BetterWorks Aims to Make Work Rewarding
March 28th, 2011
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Startups are alive and well throughout the Los Angeles area, particularly in the Silicon Strand. One that stands out is BetterWorks, founded by Paige Craig, Sizhao “Zao” Yang, and George Ishii, which aims to “Make Work Rewarding”. I recently reached out to Paige Craig to learn more about the company.
Trendslate: What was most appealing about the business of providing rewards for employees?
Paige Craig, BetterWorks: Our biggest motivation is building a solution that helps business owners build and improve their companies, and more specifically helping them recognize, reward and optimize the talent inside these companies. Of all the resources at a company’s disposal I think the workforce is the most neglected, the most misunderstood and the most in need of new solutions. Every day companies lose great employees, fail to attract great employees or simply fail to motivate and get the most out of their existing talent. Delivering a measurable solution that motivates employees gets me crazy excited. In the next two years I want to see a couple million small and medium businesses using our platform to make work awesome for employees and in turn I want to see those companies flourish and deliver new solutions, new products and new dreams to this world. As founders George, Zao and I have built, invested in and advised over 50 companies and most of our employees have built or worked in startups – so entrepreneurship is a strong bond at our company and we translate that into the features and services here at BetterWorks.
Trendslate: Why start another company when you are an active angel investor?
Paige Craig, BetterWorks: As you can probably guess, I love building solutions. I love building companies – not for the sake of building a company but because a company is a simply a self-sustainable vehicle that spawns new solutions for the world. Investing is a rewarding role as well but ultimately you have to let the founders make their own decisions and let them do all the heavy lifting. I enjoy both ends of business: the big vision as well as the tactical details that make the company successful. As an investor you can advise and assist but you can’t actually get in the trenches and get tactical. Over the last two years of investing I found myself increasingly drawn back into the trenches and finally gave in to that primordial need and realized it was time to launch something big on the world.
Trendslate: Are there plans to expand the offering into other services beyond food, laundry, gyms etc?
Paige Craig, BetterWorks: Totally! Perks are pretty much any service that companies and employees find rewarding. We’re launching vendor frameworks over the coming weeks that support daycare, pet sitting, cleaning services, education, entertainment options and even unique perks such as “professional dating services” (you know you all work way too hard!) and community giving/volunteering perks. We’re looking at a wide range of services and our biggest feedback comes from existing customers who tell us what they want on our platform. We’ll also launch a vendor self-service feature where local vendors can sign up online, snap into our fulfillment framework
Trendslate: How does mobile fit within BetterWorks’ plans?
Paige Craig, BetterWorks: It’s a big round peg and we’re staring at a huge round hole here… I’m a huge fan of mobile and while we don’t have a mobile solution yet we will. While choosing and ordering local perks on the go is an obvious fit for employees or vendors who want to use smart phones for fulfillment, we see many other opportunities. We want managers to issue employee rewards on the spot (think of those spot bonuses zipping from phone to phone); or maybe allowing an employee on a business trip to recognize an employee at another company with a shared reward; as well as a blurred social/professional tool that lets you discover where workers at local companies are going for lunch, workouts and happy hours that day.
Trendslate: How would a company measure the effectiveness and value of BetterWorks to their company? Does BetterWorks facilitate this type of insight?
Paige Craig, BetterWorks: We commonly tell everyone we help you “Create, Manage & Measure” rewards and perks in the workplace. That last part – measurement – is a big deal for our medium sized companies. Many owners, CFOs and financial types love the fact that we save an average of 30% off the most common perks (food, fitness, fun, etc). Another value is the time-savings and simplicity of our solution. You can create & manage these programs in minutes; no need to spend weeks negotiating with vendors, managing relationships and complex onboarding & offboarding procedures. On the intangible side our solution allows you to reward your employees immediately – you can be up and running in minutes and saving money from day one and deliver an incredible rewards system to all of your employees. Those are the immediate benefits.
Over the coming weeks and months we’re also bringing a whole new layer of measurement to these companies. We’re currently working with our early customers building measurement dashboards that allow you to track recruiting, retention and churn – showing companies very visible improvements on the HR side of recruiting & retaining talent inside their companies. Beyond this we’re currently creating an employee rewards system that allows managers, fellow employees and even external partners to all create, send and receive rewards within and across the entire business ecosystem. I can’t reveal too much yet but it will make your mind melt.
BetterWorks was recently interviewed by NBC News:
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