouth and avoiding media hype.
According to founder Adam Jackson, Braintrust has attracted large companies because their fees, typically 10% of a successful employee’s starting salary, are much lower than the 50% or more that some headhunters and talent agencies charge. Meanwhile, Braintrust has attracted a pool of highly-skilled talent to its platform, including veterans from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Airbnb, and other high-profile tech firms.
These workers include project managers, coders, and designers, and Braintrust vets them before they can join the platform.
Jackson, who made a name for himself in Silicon Valley by founding the Doctor on Demand service, says highly-skilled workers have an added incentive to join Braintrust. That is, unlike other labor markets, the startup does not receive a part of the salary received by the workers of the companies that hire them. Meanwhile, Braintrust is also using the new technology known as blockchain to provide talent with a stake in ownership of the platform.
All of this represents a potentially disruptive model not only for the high-end job market, but for many other services as well. According to Jackson, his broader goal is one day to “kill the middle men,” including companies that facilitate the transportation and delivery of food. He describes those industries as a “shit business” in need of reform.
The idea of disrupting giants like Uber and DoorDash seems far-fetched, but the initial success Jackson has achieved with Braintrust suggests his model could be successful overall. But that will require people to understand how Braintrust works in the first place.
Services like TaskRabbit and Uber have thrived because they act as online intermediaries between those who provide labor (drivers, operators, etc.) and those looking to buy it. They have been a boon to the consumer and also created the labor market of millions of people known as the “special jobs economy.”
Critics, however, claim these services are exploitative and point to controversial practices such as Doordash’s attempts to pocket worker tips. According to Jackson, these practices arise because the interests of online intermediaries are not aligned with the workers they help supply.
By launching Braintrust, Jackson believes he has found a way to make most of the money raised by middlemen flow to workers.
Their solution is based on the use of blockchain, which is the technology behind virtual currencies like Bitcoin. Blockchain creates a permanent. The tamper-proof ledger runs on multiple computers and the use of digital tokens which, like stocks, can serve as a money and voting mechanism.
The tokens can be used to vote on options such as product roadmaps or new lines of business. This means, Jackson says, there is no chance Braintrust will one day impose harmful measures on workers, such as a 15% tax on their income, for the simple reason that most token owners would never vote for it. such an agreement.
“We don’t even mention it to Porsche. All we’re saying is we’re killing the middle man and saving most of the 50% fee the company would pay to an agency,” says Jackson, explaining that all parts of Braintrust use cash to organize your transactions.
However, it remains to be seen how many Braintrust workers will want to bother with blockchain tokens in the first place. After all, outsourced workers are primarily concerned with getting paid rather than participating in esoteric government schemes online. There is also no successful precedent for what Braintrust is trying to do, which is essentially build a giant cooperative of online workers.
But he says that the various governance tools that blockchain offers mean there is an unprecedented opportunity for it to work.
Jackson is so optimistic about his blockchain-based business model that he says he intends to start a fund and support any startup that employs it. Other areas that he believes are ripe for disruption include consulting and the legal field.
One sign that Jackson’s dreams might not be far-fetched is the endorsement of the CEO of a company seeking to revolutionize. In a statement on Braintrust’s website, TaskRabbit’s CEO praises the startup for finding a new way to align incentives for workers and the companies that employ them.
