Startup of the Month: Shiftgig

by Amina Elahi
February 5, 2013

Built In Chicago and Marengo Hampshire Partners would like to congratulate February’s Startup of the Month: Shiftgig! This company provides a hiring platform for the hospitality and retail industries, making it possible for employers and job candidates to connect with each other online.

[ibimage==21929==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-left]Founder and CEO Eddie Lou recognized that for Gen Y, Facebook was the “it” social network – not LinkedIn. He says young adults don’t yet have professional networks and are on the hunt for jobs, not careers. Starting out, it’s sometimes more important to get a paycheck than to chase a life dream, and Shiftgig makes that easier.

“The more I looked into the hiring process of the service industry, the more I realized that neither LinkedIn nor Facebook provided a good solution,” Lou says. “There [are] over two million restaurants, retailers and hospitality businesses in the U.S. It's a large market and it's highly underserved.”

We sat down with Lou to find out more about Shiftgig’s successes, challenges and goals.

Why does the service industry need Shiftgig?
The service industry has made little advancement in the past 20 years. Candidates still walk door to door to apply. Hiring managers waste too much time and money by hiring inefficiently. Collecting stacks of resumes from candidates who may or may not have relevant experience slows the process down. Making poor hiring decisions is expensive. Most employers won’t and shouldn’t spend the money for a more targeted approach to fill a low paying position that has a lot of turnover. The only advancement online is Craigslist and if Craigslist is the best way, there must be a better online way. Shiftgig is that way, enabling hiring managers to hire smarter and more efficiently.

How has being based in Chicago affected Shiftgig?
Chicago is quickly becoming a hotbed for both tech startups and restaurant trends. This special combination gives us access to talent, well-respected contacts within the restaurant industry and a growing investor pool.

What is the greatest challenge your company faces?
The greatest challenge Shiftgig faces is growing quickly. We are extremely flexible as a small organization. As we expand to new markets, both geographically and vertically, we will continue to find new ways to improve the experience for businesses and employers. We need to be fully prepared to continue to meet those needs even if we need to aggressively expand our development team to keep pace with our growth.

What are some of the successes Shiftgig has attained since launch?
Shiftgig reached 100,000 users in October 2012 (our tenth month) and we will double that in early 2013. We are approaching nearly 6,000 employers in restaurant, hotel, and retail verticals. We expanded beyond Chicago to Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. We secured $3,000,000 in capital in October from VCs, family-offices and individuals including Sam Yagan, CEO of Match.com; Brian Spaly, CEO of Trunk Club; and Ken Pelletier, former CTO of Groupon.

What are your goals for the rest of 2013?
We plan to continue our rate of growth in 2013. We are also exploring new vertical markets and will begin monetization.

Visit Shiftgig’s website, check out their BIC profile, and follow them on Twitter at @shiftgig.

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Jobs at Shiftgig

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