Adam Stone is an entrepreneur making the gig economy work for him.
The 22-year-old entrepreneur has raised $545,000 in seed funding in the US and Australia for Speedlancer, a new venture he hopes will take on skilled freelancing site Freelancer.com
![Adam Stone, entrepreneur and founder of Speedlancer.](/web/20161228124620im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/h/d/0/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gth54z.png/1482469914722.jpg)
After using what he describes as "every freelancing platform under the sun", Stone said he understood why freelancing worked but also why there was a perceived stigma around it.
"I wanted to make outsourcing effective for start-ups and small businesses who don't have access to a HR manager or the time to go through and recruit the talent that they need."
!["I've never worked any other way than by distance": Adam Stone.](/web/20161228124620im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/h/d/0/o/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gth54z.png/1482469914722.jpg)
Stone preaches and practises. Speedlancer has only two staff members, the second of whom is in Sydney.
"We hire talent wherever the best talent is," he said, referring to a customer service team in Bangladesh and a development team in Brazil.
Stone said he developed a familiarity with the freelancing ecosystem when he ran his previous business, which he juggled with high school and university studies.
"I started my first business when I was 12. My last business was an e-commerce platform, which I scaled to six-figure profitability and we outsourced everything. I only worked 10 minutes a week because I was studying," he claimed.
Stone attended Mount Scopus Memorial College, a private school in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
"I haven't taken a penny from my parents until I opened up this initial seed-funding round for Speedlancer. I started with $50 of pocket money and turned it into six years of profitable business and we had 130,000 paying customers. I grew that all organically."
Stone also said he had not yet taken a salary from Speedlancer.
"I really believe in Speedlancer and want to give it every chance for success."
Stone has been able to not draw a wage from Speedlancer by living off the profits of his previous business being sold.
Stone said he found enthusiasm among investors for the project in the US and Australia.
"I was in the US trying to raise funds and I had a visa rejected, which delayed things by a few months. We lost a bit of traction and had to finish raising the round in Australia."
Stone was able to convince the prominent Macdoch Ventures, which has previously invested in design tech firm Canva, to back his business. He said Speedlancer was proof that the investment landscape in Australia was rapidly changing to embrace startups.
"You've obviously got to have a good pitch and we all know you need to pitch 100-200 times to close a round."
So what's Stone's pitch?
"The biggest problem with most freelancing sites is that you have to interview and hire people and recruit them effectively, which is fine if you're looking for hourly full-time employees of really huge projects; but it's not optimal if you just need something done in a few hours, which is what we offer," he said.
Stone's business has already vetted 450 freelancers for quality. "For example, our writers are journalists who want money on the side and our researchers are all US and Australian based."
He is also emphatic that part of the investment go towards technology including artificial intelligence project managers.
Asked whether the business model erodes the job market for humans seeking stability, super and full-time work, Stone said it doesn't.
"I've spoken to a variety of corporates who say 'we can't hire any more but we'd still like to employ more' and this helps them", he said. Stone also suggested it would allow existing staff to move to more-strategic roles.
He admitted, however, that having the ultra-outsourced model that Speedlancer itself uses has challenges.
"There are obviously problems with having a distributed team, like maintaining culture, understanding their needs. There's a whole gamut of problems. But I think the benefits outweigh the costs."
"I've never worked any other way than by distance. Personally I enjoy it. I'm forced to network in other ways and maintain my social life outside the company."