Why This Repeat Entrepreneur Based Frank, a Software program Platform for Employees. And Does He Assume 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 think about 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 with the intention to defend or advance their rights. Once I learn this mission assertion I feel ‘unionize,’ however possibly 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 high problem dealing with society at the moment. I don’t profess to have the answer — simply imagine that employees having a stronger voice of their workplaces is an effective place to start out. There are a lot of types of employee voice, and differing approaches to exercising it — so you can actually say that unionizing is a tactic… but it surely’s clearly essentially the most established, strongest, and legally-protected path to employee energy.
Different choices for employees will 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 sincere, unionizing is fucking onerous. 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 bettering wages, advantages, and office circumstances — it affords the sources and backing of skilled representatives (the union) for collective bargaining, by 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 supply 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 best way from curiosity / onboarding by to submitting union authorization playing cards. So, whereas personally supportive of any and all employees looking for to enhance their office circumstances, 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 looking for to unionize (reminiscent of Amazon). What’s your tackle the potential right here? Are we going to see a brand new technology of service and commerce workers turning to unions? Will these identical teams each formalize for segments like engineers?
LLH: Sure. Subsequent query.
The traits and information are fairly clear. Union elections are approach up (NLRB), unionizing is extremely widespread — with folks below 35, help for unions is equal to marriage equality and legalization of weed (Gallup), and almost 50% of employees within the US would be a part of one if given easy sure/no likelihood (MIT). Employees are mad and now not keen to sit down 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 is going to unionization charges in non-public workforce be in 2025? 2040? I don’t know. Like talked about beforehand, employee energy can tackle many varieties. For most individuals, after 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, in the event you work at an organization with 100+ folks, there may be 98% likelihood that not less than two of your coworkers are actively discussing unionizing. However like I stated, it’s onerous, 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 (regardless that you’d actually count on 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 will be a part of rising an ecosystem or neighborhood of oldsters constructing instruments particularly for employee energy (LaborTech).
HW: Frank is enterprise backed. I’m going to imagine that your funding conversations right here have been a bit completely different than your final startup. What number of instances did you get referred to as a socialist?
LLH: It’s been fascinating. Frankly, elevating capital to work on this drawback 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 the majority VCs need to exist, not to mention see develop. I’ve heard many quick and onerous passes. Lot of individuals I’ve identified for a few years actually aren’t returning emails the best way they used to. Countless 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. Numerous confused, raised brows, “Wait, aren’t unions dangerous?” 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 lately…
Look, socialists hate enterprise capital, and enterprise capitalists hate unions. However constructing new tech to attempt to tackle main issues in a big class (Labor) requires $. It requires valuing the labor of the workforce we rent to construct it, to help our companions (unions) that use it, and to put money into frequently 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 affordable.
We don’t aspire to be enterprise backed, to be a mark-up, or to chase the headline of a valuation. Nor are we looking for to advance a political agenda. We’re working in an area the place, traditionally, funding has been sparse. So I’ll take some pictures alongside the best way, however maintain head down and keep targeted on mission we all know to be deeply significant, and on delivering worth for our companions (unions).
HW: Once we first met you had based Stomach, a B2B2C loyalty/retention startup. There have been a lot of comparable firms shaped across the identical time — I feel a byproduct of cellular apps and companies beginning to need extra information on their prospects. What’s one factor you have been proper about and one factor you have been unsuitable about that essentially impacted the trajectory?
LLH: When beginning Stomach in 2011, yeah, we have been monitoring one thing like 15 firms within the Loyalty house. It seemed extra like a market map than a aggressive panorama slide. Most have been in SF, largely early stage, some producing buzz out of YC or 500 Startups, virtually completely ‘check-in’ kind apps. We in a short time outgrew all of them, and inside a few 12 months 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 prospects (small enterprise house owners), and deeply prioritizing what they wanted to see inside their 4 partitions quite than what we needed to be stated about us in Techcrunch. Many rivals have been constructing cool new issues, that felt sizzling and buzzy… like, they have been cellular solely merchandise at a time (2011) the place lower than half of a small companies prospects had good telephones. And the POS (point-of-sale) in all markets exterior of SF have 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 dealing with, and enabled customers 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 prospects might simply enroll and use it — so 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 prospects. It was our flywheel. We have been in a position to intensely deal with promoting to enterprise house owners, they usually drove all shopper 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 working. 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 develop share of pockets. Laborious to select only one factor I used to be unsuitable about, however, at the moment’s reply: The choice to function stand-alone exterior of POS (point-of-sale) quite than constructing core POS meant we have been a characteristic. There was one thing so core to the companies operations — it took funds, might clock-in workers, course of all SKU/transaction information, and was required to be utilized for each single transaction… and we have been sitting close to it, however we weren’t it. We have been pushing a rock up the unsuitable hill.
HW: The final two years have seen an acceleration of ‘tech startups will be constructed anyplace’ and naturally, intense debates about distant work. You led TechStars Chicago for 2 years (2017–2019) and have been linked to the native scene there for a fairly some time. Has Chicago over-performed or under-performed your expectations during the last 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 do not know what MOIC is. I seemed it up just a few instances. However truthfully couldn’t care sufficient to recollect. Or, I hear in regards to the % ROI from Chicago investments being high decile due to decrease entry valuations, as if that’s one thing that’s enticing to founders…. “Hey take a look at me, my midwest valuation acquired you a greater return! Cool!”
Of us in Miami will say Chicago is chilly, Enterprisey, no vibes, and yolo miami bro. No comparative information, simply pumping the hype / meme marketing campaign.
Every tweet storm or weblog publish about Metropolis A vs B, “Prime 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 goal — a politician selling their metropolis, a founder attempting to draw exec expertise, a VC take a look at driving their new geo-concentrated LP pitch… Truthfully, I get aggravated momentarily then simply transfer on. Others can waste cycles debating it.
I do know there may be every thing wanted to start out and construct an excellent workforce and firm in Chicago. There are some markets that provide benefits vs others, and a few geos greatest fitted 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 workforce. So, no, no actual predictions — simply that I’m fortunately staying put in Chicago and attempting to continuously adapt with new norms.
Thanks Logan!
