Missed part 1? Click here!
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Bryce Bennett is the founder and CEO of Solo, a platform that is bringing tools & transparency to independent gig workers, optimizing their time, and allowing them to move between more gigs. They also recently acquired their seed funding.
Bryce comes from a track record of startup marketplaces, first at Uber Seattle where he launched Seattle and then eventually Idaho, Alaska, & Montana. He also was GM of Uber Portland where he ran the whole business! After that, he joined as a key leader @ Convoy where he oversaw Convoy’s matching process between supply + demand.
Enter Solo….Over the course of 12 months, Solo has acquired $5.3M in funding, grown to over 2,000 gig workers, and is providing a critical service to a potential market of 60 million US gig workers, all while being a FREE platform.
This conversation was…flipping sweet. Bryce is a calm but electrifying marketplace leader, it’s as if he has an under-current of ambition streaming through his veins. This man has gone hard in the marketplace universe.
We dive deep into…Starting at Uber and the opportunity to bring “Uber everywhere” to life, lessons of “jumpstarting a marketplace” and how he carried that to Solo, the power of data for the gig worker & how Solo is becoming indispensable, “marketplace density” and why you need to hold that factor constant, and how Solo is empowering the “underdog” of the marketplace, the gig worker.
This episode is particularly valuable for operators in any B2B SaaS or marketplace business, who are curious of how to experiment FAST with features and products that obsessively serve & delight their customer.
DIG IN!
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Show Notes
- How are you able to do that with ~2K gig workers on the platform? [1:17]
- Solo’s similarity to Appcast [2:46]
- So Solo’s is heavily about optimization? [4:54]
- How the data behind gig work opps have started to be democratized [6:12]
- Did you launch Solo right at the beginning of the pandemic? [8:15]
- Have you been able to ride this wave to get data? [9:08]
- The theme is about the ‘Supply’. What’s drawing you to this community? [11:34]
- Whether a small or big marketplace, we’re talking about a small biz [15:05]
- How do you make sure this keeps scaling & growing? [16:04]
- How it reminds you of Robinhood Gold membership [18:28]
- There are many layers to Solo. Essentially the “conductor” of gig workers? [20:55]
- How do you get more customers (i.e. drivers)? How will you scale. [23:42]
- Prices have gone up to take an Uber. For drivers, how is Solo solving this? [26:04]
- How Solo is balancing person preference [29:08]
- Rapid mayhem questions! [30:30]
- Where can we find you? Any asks of the audience? [34:11]
- Is equity included in the compensation of these roles? [35:10]
Links from Episode
- Connect with Bryce: LinkedIn |Twitter | Email
- Solo
- Uber
- Appcast
- Amazon Flex
- Roadie
- Veho
- Instacart
- Shipt
- “Uber/Rideshare Drivers of Seattle and Tacoma” Facebook group
- “Seattle Area Food Delivery Drivers” Facebook group
- Solo blog
- OfferUp
- letgo
- Sidecar
- Solo
- Open roles @ Solo
What do you think? What’s a marketplace that doesn’t exist yet, but totally should! Comment below.