August marked the beginning of my journey with Wingspan, and I wanted to share why I joined the team and why I’m bullish on us winning the market as the first payroll platform for contractor management.
The American dream is harder than it used to be
Spoiler alert – one of the reasons I joined is also top of mind for many workers in the US – the American dream is more difficult today than it has ever been. The makeup of the US workforce and how people make ends meet, buy homes, and plan for retirement is fundamentally changing.
The multi-gig economy is here and people that work on a contract basis deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect as W2 employees.
There’s a huge unmet need for millions of workers
I’ve spent enough time in B2B SaaS to know that many companies are a solution looking for a problem. What drew me to Wingspan is that we solve a real problem that is affecting millions of people. We preserve people’s livelihood with consistent, reliable, and transparent payments, not to mention financial and health benefits.
Today, 1 in 3 US workers is an independent contractor and they represent $1.4T in payments annually. This is expected to grow to 1 in 2 within 10 years – and it’s evident by the new baseline of 5M new businesses formed per year after COVID-19.
The two co-founders, Anthony and Greg, know this problem intimately. They understand that there are two sides of the equation: businesses and the contractors that work for them. We are determined to create a category and have assembled a first-class team from GTM to engineering to design to execute on their vision.
Our growth is accelerating
Wingspan has been on an absolute tear this year, accelerating growth and closing transformational deals that set a new standard in the industries we serve. We provide enormous value to finance, accounting, and operations teams but also to the contractors that get paid through our platform.
This is undoubtedly a result of significant platform investments made since Wingspan was founded. The turbulence in Fintech has taught us something critically important: powering financial services requires reliable, secure, and scalable infrastructure. We’ve earned the trust to solve this problem and become business-critical infrastructure for large scale enterprises.
It brings me back to my finance roots
Before finding my way into sales, I actually started my career in finance, working in financial analysis roles at very large companies. I learned my way around a P&L and found how to support the rest of the business in achieving their goals as their finance partner. Over time, I drifted into sales and eventually found a niche in building sales teams at high growth startups.
Before joining Wingspan, I spent time at CaptivateIQ where I was one of the first employees and spent 5 years there, bringing on the first 1,000 customers. I knew finance buyers and could empathize with them because I had been in that role before, and it 's another reason why Wingspan stood out to me as the right next step for my career.
It’s time to grow
Wingspan has made all of this happen with an amazing initial sales team, and I’m excited to join them for the company’s next phase of growth. I look forward to spending time with this team, investing into their career and professional development, and making sure that Wingspan capitalizes on the opportunity in front of us.
Internally, this means building out repeatable, scalable processes so we can hire and grow faster. Externally, this means building a culture of doing right by our customers by solving meaningful problems for the teams that use Wingspan and the contractors getting paid on the platform.
The truth is, independent contractors aren’t a cost center. They are people. And I’m proud to be part of the force that is changing the way we think about employment status and the people that are powering the global economy.
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