Crowded.com Leads On-Demand Worker Conversation between Platforms, Independent Workers and Venture Capital Community

NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- As the on-demand workforce continues to pick up speed, more Americans are finding themselves shifting from the more traditional 9 to 5 job hunt and moving towards more independence.  Behind this marketplace of independent workers and leading the conversation between on-demand platforms, venture capitalists, and independent workers is Crowded.com, a marketplace for on-demand workers.  Crowded.com has been the force behind bringing these groups together by creating unique, first of its kind meetups, giving these individuals a chance and a place to have their voices heard. 

The team behind Crowded.com recognizes the on-demand market today has problems – independent workers struggle to find enough consistent gigs and platforms are unable to tap into enough consistent workers. With extensive regional and national data on the on-demand industry, Crowded.com provides a solution to this problem with a new marketplace. The breakthrough Crowded.com Marketplace recruits independent workers at scale and aggregate gigs from hundreds of on-demand platforms. Currently 10,000 independent workers and dozens of on-demand platform partners and counting are working with Crowded.com.

This quarter, Crowded.com hosted a series of Independent Worker Meetups, speaking exclusively to workers who are currently working for one or more of the on-demand/gig platforms. The group covered work opportunities with new platforms popping up, how workers can maximize income, maintaining work/life balance, identifying their most marketable skills, how to handle the complexities of on-demand, and the pros and cons of 1099 and W2.

The open forum discussion identified the good, the bad and the ugly that on-demand workers face today, including:

• Very little transparency when it comes to job criteria, payment, work hours, necessary transportation, locations, timing and many other details needed to complete a job;
• Not enough education on how workers can use platforms effectively; and
• Not enough solutions to onboard on multiple on-demand platforms, and efficiently work across multiple platforms.

In addition, Crowded.com hosted a groundbreaking On-Demand Economy Roundtable that covered how companies in the industry are getting funded, strategies for customer/merchant/worker acquisition and the regulation and taxes facing the industry as well as feedback from workers. The roundtable was led by venture capitalists from Trinity Ventures, Blumberg Capital, IDG Ventures USA, HOTventures, Band of Angels, Relay Ventures and Eniac Ventures. Participants include representatives from Lyft, Thumbtack, ZIRX, Chariot, Shipbird, GoodHire, Upwork, Hopinside, Roost, Wonolo, YourMechanic, Chaperone, ZeroCater, Fountain, Feastly, Washio, Sidecar, Wonolo and Postmates.

"What people need to remember is that the on-demand economy is not limited to San Francisco and New York," Howard Schwartz, CEO & Co-Founder of Crowded.com. "With millions of American workers participating in the on-demand economy, we're streamlining the process of looking for work and providing better resources when it comes to finding gigs. Through these meetups, we spend time with independent workers – some making up to six-figure incomes from the gig economy – who all have a strong voice within this space.  We're proud to start and keep these conversations growing as the gig economy continues to widen."   

Crowded.com is scaling its marketplace, and continues to compile extensive regional and national data on the on-demand industry, its workers, jobs and platforms. The company recently polled on-demand workers across several industries to examine the challenges of the gig economy. According to this research, the #1 problem for on-demand workers is missing job opportunities, followed by not having a unified view of multiple on-demand platforms, having too many resources to manage, and having too much paperwork related to taxes and expense management.

"The market is very familiar with services such as Uber and Airbnb but awareness drops off for the majority of other platforms today," noted Schwartz. "We're here to help independent workers who can't find enough consistent gigs and platforms that can't find enough consistent workers."

About Crowded.com

Crowded.com is the leading marketplace for on-demand workers. The on-demand market today has problems – independent workers struggle to find enough consistent gigs and platforms are unable to tap into enough consistent workers. With extensive regional and national data on the on-demand industry, Crowded.com provides a solution to this problem and creates its marketplace by recruiting independent workers at scale and aggregating gigs from hundreds of on-demand platforms.

Media Contact:  [email protected] 212-334-9753, x128

SOURCE Crowded.com

Related Links

http://www.crowded.com