1 00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:03,960 Speaker 1: Now on Bloomberg Radio, we take stock of small business. 2 00:00:04,200 --> 00:00:07,080 Speaker 1: Small businesses want to be able to grow, but that 3 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:10,080 Speaker 1: runs up against the challenge they're getting from Washington. If 4 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:12,200 Speaker 1: we're going to become relevant in the national stage, we 5 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:15,880 Speaker 1: had to do something transformational. So things brought. Small businesses 6 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:19,400 Speaker 1: want more streamlining and less red take small businesses preferring 7 00:00:19,480 --> 00:00:22,080 Speaker 1: years and they can even except the no, but maybe 8 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:24,799 Speaker 1: kill them. There's so many people that have ideas and 9 00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:26,520 Speaker 1: it has to be more than that. It has to 10 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:30,680 Speaker 1: be making it real. Bloomberg taking stock small Business in 11 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:34,680 Speaker 1: Focus on Bloomberg Radio Small Business in Focus, I'm pim 12 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:38,560 Speaker 1: fox Are these are not small businesses Fiser, Staples, g E, 13 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,120 Speaker 1: and Microsoft, But what do they all have in common? 14 00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: They've turned to a company called hourly Nerd for help 15 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:48,280 Speaker 1: in a lot of their business practices. Joining me to 16 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:50,559 Speaker 1: tell us more is Rob Biederman. He is the co 17 00:00:50,680 --> 00:00:54,160 Speaker 1: founder and the chief executive officer of hourly Nerd. They're 18 00:00:54,160 --> 00:00:57,840 Speaker 1: based in Boston, home to Bloomberg twelve hundred and he 19 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:02,000 Speaker 1: can be followed on Twitter at our ly Nerd and Rob, 20 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:04,160 Speaker 1: thanks very much for being with us. Thanks so much 21 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:06,319 Speaker 1: for having me all right here, We all right, So 22 00:01:06,319 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: I've already told people your deepest dark at secrets that 23 00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:14,000 Speaker 1: you like Aussie Shepherds and capital efficient scaling, but you 24 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:18,040 Speaker 1: don't like bureaucracy and carbon hydrates. Let's talk about bureaucracy 25 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:21,560 Speaker 1: for a second and how hourly Nerd fits into larger 26 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:24,880 Speaker 1: bureaucracies like a General Electric and Microsoft. What do you 27 00:01:24,920 --> 00:01:28,120 Speaker 1: do for these large companies? So we're companies have gotten 28 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:30,240 Speaker 1: to in SI is a point where they don't have 29 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:32,600 Speaker 1: the talent they need to execute on their strategy and 30 00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:34,399 Speaker 1: they are out of options. So they've been trying with 31 00:01:34,440 --> 00:01:37,200 Speaker 1: full time employees for more than a hundred years now 32 00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:39,440 Speaker 1: and with the with the supplied talent market is saying 33 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:41,120 Speaker 1: back to them these days is that they want to 34 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:43,760 Speaker 1: work in a completely different way where the software that 35 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:46,319 Speaker 1: powers that that new way of working. So give us 36 00:01:46,360 --> 00:01:49,880 Speaker 1: an example of a project or a business that has 37 00:01:50,080 --> 00:01:53,280 Speaker 1: used hourly Nerd and what did they accomplish? Sure, so 38 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:55,120 Speaker 1: you know we work with about ten percent of the 39 00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:58,440 Speaker 1: fortune one thousand um. We obviously can't speak about specific 40 00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:00,880 Speaker 1: projects for specific clients, but it's assume that we work 41 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:04,840 Speaker 1: with some of the leading carbonated beverage manufacturers who have 42 00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:08,320 Speaker 1: gotten really good at selling sugar water carbonated sugar water, 43 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:11,160 Speaker 1: you know, for in some cases a hundred years. What 44 00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:13,959 Speaker 1: they found out today is that consumers want different things. 45 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,320 Speaker 1: They want authentic and they want organic products, and we 46 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:20,160 Speaker 1: have the best experts on how to manage that transition 47 00:02:20,160 --> 00:02:24,040 Speaker 1: into a generic project would be help us understand how 48 00:02:24,080 --> 00:02:26,680 Speaker 1: we can market to millennials better, how we can inject 49 00:02:27,520 --> 00:02:30,640 Speaker 1: organic products into our into our Skew catalog, and how 50 00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:33,720 Speaker 1: can we be bit relevant to an entirely new, different 51 00:02:33,840 --> 00:02:38,160 Speaker 1: type of consumer that historically has um has lost interest 52 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:41,239 Speaker 1: in our core product. So basically, what are you providing. 53 00:02:41,440 --> 00:02:45,560 Speaker 1: You're providing these experts, these consultants who have experience, and 54 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:50,480 Speaker 1: you're providing them an opportunity to connect with UH business 55 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:54,919 Speaker 1: plans and potential customers at a fraction of what would 56 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:58,160 Speaker 1: be a considered a traditional price. That's exactly right. We 57 00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:00,959 Speaker 1: provide the talent and technology to get things done. So 58 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:04,440 Speaker 1: historically you probably would have called a global consulting firm 59 00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:07,080 Speaker 1: to answer a question like the one that I described Today, 60 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,079 Speaker 1: you can go over to a very easy to use, 61 00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:11,520 Speaker 1: convenient website and find some of the world's experts and 62 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:15,200 Speaker 1: these things potentially within minutes. Or hours. So if if 63 00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:17,480 Speaker 1: I had a company, and I had five thousand dollars 64 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:20,040 Speaker 1: worth of seed capital, maybe I'm working on a Harvard 65 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:24,160 Speaker 1: Business School class project. Uh, and you wanted to grow 66 00:03:24,200 --> 00:03:26,840 Speaker 1: that five thousand into a twelve and a half million 67 00:03:27,320 --> 00:03:29,200 Speaker 1: what would I do? How would I How would your 68 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 1: site help me? So we would be able to connect 69 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:35,760 Speaker 1: you to somebody who had helped businesses exactly like yours scale. 70 00:03:35,800 --> 00:03:38,200 Speaker 1: So it sounded like you were talking about us. Yes, 71 00:03:38,200 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 1: well I am told, I mean, I I am, I mean, 72 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:42,080 Speaker 1: I know you started this as a Harvard Business School 73 00:03:42,120 --> 00:03:46,280 Speaker 1: class project in with just five thousand dollars a seed capital. 74 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:48,160 Speaker 1: So yeah, so what you would find on our platform 75 00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:50,520 Speaker 1: for that that generic company, they would find somebody who 76 00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: maybe worked in venture capital or had previously raised money themselves, 77 00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:55,480 Speaker 1: would be able to tell you exactly what you needed 78 00:03:55,480 --> 00:03:58,600 Speaker 1: to do to succeed, and nothing more, No full time 79 00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:01,280 Speaker 1: on site, none of the bundling. The answer to your 80 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:06,320 Speaker 1: question delivered electronically very quickly. And what about managing the 81 00:04:06,400 --> 00:04:11,840 Speaker 1: actual business? You provide that kind of service as well. Yeah, absolutely, 82 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:13,560 Speaker 1: it's a full stack. We have more than twenty seven 83 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:16,520 Speaker 1: thousand people on our platform, So any project need that 84 00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:18,800 Speaker 1: you might have at your company, we can fulfill it. 85 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,279 Speaker 1: It's the magic of a large and global network where 86 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:24,680 Speaker 1: anything that any business might come across, somebody on our 87 00:04:24,720 --> 00:04:26,880 Speaker 1: platform has done it. More than likely several thousand of 88 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:29,800 Speaker 1: them have. And what about things like fundraising or trying 89 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:32,279 Speaker 1: to raise new capital for a business. What kind of 90 00:04:32,320 --> 00:04:35,800 Speaker 1: expertise do you bring there? That's a very common project 91 00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:38,279 Speaker 1: for some of our mid range companies. So most of 92 00:04:38,279 --> 00:04:40,400 Speaker 1: our businesses with the fortune one thousand, but we do 93 00:04:40,480 --> 00:04:43,640 Speaker 1: see companies in the fifty million dollar range who are 94 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:46,960 Speaker 1: having serious corporate finance questions but fall below the scale 95 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,719 Speaker 1: required to work with a leading investment bank. So what 96 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:51,440 Speaker 1: they get on our platform is somebody who may have 97 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:54,240 Speaker 1: just left Goldman Sachs or Barclays who can be a 98 00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:58,240 Speaker 1: really important value add contributor to their team, completely flexibly 99 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:00,839 Speaker 1: and on demand. And what about the side the bidding 100 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:05,040 Speaker 1: for projects the experts bid to take on the on 101 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:07,839 Speaker 1: this work, We believe strongly in markets. We think that 102 00:05:07,880 --> 00:05:10,200 Speaker 1: if you're transparent and you have a bunch of folks 103 00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:12,560 Speaker 1: competing to serve on a given project, you'll drive a 104 00:05:12,600 --> 00:05:14,960 Speaker 1: great outcome for the client because they get to see 105 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:17,320 Speaker 1: a variety of options at what we usually see as 106 00:05:17,320 --> 00:05:20,680 Speaker 1: a variety of prices. Interestingly, we don't see the low 107 00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:23,320 Speaker 1: price win every time. Sometimes people prefer the person who 108 00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:26,039 Speaker 1: might be slightly more expensive but has, you know, potentially 109 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:29,080 Speaker 1: even more expertise and just quickly you raised twenty two 110 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:31,960 Speaker 1: million dollars in a series see funding round led by 111 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:36,440 Speaker 1: General Catalyst Partners and Highland Capital Partners. Congratulations, thanks very much, 112 00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:39,080 Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. Rob Biederman is the co 113 00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,760 Speaker 1: founder and the chief executive officer of our elite nerd. 114 00:05:43,320 --> 00:05:47,840 Speaker 1: They're based in Boston, home to Bloomberg. I'm Pim Fox 115 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:49,359 Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg.