Earnyt - Part-time. Anywhere. Anytime.

Organizing the part-time and short term job sector and making Training/Education Programs attractive to the American Youth - By showing part-time jobs for all such vocational trades through an innovative marketplace to list relevant jobs available nearby. Also, making available the relevant programs on the same platform will ensure a higher inclination towards enrolling for further studies.

The problem of American youth leaving education unfinished has two arms:

1. Not being able to see the long-term benefit of completing education.
2. Once realizing not skilled enough - unable to find relevant courses (both online and offline) available to become eligible.

The problem with listing local on-demand part-time and short term jobs:

1. Unorganised.
2. Manual - requiring seekers to go door-to-door.
3. Expensive for businesses to list online immediately.
4. Time-consuming as the process is manual.

At Earnyt, we deep-dived into the problem of listing part-time jobs, and we realized that once the job seekers could see the jobs, they were more open to upskilling themselves to be eligible to apply. 

A mobile application and website to serve as a marketplace for businesses and individuals to list out jobs and for job seekers to look for opportunities. Earnyt shall categorize the listings on the platform. Links to the relevant training or educational programs for each category - and category-specific insights shall be available to job-seekers to help them visualize the importance of upskilling.
Processes - A simple innovation to suit the masses designed based on an algorithm designed based on the market insight during our market research and prototype launch. 
Technology - Earnyt is a cloud-based application and a website. The coding language is React Native and Python, for the application, and JavaScript, for the website.
The business shall operate on a B2B2C model.

For Business Owners and Job Listers: 

It makes available local help on-demand, cheap, verifiable, and easily accessible.

For Job Seekers: 

It helps them find ways to earn extra - or enough, to not to have to quit studies, to increase their earning and contributing capacity - helping them improve their lifestyle, it encourages going outside and socializing beyond the computer and mobile phone, and it also makes available local jobs that they ideally are not aware of most of the times. However, most importantly, it helps people deal with unemployment or job transition - and continuously encourages them to upskill. 

We are not only organizing part-time jobs but also categorizing opportunities and showing employees the better-paying jobs available upon gaining the necessary skills - we are giving access to a list of relevant training programs as well. The fear of missing out makes us do more things than the virtue of gaining knowledge. We understand it and using it to help them upskill, find temporary jobs during the transition between jobs or unemployment. 

We are rediscovering the supply-chain of jobs, local workforce, and related educational and training programs.

Yes.

We are planning to deploy the solution first in the big cities and through the East-coast, one by one, and then launch throughout the US. Only after we gain significant traction and get a good product-market fit, we would be scaling up by launching in Canada, and Europe. However, by 2024, we plan to become a global platform.

We are two cofounders. I, Ananya, worked on the idea, market research, prototype building, and testing, financial modeling, branding and digital marketing, and product management - including design, wireframing, and project management.

We have one advisor (with no equity commitment) who advises on marketing and investor approach.

We, the cofounders, although from India, are from totally different backgrounds.

I have been brought up in a multicultural society and have been traveling since my childhood. My upbringing has made me a global citizen. And Amar has worked extensively with stakeholders from different cultures.

We will be making it a point to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization by putting checks and balances, frameworks, and guidelines from day one that not only prevent any discrimination, it also encourages inclusion and celebrates diversity. 

And we believe that to grow Earnyt the way we intend it to, there is no other way than making everyone a part of it.

Earnyt's sustainable differentiation lies in its way of understanding the problem this challenge is trying to solve - unemployment and lack of completion of studies is a problem among the US's youth, and we need to create a solution to encourage them to find work - we took this problem statement as the first why of 5-whys framework. We arrived at the root-cause as following: 

• lack of access to all part-time or short term jobs at one place to help support transition or unemployment (including unskilled jobs and specific trades,
• lack of visualization of the positive sides of upskilling, and 
• lack of motivation.

And Earnyt solves these root causes, with the most significant addition of giving access to a list of training programs with the information on exactly why completing those would be beneficial.

Some other differentiations are as follows:

• Global Need. 
• Training Program Listing to Help students. 
• Simple, smart human-centered design. 
• Algorithm design – variables identified after extensive research. 
• Interchangeable individual accounts. 
• Location-based matching. 
• On-demand, Affordable, Accessible.

However, the most significant innovation that Earnyt offers is the placement - it is as commercialized as Fiverr or Upwork. 

And yet, it works towards the long-term positive goal of increasing earning, making jobs more available and accessible, and most importantly, encouraging people to start studying and upskilling again. When they can find a job in their free time, not just students, many adults would also be encouraged to learn new skills to increase their employability.

Existing - Mobile application (algorithm-based) with a later induction of artificial intelligence. Earnyt's innovation is in redesigning the pathway of solving the problem and fixing the supply chain.

We launched a beta version of the product during our prototype launch, and we gained significant traction. Since Earnyt is not introducing any new technology, we could safely say that it works - as the proof of concept showed us so.

Logframe of Earnyt

• If we build the platform and follow our plan and all arms of the product are released, and assuming that we shall have the required funding, then the platform shall organize local job and talent listing and shall make available relevant programs to job seekers.
• If Earnyt organizes local job and talent listing and makes available relevant programs to job seekers, and we continue to scale throughout the US, then adolescents, youth, and adults shall have access to work, and education - to help them upskill themselves and increase their income, or to support their families during unemployment or job transition.
• If Earnyt helps people to upskill themselves and increase their income, or support their families during unemployment or job transition, and it continues to grow, the long-term impact would be as follows:

1. Overall growth in education completion and upskilling efforts,
2. The young generation shall be encouraged to go out and earn, rather than wasting their time,
3. Businesses shall have easy access to help, to help them grow faster,
4. The rate of unemployment shall be reduced, and
5. With a portion of Earnyt's profit, more educational and community institutes shall be able to create more affordable training programs.

Goals of Next one Year:

1. Launching the MVP and achieving a minimum lovable product.
2. Launching the algorithm to show better matches (training and jobs).
3. Completing the launch in East-coast and moving our way through the West.

We are facing 2 major barriers:

1. Restriction in mobility and relocation due to COVID, and
2. Lack of funds.

In the next five years, there could be the following additional barriers:

• Competition,
• Culture (as we scale globally), and
• Legal (although, we have designed the business model to suit all global rules currently).

• We need help from the Foundation and the Partners to help us with the mobility and relocation factor.
• We are planning to apply for grants (and are applying) for funding.
• Continuous evaluation of the business plan and sustainable differentiation shall help us overcome the rest.

We would collect data on the conversion of job seekers into enrolment, and other data that we collected in our prototype on the number of jobs, number of employees, total matches, etc.

Not applicable.

We are most suited for this solution because we paid a lot of attention to the problem and we started working on the solution once we realized what the problem was.

Ananya Banerjee (Designated CEO)

I have worked on three of my ventures, advised numerous startups on strategy, marketing and branding, and innovation in the digital space. I have managed teams, designed, and managed products, and managed both national and cross-border projects, in technology and law, using agile methodologies, since 2013.

I have completed double graduation in Arts and Law with a Major in Law, from the University of Calcutta, and also completed two years of Statistics Major before having to drop out due to a personal emergency. I have continued to upskill myself throughout my entrepreneurial career and have completed a Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration, a post-graduate two-year course on M&A, investments, and institutional finance, completed certification courses on Innovation through Design and Design-led Strategy from the University of Sydney and Entrepreneurship from the London Business School, and presently, I am pursuing MicroMasters in Business Management course from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Recently, I have published my first book - 6S for Startups. 

Amar Keralikar (Compliance - Product)

Amar is a veteran corporate lawyer expert in international and investment laws. Amar has completed double graduation in Commerce and Law and a master's in Business Laws. Amar has contributed significantly towards making the product - Earnyt, compliant with the USA and European laws and managed customer conversations.

Not Applicable.

I am sharing our Business Model Canvas herein below, with a link to the document here:

To make Earnyt self-sustainable, scalable, and impactful, we work on multiple revenue models.

Premium Services (SaaS Model) - For Individual job seekers, Businesses, and Individuals listing jobs.

Listing Revenue - For Private Training Institutions for Listing the training programs on the platform (free for community training and social ventures without cost).

Ad Revenue - This revenue model shall be applicable later in the journey. Audience related hyper-local advertisement on the platform.

Not applicable yet. We have self-funded the proof of concept of the business plan.

In the first year, we would require a total of USD 562,000 in, preferably, a combination of grants (USD 250,000) and equity funding to last 1 year.

We would require another USD 1 million USD in funding on the 13th month, to run the venture till it becomes sustainable. We shall ideally seek equity funding for the said amount 

We would seek both grants and equity funding, as although Earnyt is a for-profit venture, it, at its core, a truly social venture with the promise to give back to the community. And for that reason, we believe in both cases, the investors come with their own set of expertise and would also help us open doors to achieve our goal.

For the first 12 months, we would require USD 536,000 (inclusive of 10% contingency cost without management salary), per our detailed 5-year forecast, based on the numbers gathered during our proof of concept.

The Partners could help us with the initial round of funding of USD 250,000, as grant against deliverables, for us to design, build, and deploy the minimum viable product. 

The Partners would also be crucial in helping us connect with all the skill-building organizations to help us list relevant training programs and map them against available jobs.

For the longest time, we were not aware of this challenge. Due to COVID, our technical team dropped off, and the founding team was unable to move to the UK and start deploying the product in the USA and UK market - even after getting excellent traction in the UK and Netherlands. However, we, the founders, continued to work on gaining insights and deep-diving into the problem to launch the product.

We have seen the kind of interest Earnyt generates amongst younger generations and home-makers. Our prototype resulted in 1002 registrations, 468 job and candidate listings, 4000+ website reach, 377,000+ total reach, with more than 20% organic views, all with a budget of less than USD 1000. 

To be able to get help from the Foundation and the Partners would help solve the problem significantly, and would also give us more strength to go on. 

Solution Technology - As mentioned hereinbefore, we were working with a freelance technology developer (with all documentation) to work out an MVP for the Europe launch. However, due to COVID, we had to stop working - as we were concerned about our target users. We would need a little help with the technology department in terms of development - until we hire someone for the same.

Product/Service Distribution - We would need a little help in terms of reaching out to the training and academic institutions for listing their courses on our platform for the effective mapping of them with jobs. 

We would like to partner with all small businesses as employers.

In terms of listing training/educational programs - we would partner with all universities, community colleges, training institutes - providing courses on skill-building required for jobs, to list the same on our platform.