Country: Singapore
Industry: Worktech
Founded date: 2021
The idea of starting his first and very own startup came to Jonathan during the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. He has foreseen that the pandemic would bring on massive layoffs in the hospitality industry. And true to his vision, the F&B industry took the hardest hit when the government recommended citizens to stay in the comforts of their own home. Even after a few months of progress, capacities of restaurants and hotels were still halved by the social distancing rules implied. During this time, Jonathan created the app Anytime Work. A platform that matches workers with job providers within the hospitality industry - this includes restaurants, cafes, hotels and more. Jonathan saw this as a platform that would help unemployed job-seekers who need to get by as they look for a more permanent employment. And in turn, also help the employers who at the time couldn’t take in as many full time employees as they used to before.
It doesn’t take much to see that fairness and equality is a value that Jonathan Herbsman holds highly. ‘Treat everyone with fairness regardless if you are dealing with investors, customers or people who work for you.’ says Jonathan, founder and CEO of Anytime Work Pte Ltd. In addition, he made it a priority to make sure that their app is in control of the pricing. So that as long as the job gets done, either by a teenager or a senior citizen, they are compensated similarly. He was inspired by a story of an elderly woman he met who was differently paid for the same work as the higher paid, younger employee. The same woman now uses his app for part-time jobs where she is paid equally.
Setbacks aren't something to avoid but a part of the process to success. And in Jonathan’s journey, he experienced this before the launch of the Anytime Work app. Before the app was launched, Jonathan was too keen on having advanced features in the app. Going into details about what the features would offer and taking time on developing them. He feared that having incomplete features would turn users away, hence his dedication on building and adding on to them. Only to find out later on, after the launch, that some of these advanced features aren’t even going to be used by the users. They ended up removing some of the features that took their time to be developed. From this experience, Jonathan learned that his app could’ve been launched earlier in its simpler stages. And only from there add on features based on users and customers feedback, upgrading as they go.
Sometimes the fear of imperfection can be paralyzing and lead us to go to great lengths to avoid mistakes. But it doesn’t have to be. When we overcome the fear of imperfection, we open ourselves up to a world of possibilities and growth. Realizing that progress often comes through trial and error. As Jonathan’s now favorite quote by Mark Twain says ‘The secret to getting ahead is getting started.’