Gen George has sold her start-up OneShift to labour hire and maintenance giant Programmed for an undisclosed sum.
The 26-year-old launched OneShift as an employment site for short-term retail and hospitality workers in 2012 when she was 21 and says the deal "hasn't settled in yet".
![Gen George, founder of casual work start-up OneShift.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170609023333im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/4/m/8/3/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwn889.png/1496964535697.jpg)
"It's exciting but also it was a huge chunk of my life and I really learnt a lot of things from my time at OneShift it was the good and bad of my entry to start-up world," she says.
ASX-listed Programmed acquired a 27.5 per cent share and a seat on OneShift's board for $5 million in 2013, valuing the business at $18.2 million.
![Gen George and her father Phil George at their Sydney office.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170609023333im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/o/l/h/7/l/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwn889.png/1496964535697.jpg)
This week George announced her "strong strategic partner" has bought the remainder of OneShift.
George says the "private, off-market deal" has been in the works since late last year and is now complete "a short couple of months later".
While she declined to reveal the purchase price, Programmed's annual report states that it revalued its investment in OneShift incurring a non-cash impairment of $2.1 million.
Programmed plans to keep developing OneShift's online recruitment offering.
OneShift's beginnings
George started OneShift after spotting a gap in the market when she struggled to find casual work.
"In 2011 I deferred my property law degree to work in Europe. I had a job on a boat in France lined up in six weeks and thought I'd find short-term work in the interim but it wasn't that easy," George says.
Seeing many of her friends also frustrated at the lack of online portals for casual work, George decided to create her own when she returned to Sydney.
"I sticky-taped a WordPress website together, put up posters around universities and talked to business owners."
It's exciting but also it was a huge chunk of my life and I really learnt a lot of things from my time at OneShift it was the good and bad of my entry to start-up world.
Gen George
OneShift started with just 300 uni students and a couple of clubs and grew to 10,000 users within six months.
Four years later and OneShift is a full-time work platform, connecting staff to some of Australia's largest employers.
The start-up employed 56 staff at its peak, has over 45,000 businesses on board and close to 1 million users.
George and her family held the remaining 72.5 per cent of OneShift before the sale to Programmed and her father Philip George played a key role in the start-up as executive chairman.
He runs property development company the George Group with his brothers and sold the family business Mrs Crocket's Kitchen for a reported $110 million more than 10 years ago.
What's next for George
George and her remaining team of five will now focus on hospitality start-up Skilld and ad-tech platform tamme.
As part of the deal with Programmed, George has moved to 100 per cent ownership of Skilld which was developed jointly with Programmed.
"This was a mutual decision in the best interests of both businesses," stated Programmed's annual report.
Skilld launched last year and George says it has grown to 60,000 users within six months.
She also launched tamme this week which she describes as an ad-tech platform which measures supply and demand in suburb-sized squares all around the world to predict where and how to best spend advertising budgets.
Tamme uses machine learning to create dynamic ads specifically targeted to audience and location.
"It came about from us building it out for Skilld and now we are making it publicly available," George says. "There's already a lot of interest internationally."
In her downtime George runs female business networking group Like Minded Bitches Drinking Wine which she started with Showpo founder Jane Lu.
What started as a Facebook group for a group of 30 friends now has over 40,000 members.
There's not much of a chance for George to have a break between ventures.
"I am going on my first holiday very soon," she says. "That's what you do, that's why I'm in start-ups, I'm always trying to solve the next problem."
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