As the world wrestles with another wave of COVID-19, one startup is banking on continued interest in working remotely.
Wrkfrce, who launched this November, will offer content, job postings, and consulting services to help workers how to adapt to a work-from-home situation. The website published an initial 60 articles during its launch, with topics ranging from being a remote-work parent to how to ease managerial issues remotely. Wrkfrce will publish new written content daily, while also adding in documentary-style video content covering certain subjects. In addition to the content library, the company will also dedicate a portion of its website to posting remote job opportunities across various industries.
“At wrkfrce, we know that the future is already here,” CEO Jesse Chambers, says in the firm’s about us section, “we know that commuting in a car is as bad for the soul as it is for the environment; and we know that remote work is as good for a company’s bottom line as it is for its employees.”
Chambers is certainly familiar with this type of platform. He was vice president of monetization for AOL for over a decade. After Verizon acquired Yahoo and merged with AOL, Chambers opted to forge a new path focused on working remotely. While the company is coming to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic, the platform has been in the works since 2019.
Whether or not wrkfrce’s target audience will stick around when the worst of COVID-19 has passed is unknown. The company’s strategy relies on revenue through affiliate links on its job board, advertising, and consultancy fees on how to scale remote teams. There are no plans to put content behind a paywall, meaning a healthy and sustainable audience will be a major driver of growth for the company.
Although Chambers views the pandemic as something that has accelerated his vision for the wrkfrce, he doesn’t believe it was necessary to make the company successful.
“The digital evolution has brought us to this point where distributed work is totally possible,” Chambers said. “If the pandemic had happened five to seven years ago, this would be a completely different situation.”
Patrick Auger is a management consultant and entrepreneur who resides in Austin, Texas. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management from Western Illinois University, and is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Auger Consulting Group, LLC. When he's not writing for The American Genius, he's writing about the business of Mixed Martial Arts for The Body Lock or learning how to cook, one burnt recipe at a time.
