Jeremy Weisz 12:44
What made you decide to you took a little bit different approach, right? Because you actually, I think you were mentioning, employ the people. Even you know, so it’s a little, it’s different from, you know, like an Uber or something where they’re not really employed by the company, they’re just kind of a gig worker and work on demand. Why did you take that route?
Amit Oestreicher 13:08
Well, I have a little problem. I’m a people’s person, I love people. Um, and I manage unemployed people, for almost 25 years. And, you know, I read researches on Generation X. And when you talk about Generation Y, and Zed, they tell them people that they’re lazy, that they don’t work, and all those kinds of things, you know, when talking about the younger generations, but you know, the research has said that, when you ask the younger generations, what they think about the labor market, they say, We’re great workers, we just don’t want to work in your way. We were working our way, which is flexibility and the ability to choose the way of life. And it was an experiment to say, Okay, let’s give them the ability to work whenever they can, and walk and let’s see what happens, you know, and I understood that it’s really working, because when it gives them full flexibility on one hand, and you give them the assurance that they have someone to talk to, and they, if they have any problems, someone is taking care of it. And they can work in several businesses, and they get one salary from one employer, which is us. It’s give them peace and quiet, it lowers the retention. They don’t want to leave, because they understand the value of the platform and the advantages that we give them. They bring their friends, they bring their families, like it’s a community of people. Although we’ll you know, we don’t see them face to face. We interview them by phone or by zoom. We don’t meet them on the ground, but their relations you know, people meet people engage. We have the first couple that got married That’s met in Xtras in a job. You know, it was a type of just two months ago. It’s amazing.
Jeremy Weisz 15:08
What’s also interesting to me Amit is, when you are in the industry you’re in, you have to do a lot of hiring. And you also have to get feedback and make sure, okay, we’re hiring a lot. But you don’t just like, if you’re an Uber, there’s like, you know, there’s a lot of technology behind that in the rating system, everything. So I’d love to hear first, we’ll talk about your hiring process, what that looks like. And then how did you incorporate feedback? See, like, people Yeah, I love this person. They were amazing. Or, you know, when dealing with people, there are people that don’t show up. Also, right? So talk about the hiring process that we can all learn from what do you what do you do because you are hiring a higher volume, probably the most competent?
Amit Oestreicher 15:53
Well, first of all, we have a very quick and easy onboarding process, you just have to fill out with the few details and your end, you see all the feed of jobs that you you are able to work at. And if you’re interested in one of the jobs, then the process really starts and we send you to fill all the forms needed for you. And then we do the interview that in which we decide if first of all you fit in if you fit to what kind of job do you fit. And what happens. Although there’s a lot of technology inside, there are still people that decide on my staff decides who’s who’s going to go aware. Because I believe that in the end, when you manage so many people, and we employ 1000s of people a year, there has to be a decision making process made by people. Because there are a lot of variables in the human factor. So it can be fully automated, there’s a lot of automation, but in the end, it’s a human decision. And then, of course, there’s the feedback, because although we have a very, very easy onboarding stage, the real customer journey starts when the employee leaves his home, goes to work, and then ends his job and gets back to work. And it’s our it’s an hours of user journey, which I don’t really have any control over it. Because you can be late for the bus, you can be you know, somebody, it’s raining, somebody shouts at you, or whatever. So it really disappoints, you’re going to process. So we vet both sides. As we vet the employees, we also have the businesses, I won’t get any business into the platform. He has to be really good for them, yes, to treat them, right. I fired businesses as well as I fired, you know, employees who are not good for the platform. We also find businesses as we understood that the feedback that we’re getting are not good. You know, if you’re getting a bad feedback one time, second time. Third time you understand that the problem is not with the employee, the problem is with the business itself, and it’s not good for you. So we have a two sided rating system, the employees are ready to shift after the job is done. When they clock out. The business is ready, the employees were getting the timesheets, and we can see who’s blocking who is favorite. And so this is the best way to build a team’s making everything work right for them. There
Jeremy Weisz 18:32
any other things we should point out with the technology piece, and then the feedback because I’m sure there’s other stuff that’s going on behind the scenes. When there that’s valuable for you when that person leaves, what’s happening with the company? What kind of things are they entering in? And how does it get processed on your end?
Amit Oestreicher 18:55
Well, we collect a lot of data over the employee, it’s really extensive data, nobody treats part time and on demand staff the way that we see it, because although it’s part time job, people are using us for almost eight years. You know, they come and go whenever they can and want they started as seniors who finished high school. And now the users through all those servers in the IDF when they go back home, and they chunk job every now and then you just click a button and go to work that when they’re students, we give them the flexibility not to get obligation one job who wants them to work like five days a week, because they need to have the flexibility to learn and of course, after they finish the graduate and we have to find the real job for the for the lives. So we collect a huge amount of data over the people in really know, what they’re capable of, were they good whether or not it really helps the business of making the right decision? How did you decide
Jeremy Weisz 20:12
how to charge? And dual sided marketplaces are difficult, right? You need these company have these workers and unique companies unique. And that that flexing up and down?
Amit Oestreicher 20:25
How did you decide? As far as charging goes, first of all the employees are paying, of course, it’s free for them, we charge the businesses. We build a dashboard to build a dashboard, we did a lot of experimenting, seeing things running. And then we understood, we took the we will build the KPIs for that you understood how much it cost to recruit the worker, how much it cost them to go to work? How much do I need to charge a business in order to make it profitable to be and how long? And we now we know, we have so many dashboards and statistics to show that if you send a new worker to a meet, it will probably leave after the first time and if you send it to Jeremy, it will stay you know, because we understand that this business is good for allocating new workers that this one is not. So it’s really a lot of dashboards and understanding throughout the years of doing optimization about how much or how do we need to charge. I’m
Jeremy Weisz 21:33
wondering, you know, oftentimes, at least myself, I learned a lot from the mistakes I made. You remember, early on a learning of the you had to shift with the pricing model because of something you learned. Yeah,
Amit Oestreicher 21:51
we had, we had a contract with a big business, almost killed the company, we gave them a very, very attractive price. In order to make everything happen. The obligation from their side was to bring us job throughout all year, all year long. And they didn’t do their side. So it was really fluctuating and seasonal again and again, which which affected the recruitment. revenues have caused me much more than expected, and we lost a lot of money in the deal a lot.
Jeremy Weisz 22:38
So what did you do differently? I can see, okay, we’ll give you a good deal. Because you’re going to, you know, give us a little more stable work. And then the stable work doesn’t happen, and you’re still paying out what you need to pay out. What did you do differently after that scenario?
Amit Oestreicher 22:59
Which everything in the contract? And actually loan on the promise itself? Yeah. When did
Jeremy Weisz 23:10
g-nie come about? So Xtras? The next year, and then you started g-nie? Yeah.
Amit Oestreicher 23:20
I was walking throughout my customers, and we’re doing demos, you know, sometimes face to face, not only online. And I realized that I’m sitting with them during the onboarding for their side of the platform, just like, you know, looking over my shoulder and saying, Okay, you given me a portal to make the orders and seeing the timesheets, and the invoices and the staff and everything, but what what is the admin that you’re using here for yourself, I want to, I want that admin for myself as well to manage my own co workers, because you’ve built something amazing for yourself. And then we understood that we’ve built for ourselves something that many other businesses can use, as well. So for last year, during the whole year, we changed the whole infrastructure of extras in order to make as SAS platform in order to duplicate it for to optimize it for every business that want to run his own workforce management platform. We understand that the work today is going more and more into gigs and not full time jobs. And when a business wants to schedule people into gigs usually doesn’t have the platform in order to manage it because it’s used to have you know, people working for like Monday to Friday fire, then people start to say, Okay, I don’t want to work full time job for your world, like part time and then instead of one person that needs to have to hire to but does he manage that? And this is what God does for the business. Saying that we do for ourselves.
Jeremy Weisz 25:01
Yeah, so you, you built the solution that you needed to use to manage Xtras. And then people saw it. And they said, I want that, also. So what kind of companies are using g-nie, and it goes away, if you’re listening to the audio, there is a video component we’re showing. And the g-nie website here is g-nie.io. And obviously, there’s people, companies from all over the world that use this what what kind of companies are using?
Amit Oestreicher 25:34
First of all, everybody that using scheduling platforms, you know, it’s not built for a tech company, that’s its full time employees that come into work into the office every day, is for blue collar industries. If you’re a staffing company that’s using blue collar industries, it’s really tailored for your needs. If you’re from the events, industry, reducing gigs of every now and then need for people to come to work for you each tell for your needs, if it’s a retail industry company that want to optimize its workforce in several branches, to move people whenever they can want to in order to optimize the workforce, to make them work full time jobs, not even in one place. It could work for them as well. These are the main industries and segments that that we can bring value in.
Jeremy Weisz 26:29
And I think, you know, we were talking before we hit record. I’m not sure if this was gene for g-nie or Xtras. But you’re mentioning that you’ve seen a lot of companies that are wanting volunteers.
Amit Oestreicher 26:47
Use your you know your offerings. Yeah, that happens g-nies these days, because of the situation hearing as well. There’s a lot of volunteers within within it as well to volunteer like everywhere. And it’s everything that happens happens overnight. Or ventures that came into air and just need mass manpower to go like everywhere. So then they start working in sheets, and in WhatsApp groups, and then like everywhere, and it’s hectic. And one day someone called me said you have a solution. Right? I remember you for one day, and you said that you have sushi. Yes, of course. And then we did a quick onboarding. And then you know, hundreds of people just went in in like two hours and things start to roll out and then spread the word to other people, other places and companies and this is what we’re doing here in Israel. Right now. We’re running volunteers. Throughout the country, money in many, many jobs. Don’t Don’t do that.
Jeremy Weisz 27:57
Yeah, so a company before I mean, it could be any company, I mean, this situation, with the volunteers, they’re doing it off of a spreadsheet, okay, like this person can come, they can work at this time in this day. And like, here, they can just easily go on. And they can we’re looking at, they can manage a schedule, there’s different people. And they can actually plug people in and just manage it one dashboard.
Amit Oestreicher 28:23
They tell people just everywhere where they need to be to give them the contact person, they give them the full location, they ask them for an attendance, they have a clock in and out, this shows that the people really arrive to the place that they were supposed to be at. It lowers their attention as well. Because when you’re looking for volunteers, you just say people, you know, go and there’s someone to pick oranges tomorrow the field like 6am, but the person needed like 20 people. And 100 people are showing up because they thought they want to do something but then you tell 80 people, I don’t need to go home. You know, and what does that people do? They don’t show up for another volunteer. And other times, even they if they wanted to, because they’re so disappointed. You know. So we give everything that peace and quiet. Just show everybody when their schedule or do not give them the full instructions. You know, we lower the noise of just sending mass messages from everywhere to everywhere. We again keep the data of the human factor in one place because the person who runs everything is also volunteering, you know, and if next week he’ll go back to work. All the data related to what it did data within his phone or with his Google sheet you know, so this is this is not the things that things need to be done. So we keep everything in one place.
Jeremy Weisz 29:57
You know, I mean when you have a car Putting you’re running that company, you know, Xtras, with technology behind the scenes, and now you have a front facing piece. That’s a SaaS company. Now, what features did you have to build in? To make sure this was ready for a front facing piece? Like you could see here, I’m looking through this. What’s interesting is like, there’s a lot of things that are built into this, right? There’s a shift schedule, there’s a time clock, there’s RSVPs, there’s a rating system. What were some of the key features that you got feedback from when you release this, that you helped you improve the platform?
Amit Oestreicher 30:41
Well, first of all, we really developed everything in house for ourselves. I know, a lot of people asked me throughout the years, why aren’t you using third party companies or features in order to unimplemented, because it’s an open source. And you can do it by by a minute, and things like that. But I’m really protecting the data of my users. Because usually, when you’re using third party companies, you need to give the data to other companies and other people. And we never wanted to do that. So we develop everything in house, we love we got a lot of feedback throughout the years from our clients than from our employees, like, we would love a button that will do this. For me, I would love a feature that will do that for me. So we really listen, we really listen, we do surveys a few times a year and ask both sides, what what they love and what they think that need to be improved. Because, you know, I remember that one time, I was thinking about a feature that I was, you know, handling with myself how to build it, and what do I need to do? And then I woke up one time, the ones that I have 1000s of employees, you know, why won’t I ask them? If they need it? And if they do, what did they want to do with it, you know, just, you know, spread the survey within the app? And ask them?
Jeremy Weisz 32:09
What was one of those things? I mean, do you remember or maybe a few that you got feedback from the rating staff
Amit Oestreicher 32:16
rating system is great, you know, the time sheets, the the feedback that we’re getting from the clients is that everything is organized. Now, they say I’ve never seen anything like that in any other companies, people are saying me, they used to send me the list of people in WhatsApp or in mail, or you know, just logging into the sheet. And here, I just log into one portal, and I can see everything from my order into the invoice. Everything is run in one place. Everything is very, very neat and nice. And the, you know, we have videos that we do instructions, but we’ve learned to see that even the elderly people are getting along with it just fine. Because it’s so easy to use. No.
Jeremy Weisz 33:13
Yeah, I’m seeing some of these rating systems. I’m sure it’s improved over the years. But you can see, again, I’m sure there’s a reason for all of these things. But you can see, you can add to your favorite employees. And it’s not just about what kind of job they did. But there’s an appearance, there’s a general function and a punctuality and I’m sure what happened was this person was a great worker, they’re punctual. And someone was like, I’m guessing. I mean, like, they just didn’t show up looking professional or whatever.
Amit Oestreicher 33:48
So this is what it’s not only technology, there’s a lot of technology inside by I think that the thing that really defines us is the service that we give both sides, from the staff itself, we answer everything, we answer them weekly, we give them service seven days a week for morning tonight. So everything is answered in less than a minute. Really, every ticket is answered in less than a minute. And if you’re asking really I was walking years ago into one of an event with one of my advisors just to show him everything that goes around and and I told him the client tell them what’s good enough and I was expecting as he said to hear the technology, the staff and everything like that and he said the service seriously the Service said yes, you know people come and go there are people everywhere but give us the I’ve never seen any service that really compares him to what you give as as a Oh, no. Because in the end, it’s all about, you know, listening, and understanding and giving the answers not not all the time, you know, answers would be the right answer that the client expects, but it’s still the answer. And by the way, both both of them are clients, the workers are also clients, and I see them as much important clients, the one who actually pay. Because if they’re not happy, if they won’t be any employees that want to go and grab that job, this company wouldn’t survive, you know, even if the client would pay me a million dollars for each worker, somebody needs to say, yes, I want to do that job, and they need to be happy, they need to be satisfied. So much more important to me, than the businesses that are paying this company.
Jeremy Weisz 36:03
I mean, are there any surprises of companies that use the platform that you didn’t expect? Like you’re saying the blue collar, I can see use cases for nonprofits, I can see restaurants, you know, like, people who have a lot of maybe shift workers, what are some use cases you found, that maybe have surprised you of people using the the software
Amit Oestreicher 36:29
companies, that companies are really expected just to hire full time employees and things like that. And they came in run into project based workers, the job jobs for a few weeks or a few months? I didn’t see them as potential clients, which was very surprising to see that we can bring value to them as well.
Jeremy Weisz 36:58
The we mentioned COVID. Right? Your client base evaporates overnight? Because you’re in the hospitality. Then October 7 hits. Right. What happened? Where were you that when that everything went down?
Amit Oestreicher 37:18
Well, those seven was Saturday. I just came from from flight the day before I was jetlag. I fell asleep on my sofa. I woke up in 632. Sirens. And fortunately here in Israel, we just the sirens here and there. And I asked myself really, is there a sound right now? Okay.
Jeremy Weisz 37:44
And sirens for people don’t know means.
Amit Oestreicher 37:49
Yeah, missiles. sighs because of missiles firing from from somewhere. So I just ran the shelter. And then when it all it was all finished, I texted my family. I know what happened, there was just silence here. But I’m too tired and going back to sleep. And then I woke up a few hours later, and everything was like, hundreds of messages and everything was chaos. And, of course, everything was shut down again. And we started, four weeks have passed, since we reinvented ourselves again during that time. So because businesses shut down,
Jeremy Weisz 38:41
and it’s reminiscent of, you know, losing evaporating the business, what do you what do you think and what do you do? And we’re still in the midst of that right now? What’s going on? So, in? How are you thinking about rebuilding for, you know, because people don’t need staff when they’re shutting down? Well,
Amit Oestreicher 39:05
so we lost over all of our clients base in one day, again, it’s starting to go back now, very, very slowly. But again, just like COVID There’s a huge shortage of people because hundreds of 1000s of people are in the IDF right now serving as reserve soldiers. So there’s a shortage of like 10% in the labor market of people right now. There are a lot of people who have been evacuated from their homes in the South and in the North, who was really located right on the center result and they do need some kind of work so was trying again, to be the bridge the gaps between the demand and supply. Those people were seeing a huge The opportunity to take bigger part in what’s going on right now in Israel, to help people really go back into their fields, and help them to make a living these days. And for the businesses again to survive. It just got to be a lot different from what we did today. Again.
Jeremy Weisz 40:26
How is this different? I mean, like, I mean, you see, again, you say so casually, the sirens go off, there’s missiles, I go into my bomb shelter. I mean, that’s shouldn’t be normal. But you speak of it like it is normal. How is this different? Because you’ve obviously heard sirens before? How has how has it affected you? And how is it different this time?
Amit Oestreicher 40:50
It’s not anything like everything that I was experienced that I don’t wish everyone would experience, something like that. In his life. It’s a life changing event. It is. It’s a small country. And what’s happened here, that affects everyone. I don’t think that there’s a family here. Israel doesn’t know somebody, or a friend or a family or whatever was murdered or not. During the over seven. It’s nothing I unlike everything that anything that I have experienced, really, it took us as an entrepreneur, as an as in a company owner that really have to go back on his feet. Because a lot of people rely on me. It’s like an automatic automatic mechanism. That forces me to go back on my feet and start running again. But seeing my staff and my staff is 95% of them are women. Seeing them, you know, not not being able to function and see them on daily reads. On the mornings, you know, just crying. It’s Julie. I don’t find drunk really find the words to even try to explain what’s what’s going on right now. Sound heartbreaking? Yeah. I was EO helped you? Well, first of all, you, I’m just finishing my first year in yo. So the one of the biggest advantages that I found in yo is, is not being alone. Now was a small chip in order to do everything by himself. And it’s very, very hard journey, even if you have partners, and by all means, if you’re if you’re alone, the forum, and the chapter is an amazing place to be as a network, and someone to speak with and to understand that you’re not alone with your peers, and with your doubts and with your decision making process. And the network itself, you know, I’ve met a lot of people throughout this year from the global network, then I start to get messages and emails from people like saying, are you okay? Everything’s fine? How can I help you? You really, it’s heartwarming, really, to see all the support that we got that I got from people who have hardly know me. It’s amazing. Really, yeah.
Jeremy Weisz 44:00
And for people who don’t know, you know, eo is, you know, Entrepreneurs Organization, and it’s, it’s a worldwide group, you know, all over the place. I think there’s over I don’t even know how many 15,000 entrepreneurs across over 60 countries. So my last question, first of all, Amit, thank you, thanks for sharing your story, your journey and everyone should check out you know, if you’re in Israel xtras.co.il And then if you’re not, check out g-nie.io which is g-nie.io and poke around there, and if it’s, you know, someone who that’d be a good fit for let them know about it. Um, last question, I mean, is just on your entrepreneurial journey, you know, we all have mentors we have, it can be colleagues, people that have helped us along the way have given us advice. helped us who are some that you can have considered mentors and maybe a piece of advice they’ve given you along the way?
Amit Oestreicher 45:09
Well, fortunately, I met a lot of amazing people, God way, although the soles of your feet, you know, I wouldn’t be here. If I didn’t have amazing advisors and people who helped me, just just because they wanted to help. really did. But one of the biggest advice I could give is just treat any advices and advice. Because it’s only an advice, you know, I bet love and made a lot of mistakes, because people gave me advices. And I said, Wow, this is just, you know, I just poke with a billionaire. And he gave me an advice, he has to be wrong, you know, but his advice was, was his journey, not for marching. But every journey, we have one mountain to climb on, but there are many paths have to go to climb into them on it. So its journey is very unique. And listen, but don’t go and run to do everything that people tell you to do.
Jeremy Weisz 46:20
Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things I love about eo is people aren’t giving advice, but they’re actually just sharing their experience. And then we just take what is helpful for us from that experience, right? But is there a mentor that you that sticks out, like when you kind of when you lose all your clients overnight? And twice that you call to, to just for whatever reason, who are the people you lean on in the business world that you can just to whatever, whatever it’s for what my lawyer
Amit Oestreicher 47:00
because No, no, not because he’s my lawyer, because seriously, because it is a very known businessman, he built everything with his with his, you know, seven figures and he built businesses and he’s amazing person, that I’m really proud that he’s taking the time even to listen to my questions. And you know, I’m really happy to be at all times the say the stupidest man in the room. Just learn from people’s experiences and the thoughts that are willing to share with me what they did in the past that maybe can help me when he’s one of them.
Jeremy Weisz 47:41
Is there a firm name we should give a shout out to
Amit Oestreicher 47:46
Efladi Galili this brother, how do you spell it Efladi Galili Well,
Jeremy Weisz 48:01
I mean, I want to be the first one to thank you, everyone. Check out more episodes of the podcast, check out extras and g.io and we’ll see everyone next time I meet. Thanks so much.
Outro 48:12
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