Why This Repeat Entrepreneur Based Frank, a Software program Platform for Employees. And Does He Suppose Chicago Is a Good Place for Entrepreneurs?
Logan is one other a type of of us that I can’t recall particularly how or why we met, however I’m so grateful for his friendship. He’s somebody I actually take into account a ‘good egg’ as we’ve loved the tales of his personal entrepreneurial journeys and strongly held opinions on Chicago espresso. I’m excited to shine the sunshine on Logan and Frank, a software program startup targeted on employee empowerment. Thanks Logan!
Hunter Stroll: Frank, your present startup, is a platform for employees to arrange as a way to shield or advance their rights. Once I learn this mission assertion I feel ‘unionize,’ however perhaps that’s only a tactic, not a requirement. Are you able to assist me perceive the distinction?
Logan LaHive: First, the issue… The unbelievable imbalance of energy in workplaces is driving continued acceleration of earnings inequality, which together with local weather, is a prime problem going through society right this moment. I don’t profess to have the answer — simply consider that employees having a stronger voice of their workplaces is an efficient place to start out. There are lots of types of employee voice, and differing approaches to exercising it — so you would actually say that unionizing is a tactic… but it surely’s clearly probably the most established, strongest, and legally-protected path to employee energy.
Different choices for employees may be taking collective motion, solidarity unionism, forming unbiased unions, worker useful resource teams (ERGs), guilds, becoming a member of a employee middle, new improvements/concepts, and many others. All of which have benefit, and could also be greatest in several circumstances. Being trustworthy, unionizing is fucking arduous. Deliberately. Many many years of company lobbying, republican coverage, and close to non-existent enforcement of labor legal guidelines has fairly efficiently established roadblocks to employees exercising their proper to unionize.
However unionizing has clear advantages — past enhancing wages, advantages, and office situations — it affords the sources and backing of skilled representatives (the union) for collective bargaining, through which the employer is legally obligated to take part and negotiate in good religion (make your personal evaluation of “good religion”).
Our mission at Frank is to offer employees with instruments not solely to have a voice of their office, however to make sure that they’re heard. Our product is purposefully constructed to pursue the tactic of unionizing. We construct organizing software program for unions and labor orgs — a customizable and personal platform for Organizers to help employees all the way in which from curiosity / onboarding by to submitting union authorization playing cards. So, whereas personally supportive of any and all employees searching for to enhance their office situations, we spend our days targeted on offering higher software program to unions enabling them to enhance effectivity and accessibility of union organizing.
HW: However on the identical time we’re seeing plenty of tales about new segments of employees searching for to unionize (akin to Amazon). What’s your tackle the potential right here? Are we going to see a brand new era of service and commerce staff turning to unions? Will these identical teams each formalize for segments like engineers?
LLH: Sure. Subsequent query.
The tendencies and knowledge are fairly clear. Union elections are means up (NLRB), unionizing is extremely common — with individuals underneath 35, help for unions is equal to marriage equality and legalization of weed (Gallup), and practically 50% of employees within the US would be part of one if given easy sure/no probability (MIT). Employees are mad and now not keen to take a seat idly by being spoon fed “we’re household” bullshit from bosses making 350x greater than they’re, doing layoffs over zoom from a yacht.
It’s a certainty that issues are and can change… How briskly? What’s going to unionization charges in personal workforce be in 2025? 2040? I don’t know. Like talked about beforehand, employee energy can tackle many kinds. For most individuals, once they say or hear “union” they consider one cookie-cutter kind establishment… however the actuality could actually be extra a mixture of escalating assortment motion (demand letters and walkouts), unbiased unions (Amazon Labor Union, Dealer Joe’s United, and many others), worker-led union organizing (Starbucks Employees United), extra Employee Facilities, and many others. (and sure, I’m deliberately not throwing DAOs or web3 within the combine right here as simply doesn’t but deserve implied parity).
For anybody studying this, when you work at an organization with 100+ individuals, there may be 98% probability that a minimum of two of your coworkers are actively discussing unionizing. However like I mentioned, it’s arduous, and it should turn out to be simpler. I’m no coverage wonk, nor do I put a lot religion in our present political panorama to enact sustained change (although you’d actually anticipate higher ROI on the $Billions that Labor has funneled to Dem politicians over previous few many years). So a honest hope of mine in constructing Frank isn’t that we’re proper, it’s that we may be a part of rising an ecosystem or neighborhood of parents constructing instruments particularly for employee energy (LaborTech).
HW: Frank is enterprise backed. I’m going to imagine that your funding conversations right here had been a bit totally different than your final startup. What number of occasions did you get known as a socialist?
LLH: It’s been fascinating. Frankly, elevating capital to work on this downside is and was privilege. Straight cis white man from background in tech/startups, who ran an accelerator program so has a few years of relationships with VCs, and elevating preseed within the yolo period of 2019 (rip). Constructing instruments for unions is actually not a class or product that almost all VCs wish to exist, not to mention see develop. I’ve heard many quick and arduous passes. Lot of individuals I’ve identified for a few years actually aren’t returning emails the way in which they used to. Limitless anti-union tantrums, delivered with the boldness that solely a VC who had a single private interplay with a union 7 years in the past might muster. A whole lot of confused, raised brows, “Wait, aren’t unions unhealthy?” then a passing reference to Jimmy Hoffa.
What I do discover fairly humorous is simply what number of contrarians have the very same response. How private opinions instantly cloud this subject, however what number of new classes are evaluated with some marginal mental curiosity. Most likely a correlation right here with why there was extra enterprise funding for golf tech than girls’s fertility till very not too long ago…
Look, socialists hate enterprise capital, and enterprise capitalists hate unions. However constructing new tech to attempt to handle main issues in a big class (Labor) requires $. It requires valuing the labor of the group we rent to construct it, to help our companions (unions) that use it, and to put money into regularly making it higher. We didn’t have entry to union funding, grants, or baggage of money that fell off a truck. I attempted, and I self-funded for most likely longer than cheap.
We don’t aspire to be enterprise backed, to be a mark-up, or to chase the headline of a valuation. Nor are we searching for to advance a political agenda. We’re working in an area the place, traditionally, funding has been sparse. So I’ll take some photographs alongside the way in which, however preserve head down and keep targeted on mission we all know to be deeply significant, and on delivering worth for our companions (unions).
HW: After we first met you had based Stomach, a B2B2C loyalty/retention startup. There have been a variety of comparable firms fashioned across the identical time — I feel a byproduct of cell apps and companies beginning to need extra knowledge on their clients. What’s one factor you had been proper about and one factor you had been unsuitable about that essentially impacted the trajectory?
LLH: When beginning Stomach in 2011, yeah, we had been monitoring one thing like 15 firms within the Loyalty house. It appeared extra like a market map than a aggressive panorama slide. Most had been in SF, largely early stage, some producing buzz out of YC or 500 Startups, virtually totally ‘check-in’ kind apps. We in a short time outgrew all of them, and inside a couple of yr it was clear there have been 3–4 key rivals.
I feel that with time, the issues we did proper and issues we fucked up get clearer with perspective, however tainted by fading recollections compressing themselves into tidy narratives.
Early on, one thing we completely did proper that helped propel us shortly was spending a LOT of time in shops with clients (small enterprise house owners), and deeply prioritizing what they wanted to see inside their 4 partitions somewhat than what we wished to be mentioned about us in Techcrunch. Many rivals had been constructing cool new issues, that felt sizzling and buzzy… like, they had been cell solely merchandise at a time (2011) the place lower than half of a small companies clients had good telephones. And the POS (point-of-sale) in all markets exterior of SF had been antiquated, closed programs, that the house owners didn’t need touched as a result of final time somebody tried so as to add a brand new SKU the “3” key stopped working for six months.
So, we put an iPad on the counter, buyer going through, and enabled shoppers to sign-up or use Stomach with our app or a bodily key-chain card (QR code). Enterprise house owners cherished it as a result of it created 100% addressable viewers — all of their clients might simply join and use it — in order that they promoted it. And it created a digital billboard on the highest worth location in a retail retailer (POS) which we used to market on to the companies clients. It was our flywheel. We had been capable of intensely deal with promoting to enterprise house owners, and so they drove all client acquisition from inside their shops.
As soon as rising shortly, and pulling forward of rivals, I feel we misplaced monitor of whether or not the race was price operating. Being so targeted on development, market enlargement, hiring, fundraising, I satisfied myself and others that dominate market share would allow us to ship XYZ, to “be a platform” 🙄, and broaden share of pockets. Laborious to select only one factor I used to be unsuitable about, however, right this moment’s reply: The choice to function stand-alone exterior of POS (point-of-sale) somewhat than constructing core POS meant we had been a function. There was one thing so core to the companies operations — it took funds, might clock-in staff, course of all SKU/transaction knowledge, and was required to be utilized for each single transaction… and we had been sitting close to it, however we weren’t it. We had been pushing a rock up the unsuitable hill.
HW: The final two years have seen an acceleration of ‘tech startups may be constructed wherever’ and naturally, intense debates about distant work. You led TechStars Chicago for 2 years (2017–2019) and have been related to the native scene there for a fairly some time. Has Chicago over-performed or under-performed your expectations over the past decade as a house for startups? Any predictions going ahead?
LLH: I don’t know. Chicago VCs and all of the establishments spun as much as promote Chicago tech will say it’s over-performed, and can quote bunch of random stats they gathered in a survey or a Pitchbook article just like the MOIC of Chicago enterprise investments. I don’t know what MOIC is. I appeared it up just a few occasions. However truthfully couldn’t care sufficient to recollect. Or, I hear in regards to the % ROI from Chicago investments being prime decile due to decrease entry valuations, as if that’s one thing that’s engaging to founders…. “Hey have a look at me, my midwest valuation acquired you a greater return! Cool!”
People in Miami will say Chicago is chilly, Enterprisey, no vibes, and yolo miami bro. No comparative knowledge, simply pumping the hype / meme marketing campaign.
Every tweet storm or weblog publish about Metropolis A vs B, “High 10 Hottest Locations to Begin a Startup”, “Is Boise the New Austin?” I learn them understanding the overwhelming majority are biased narratives with a self-serving function — a politician selling their metropolis, a founder making an attempt to draw exec expertise, a VC check driving their new geo-concentrated LP pitch… Actually, I get irritated momentarily then simply transfer on. Others can waste cycles debating it.
I do know there may be every part wanted to start out and construct an incredible group and firm in Chicago. There are some markets that supply benefits vs others, and a few geos greatest suited to startups in particular industries. However distant and distributed groups are right here to remain, and I’m nonetheless studying to successfully lead a distributed group. So, no, no actual predictions — simply that I’m fortunately staying put in Chicago and making an attempt to continually adapt with new norms.
Thanks Logan!
