VO Guy:

Hello. And thanks for coming along to, …And we have an office Dog. The digital agency podcast, where we talk to agency owner directors and learn more about what makes them tick. From the things that make them similar, to the things they’d rather have known sooner, where they’ve had success and where they’ve learned some hard lessons. All will be revealed with your host, Chris Simmance, the agency coach. And he’ll be talking to a different awesome agency person in each episode asking them four questions and seeing where the conversation takes us over the next 25 minutes. Okay. So let us begin. Over to you, Chris.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Thanks voiceover guy and on the podcast today we’ve got Carl from Revolancer, how are you doing, Carl?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

I’m doing very well. How are you?

Chris Simmance (Host)

Not too bad. Thank you. Thanks for coming along.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

And my pleasure. Thanks for having.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Me. So for those who don’t know of rebalancer and tell us all about you guys, what do you do? What you famous for, shall we say?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

I don’t know if we’re. If we’re very famous yet, but we’re we’re trying to make an impact and we’re we’re trying to make an impact and it’s the freelancing space because for a long time I felt that the freelancing space is unfair to freelancers and with rebalancer. Our goal is to give freedom back to freelancers by just giving them. You know more flexibility, giving them more ownership over their relationships with clients and how much money they take home. This a lot of freelancing solutions right now. Take a large Commission fee when they connect freelancers with clients, so we’re just all about making the world better for freelancers and then in turn by having happier freelancers. We have more satisfied clients as well.

Chris Simmance (Host)

So would you say it’s kind of, it’s an, it’s an agency for freelancers to support agencies and? Businesses themselves as well.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

I’m I’m not sure if I would just describe it as an agency, but I suppose in in a way it is. It’s it’s more of a kind of. A platform because we. Have at at the moment nearly 17,000 freelancers on on the platform, so I don’t know. I think an agency is probably going to be a bit more bespoke. And personal than that from the, you know company side.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Thanks business been running.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

For about two years at this point.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Nice. That’s quite so. So you you started probably at the at ideal opportune opportune moment given COVID and and the sudden sudden burst of freelancers that came into the into the space as well.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I I, like I said, I’ve been aware of the issues in this space for a lot longer than that, but I I saw what was happening in, in the world and COVID nuked outs. So the big platforms weren’t adapting at all. So I thought now is an opportune time to do something.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Nice ones. So what do you think’s been one of the biggest successes of running the business so far?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

It’s a good question. I suppose it it depends what exactly you define as a success. I I’d say you know for for me one big success is that it’s the first time that I’ve secured outside investment. It’s also the first time I I tried the first project where that’s something. That I tried. But we yeah, yeah, I.

Chris Simmance (Host)

You know, I’m saying hit, right?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Is where we we secured venture capital backing in in the pre seed round which is something that is is quite hard to do. So that was a combination of talking to the right people, luck and just, you know, really trying to do our our best with what we can.

Chris Simmance (Host)

And who would? Who would you say then over. Since you’ve been building the the business. Who who? Who’s the core customer? Obviously there’s two sides to it. One would be the freelancer, but who? Who’s on the other side of that, who typically engages with with their rebalancer from a buyer’s?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Sure. So it’s predominantly so small to medium enterprises that have a need. Maybe they can’t afford an agency and they also can’t afford to hire someone full time. So they hire a part time Freelancer. That’s the number one client, but then the the another kind of smaller cohort is of larger enterprise customers who want a team of freelancers to deliver a project for them. So essentially almost creating their own temporary agency of free letters to. The lovely project.

Chris Simmance (Host)

That’s cool. And so if you, if you could go back, it’s only two years or so. So hopefully you can cast your mind back with ease. If you go back a couple of years at to the point at which you were sort of building the business at the very beginning and knowing everything you know now what would be one piece of advice you’d give yourself at that? Would maybe spring you a bit further forwards more quickly?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Uhm, I I’d say do it kind of doing a lot more market research at the beginning, and by that I mean speaking to customers. So going to freelancers and truly understanding their needs and I I think in many ways I got quite lucky because I was freelancing myself. I started freelancing at the age of 14 and did that. For a couple of. Years, so I was quite aware of the issues that freelancers are facing and I think that I, you know, there was luck involved in me guessing correctly and that this was a hint. But going going back. You know, I think we could have gotten more things right, right from the get go if we did a lot more kind of user interviews, speaking to customers and then using that to shape the. Product rather than thinking this is the right product and then trying to sell. It to the audience so.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Side question thinking, thinking from the UM from a digital agency’s perspective, because often digital agencies will pick up freelancers from time to time when they need capacity issues or when there’s a a a technical need that they can’t fulfil internally. But you know they want to deliver for a client on a large. Scale and what’s the what would you say would be like a key difference between the likes of rebalance or against the likes of at work or or a fibre or something like that? I’m not saying that there’s, you know, a a direct. Competition there, but there’s there seems to be a similarity in the in how the how the how it works.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Is that true? Ohh absolutely. I mean, we’re also a freelancing platform just like the other ones. You you mentioned. We’re just trying to. Tweak certain things to to make it better, so if you’re an agency, you know they’re sticking to outsource to a freelancer and it’s for an important client project. I’d say in this day and age it’s probably a good chance you want to hop on a quick zoom call just to, you know, make sure you’re on the same page. You can’t do that on any other freelancing. And the reason you can’t do that is because these large freelancing platforms typically rely their revenue relies on taking a Commission fee, so they’ll take about 20% of the freelancers earnings. And if you can hop on a zoom call with the freelancer, you could very easily agree to sort of, you know, pay in a different way. You pay less, they get more. You know, you pay 10% less, they get 10% more. Something like that. And the platform loses out. So they have to stop that.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Lock it down. Yeah. So, so are you charging like a subscription fee or a membership fee? Then from that perspective?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Exactly. So with Sierra Commissions, we have an optional monthly subscription fee and because we don’t rely on Commission fees, we can and do allow video calling and exchanging of emails and whatever to to take place.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Nice. That’s pretty cool. And so if you, if you were to go and like I say, go you going back in time. And give yourself. That that bit of advice, do you think? Do you think that you would have had the time to to do the additional bit of market research? Because I know that when you’re selling a new business, it’s really exciting. Obviously you were in the space yourself, so you were essentially a a, a member of your market research panel. What would would you? Have would you have had the time or would you been able to? To to, to, to, to to make many changes get based on feedback.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

And well, I mean, you know, seeing us where we are now and the journey so far, I I can’t sort of sit here and complain so much. I I think we’ve we’ve done quite well. I think it’s a combination of getting things right. So on the right people and and. Luck is obviously. A component too. But yes, I do absolutely think there would have been time because doing that kind of thing at the beginning saves so much time down the road because then you’re not sort of. Tweaking your product constantly trying to get it to work with your audience. You’re kind of have the right answers up front in in that case. So yeah, just shifting where you spend.

Chris Simmance (Host)

And and over the last couple of years, then what do you think there’s something that you’ve kind of you did early on and you went ohh, no, we’re gonna stop that immediately. That isn’t working.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Oh, lots, lots of things. I mean, at the beginning, we wanted to at the beginning. I was thinking we should monetize by charging a lower Commission fee than is the, you know, the industry average. So like 10% instead of 20%. But quite quickly we figured out that’s just a, you know, kind of a silly idea because we’re shooting ourselves in the foot because we’re generating less revenue than we could have otherwise. And for freelance, I mean, you know. Yeah, OK. You get a tiny bit more, but it still leads to other issues like, you know, like the off platform communication being restricted and so on. So yeah, it it was silly. And we. Yeah, moved away from that.

Chris Simmance (Host)

And it is a differentiator realistically between quite a lot of the other and the other. Competing competing uh businesses there. What do you think something then conversely, that you did almost perfectly on day one? That’s that you think has really kind of set you up for long term future success?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

I’m speaking to people who have done things before that I haven’t. I’ve I did that from the beginning. So you know when it came to fundraising, I didn’t know what I was doing. So I spoke to people who had successfully fundraised or who had invested in other companies and to figure out what, you know what, what should I be doing or when it comes to to pitching or to marketing or. So whatever I I always reach out. People who have done it before, like, for example, one of our advisors, in fact our first advisor who’s been there from, you know about two months into the business is Matt Brady and he’s the founding Chief Marketing Officer of Just Eat. And obviously, his insights are extremely valuable from from that experience.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Good meetings, I’m sure.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Yeah, so. So I’d say that’s something which which I I think we’ve done very well and you know we’ll continue to always. Be humble and talk to people who know better and then really learn from their experiences.

Chris Simmance (Host)

What’s the what’s the the the future look like for for the for the business. What? Where do you wanna? Where do you want to aim? Where are you pointing? In the in the in the distance.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Well, to permanently change the freelancing industry for the better, because I think right now it’s broken freelance are being disadvantaged. Because of that. Clients are struggling as well to get quality work, so we want to fix that by, you know, improving things for freelancers and then ultimately improving things for clients as well, so. Whether that. Making so much noise that other platforms are forced to copy our ways, you know that’s a win. Forced to buy us out that to win or be we become a dominant player in the space. You know what one of the largest players and and then again that’s a win. So one of those options.

Chris Simmance (Host)

That’s awesome. So if you if if someone’s listening right now and they’re thinking. Not starting a competing business, of course, but thinking of starting an agency or starting a business of their own. Which. Aims to fix something, cause everyone starts a business, hopefully to try and it it to try and change something that they didn’t like in the first place. And what one piece of advice do you think you could give them that they could take away and and and and thank you for later?

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Well, I mean it’s it’s cliche, but it really is the most important thing. And that’s just being persistent and not letting failure really bother you, you know, because if if you fail, if you fail at something, which you will, I mean, I fail that and most of the things that I’ve. Right, as long as you learn from that thing, then you’re failing forward, because then the next time you try the chance of you failing is lower and you’re going to know, you know, kind of much better it it. It takes the I once heard that it takes the average self-made millionaire 12 attempts to, you know, get their their their hits.

Chris Simmance (Host)

And the the way I would love to see that data.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

Yeah, I’ll have to dig. It out the. Shot the thing that I heard is is that the average self-made millionaire has seven income streams, which is quite quite interesting too.

Chris Simmance (Host)

OK, I’ve got a long. Way to go.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

But no, I mean regardless, so it’s really important to fail forward and and actually really to embrace failure. I’m very thankful that I failed at a lot of different things because if I would have been lucky and gotten it right the first time, which is in always possibility, then I wouldn’t have learned anything and I wouldn’t have been able. To recreate that.

Chris Simmance (Host)

So absolutely. And I think you know, spot on, totally agree and I think. Failure is a big part of learning, and resilience is absolute requirement in order to fail forwards. You know if you don’t have a a good amount of resilience towards failure, especially in business it it can it will traumatise you to the point where you don’t go and take the next step when an opportunity. Presents itself, or you don’t see the next opportunity or you know you take take the next opportunity a little bit less risk a a little bit more risk free to avoid the the the personal feeling of damage at the end. So no, it is good advice and and. And and it it sounds cliche, but not the way you put it, so keep giving it. Out. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast, Carl.

Karl Swanepoel (Guest)

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for.

Chris Simmance (Host)

Having me, thank you and in our next episode we’ll be speaking with another agency leader to hear about their story and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. And thanks very much everyone, for listening.