Wonolo
Today is Wonolo’s 3rd birthday, and we have so many things to celebrate, to be grateful for and to look forward to.
It all began as an experiment; could Coca-Cola solve their unpredictable staffing problem using technology? Coca-Cola was losing millions of dollars because so many jobs were getting unfilled at their front-line operations on a daily basis. It was a paradox – how could this happen when there was a huge pool of untapped, available workers constantly looking for a job?
The answer became quite obvious after a few days of doing the jobs ourselves. We talked to managers as well as workers while out in the field with them. The available solutions – traditional staffing companies and job boards – were simply ineffective. Everyone we talked to, from a hiring manager to an operations manager, hated those services. They were too cumbersome, opaque, slow, complicated and expensive. One of the managers even showed us a 100-page contract from a staffing company (gasp)! Same thing on the worker side. Did you know that many workers still wait and line up outside a staffing branch office at 5:30AM to look for a shift? And after a full work week, they have to pick up a paycheck physically?
AJ, Jeremy and I immediately fell in love with the problem. It was exciting to embark on solving a big, scary, audacious problem not only for Coca-Cola, but also for myriad of companies who faced similar challenges. More importantly, just thinking about the real impact we could have on helping millions of workers get jobs in the fastest, simplest and easiest way possible gave us permanent goosebumps.
Since then, we focused on developing the most intelligent and intuitive product, building a world class team, and being excellent in everything we do. With those goals, the Wonolo team sprinted/fell/got-up, fist-pumped/fist-twisted, laughed/cried (and rinse and repeat) every single day over the last 3 years. It’s been an incredible amount of hard work, dedication and sacrifice, and what we have accomplished together as a team is astounding:
- We have provided hundreds of thousands of jobs to our amazing community of Wonoloers. With the income they have earned through the Wonolo platform, Wonoloers have been able to pay for rent, bills, education, family/friends in need, save for the future, and even travel to places they have never been to. Just listen to these amazing Wonoloers on how Wonolo changed their lives!
- We have helped our customers grow while saving millions of dollars along the way. One of our top customers actually told us, “Wonolo saved our Christmas,” when they were struggling with finding workers during their busy holiday season. And there are many more customers like them here.
- We have become the de-facto platform to manage the internal contingent workforce at some of the largest Fortune 1000 companies. Our platform has been so versatile and easy to deploy that companies are adopting our marketplace model for their internal use. We are redefining the future of front-line work by allowing companies to access their own workers as well as external Wonoloers seamlessly.
- We have built a highly talented and dedicated team spanning across the U.S., Vietnam and the Philippines. Regardless of where we are based, we collaborate effectively as a team. More importantly, we have worked so hard to stay true to our Tao of Wonolo. We are “One team, One dream.”
In spite of amazing accomplishments the Wonolo team has already achieved, we are still hungry for even more. We feel that we have barely scratched the surface – just look at the 3 largest staffing companies, each with $20BN+ of revenue! And the greenfield opportunity out there.
We are now far more experienced and knowledgeable than when we first started 3 years ago. Our traction and growth are stronger than ever. We are supported by dedicated board members, advisors and mentors from top VCs, strategic partners and industry thought-leaders. And the Wonolo team who is hustling, full-court-pressing and going above and beyond everyday… they are some of the most talented, industrious, creative, humble people we have worked with and learned from. We are truly thankful for them and cannot be more proud.
We have so much work ahead of us with millions of jobs to create and billions of lives to impact. We cannot wait to see what the next 3 years (and beyond!) will bring.
Let’s keep going.
AJ, Jeremy and Yong
