Turning a side hustle into a profitable marketplace with Mark Steiner of GigSalad

Maren Kate
Welcome to from 5 to 50, the podcast dedicated to helping startups and founders survive and thrive through the early stages. I'm your host, Maren Kate and I'm here with Marc Steiner from GigSalad. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Steiner
Oh Maren, thanks for having me.

Maren Kate
Yeah, I'm really glad to have you on. I was just poking around the site a little bit earlier. So when did you found GigSalad?

Mark Steiner
Official launch was 2007. Me and my business partner/co-founder started conceptualizing GigSalad in 2003 or four.

Maren Kate
Okay, so in 90 seconds or less just tell the audience the founding story or the why behind it.

Mark Steiner
Yeah, the why was to fix. What's classic with entrepreneurs or businesses is fixing a problem. The problem was that I was getting opportunities for business that wasn't within my business model. That is I was getting contacted by entertainers, performers, and event service providers, primarily entertainers and performers in 2003 when I started my first talent booking agency. They were starting to search the web. I had created a website with my friend Steve Tetrault, who is the co-founder of GigSalad, was a web designer and I was starting to get called by local regional artists and by local regional event planners, people like brides and parents planning kid's birthday parties and a more local type of event. Where what I was booking was more national touring acts and celebrities and performers through my speaker's bureau and booking agency, was doing things at performing arts centers and fairs and festivals.

Maren Kate
And people wanted these smaller asks, right?

Mark Steiner
That's exactly right. So we decided to create a directory to so that people would hopefully find that place instead of Steiner Talent.

Maren Kate
So did you switch off Steiner Talent completely and go with GigSalad? When did that happen? What was the impetus?

Mark Steiner
Not until 2011.

Maren Kate
Okay, great. And are you guys bootstrapped or self-funded or do you have investors? How did that work?

Mark Steiner
Bootstrapped.

Maren Kate
Completely bootstrapped.

Mark Steiner
A couple $1,000 between us in the very early stages, just a little seed money to do various, you know, try to hire a rent a coder type of person to help us out and whatnot, you know, miscellaneous types of things but it was pretty self-sufficient, fairly quickly. Then as it grew, the money that we made went right back into the company and that's why I kept running Steiner Talent and Steve had Tetro Design but by 2011 we realized, hey, this thing is really, you know, we had, gosh, I don't know, at that point, maybe 10 employees, maybe more, I forget, but we thought we probably could be making our money or living from this company now and look how good it's doing and we're not even giving it 100% of our focus and time and attention. So July of 11 I folded GigSalad into the common interest of, sorry, I folded Steiner Talent into the common interest of GigSalad, and then a month later, when Steve was able to say goodbye to his clients and customers, he shuttered Tetro Design and we've been GigSalad ever since.

Maren Kate
Interesting. So 2007 you start, it's a side project, but by 2011 you guys are at 10 people, and are these full-time people?

Mark Steiner
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maren Kate
So in 2011, 10 full-time people, you both are working part-time and then decide to come on full-time, what were your numbers around that? I mean, 10 full-time people is a lot.

Mark Steiner
Yeah, gosh, that's a long time ago.

Maren Kate
Just ballpark

Mark Steiner
I think we were in and around a million or two.

Maren Kate
Wow. That’s amazing.

Mark Steiner
Yeah, it was good.

Maren Kate
And I think it's cool that you guys both had your consulting, started the business, grew it, and then got to a point where you’re like this is the real opportunity.

Mark Steiner
That's right.

Maren Kate
So 2011, 10 people, about a million dollars, and take us to today. 2019, what is your current size now?

Mark Steiner
Well, we've been as high as 35 employees and now we're at 25. Part of that has just been through attrition as we sort of phased out our entire marketing department and we've become so much more efficient within our customer happiness team that we don’t need as many people there to reply to emails or answer phones. So through technology and development, we've been able to trickle down and our revenue last year was right around 15 million.

Maren Kate
That's amazing. 25 people, 15 million. I love that you guys bootstrapped. It's interesting, when I was younger, when I had my last company, I thought that the sexy part was the number of employees you had and then I realized the more employees the more headache and what's actually the most interesting is how few excellent people you can have for the most revenue. That's the really interesting number.

Mark Steiner
That's very true. I just was saying the same thing within the past week or so. We were up for an award where we were part of a local, it’s called the Dynamic Dozen and we've been on this for the past five years, of the fastest-growing companies within this region. And over the past years, we've had, like I said, as many as 35 employees and there's a lot of pride I took by being able to help my community and “look at me, we have this many people we're responsible for”, and on and on. And our revenue has always grown. We've always grown over our 15-year lifespan and what I was most excited about was exactly that. Here we are continuing to grow with less people. And that's not to say I don't miss people and it wasn't hard to see people go but I can tell you that what is better is to have a really solid team, really, and that's what we have now. We have the best-assembled team we've ever had. No weak spokes. They're all good. So, yeah.

Maren Kate
That's amazing. And so in terms of it's so interesting how you guys started and then how you've grown. How did you do that? I think especially interesting is you two to ten people and then 10 to where you are now, what did you use to grow in this 5 to 50 phase?

Mark Steiner
You know, as a bootstrap company, you can only do with what you have, and that was a really important experiment/experience for me in particular because I'm the pie in the sky, head in the clouds, dreamer, more, more, more, faster, faster, faster, let's go. But my partners, you know, I have a co-founder and our first full-time employee, who is now our lead developer and we gave him equity in the beginning, are very conservative, very slow, meticulous and I learned a lot from that process of its not about how fast you can go but it's how good what you're putting out there and I think that’s it. As we grew, as we made more, we would add as we needed and it was just this slow and steady pace wins the race.

Maren Kate
So digging into specifics, do you guys use paid advertising? Are you fully word of mouth? Do you have channel partnerships? How do you acquire the customers?

Mark Steiner
A little bit of paid advertising, a little bit of Google ads but not a lot. It is, for the most part, strong SEO and word of mouth.

Maren Kate
Oh, interesting. So how did you figure out the SEO aspect of the company? When did you figure it out and how did you optimize it?

Mark Steiner
It was early. I think it's just the fact that for the space that we're in, it's a unique space. There's really us and one other company that is exactly what we do, you know, same model. And so if you're looking for the services that we provide, as a marketplace is, if you're looking for the services you provide and any one of the places that we are, all over US and Canada, we've just come upon. Now we've gotten smarter and better and we've used consultants and that have helped us along the way but I can tell you that for the most part we just have a really smart team and we've gone to conferences and conventions and trade shows and places where we've learned along the way.

Maren Kate
But you’re creating really good content so you get those longtail keywords?

Mark Steiner
Exactly right. Yep. Great content.

Maren Kate
And you’re a consumer, so how do you guys, just break it down for us really quick, how do you guys make money? I'm looking for a birthday clown and how does that work?

Mark Steiner
Yep, so the two revenue streams are if you're looking for a birthday clown and first that birthday clown paid to be listed on our site…

Maren Kate
Oh, interesting. Okay.

Mark Steiner
Membership subscription type and in the beginning, it was paid only, that was our only revenue stream, and we went to a freemium model. So we allowed people to dip their toe in and try it out and then with the hopes that they would have a great experience and then upgrade to one of our paid levels. And then we added a booking platform. So when you find that clown on the site, you have the ability to book them on the spot. We take the payment for that. We'd send out a deposit and then the balance of that upon the successful completion of the date. And those are our two revenue streams. We get a small piece of that transaction.

Maren Kate
What’s the most important revenue stream?

Mark Steiner
Well, they're both important but the one that continues to, the memberships are the most consistent and the best.

Maren Kate
And that’s on the talent side?

Mark Steiner
Yep.

Maren Kate
Yeah, that’s really cool because you often think about marketplaces, you assume the percentage from the user, the end client, but I know Thumbtack does this with different service providers around the home and it does make a ton of sense because there's so many providers in these small businesses, solopreneurs, or artists, and they have to advertise themselves and they obviously don't have a big budget, but if something, so it's really curated. Do you guys spend time and effort focused on curating the talent so, I don't know, there's not like a drunk clown or something?

Mark Steiner
No, it's like any good marketplace that's out there, consumers should really be relying on reviews.

Maren Kate
Got it.

Mark Steiner
Yeah, if there's somebody that’s not done well then that probably will follow them.

Maren Kate
Do you guys ever face blowback from your clients, like the drunk clown incident, do I get mad at you or do I get mad at the service provider?

Mark Steiner
Well, I think it's like anything, you know, we get mad and we find somebody. Hopefully, people try to go directly to the source. Yes, we do get phone calls and things did not go well. When you've booked, when you use the platform, then there's some recourse. I mean, we can become a mediator, you know, get on the phone and talk to and try to smooth things over and figure out what we can do to help the situation.

Maren Kate
Got it, that adds another layer of value too. And now you guys have two offices, right? Your employees work out of the offices directly or do they do a remote combo? How does that work?

Mark Steiner
There’s a combo. Springfield, Missouri is where I'm at and this is what we consider the headquarters. This is where the admin and the customer happiness team is and what some level of sales and marketing has traditionally been. Wilmington, North Carolina is where my two partners are and that's where the dev team is, dev and design. And then we currently have four remote workers, one in Denver, one in Joplin, Missouri, one in Nashville, and one in one of the small suburbs of Durham, North Carolina.

Maren Kate
Got it, but mostly people are in-office together.

Mark Steiner
Right.

Maren Kate
Got it. Got it. And how do you guys approach hiring? How have you kind of tackled that over the years?

Mark Steiner
You know, in the beginning, it was sort of who knew. One of our veteran employees, a lot of people came through Heather. She had friends and family and people that she introduced us to and a lot of those people came in and worked out just great. And a lot of that was for administrative jobs. On the dev side, we've had to go a more traditional route and more sophisticated pursuit. That's because as we've grown just finding expertise is not necessarily easy in a single market or two so we've gone online and used the various platforms for our jobs.

Maren Kate
Got it. Okay, cool. So I have the final three questions. It's been really interesting. I love hearing about the business and kind of how you guys have grown. What is your favorite book or podcast from the last year? And this can be business or it could be just pleasure whatever really jumped out at you.

Mark Steiner
Yeah, gosh, books I’m… I love Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, and A New Earth, they're more recent. The podcasts I've been listening to have been Oprah's Super Soul. I love all her amazing guests.

Maren Kate
Someone else told me about that. I still haven't listened to it but I need to. I'm a podcast junkie. What business tool could you guys just not live without?

Mark Steiner
Slack

Maren Kate
Interesting. So you guys are big Slack users.

Mark Steiner
We are. One of the toughest dynamics in our company was the communication between our two offices. When we started this company we've never lived in the same town and so that was fine in and of itself when it was just Steve and I. We talked on the phone every day and we got stuff done. And then as we grew, we started filling offices with various people and we have these distinct departments and separate places. It was very difficult for people to not be able to lean over each other's shoulders or sit around the table and discuss ideas. And so it was about, Gosh, five or six years ago we discovered Slack and it changed everything.

Maren Kate
So you were early adopters then to Slack.

Mark Steiner
Oh, yeah, we were within that first year.

Maren Kate
Yeah, that's amazing. Us too. I use it a ton. Lastly, especially this is geared towards founders listening who are somewhere between that five people and 50 people stage, what is the best piece of advice either you've received, or that you've given for founders in this period?

Mark Steiner
It's kind of cliche and simplistic but it's hire well and go with your gut. We have an amazing culture, we've always had an amazing culture. Not that it hasn’t had flaws and we certainly learned over time but I very much, for me and Steve, we wanted to surround ourselves with people that we liked and of course, trusted. Skill wasn't in the forefront in the beginning stages. It was just who can we find that can help us build and grow this thing and that works. I think culture is everything. You know, finding good people that fit into that culture, retaining people, having people wanting to stick around. So I think it's hiring well and then treating people how you want to be treated.

Maren Kate
The golden rule. I love it. Awesome. Mark, it's been super great chatting with you. For people that want to find you or the business GigSalad. Where do they go online?

Mark Steiner
Gigsalad.com. G-I-G-S-A-L-A-D dot com.

Maren Kate
And what about you if someone wants to reach out to you?

Mark Steiner
Oh, Mark at, mark@gigsalad.com

Maren Kate
Making it easy. I love it. I love that name, by the way, GigSalad. That's a cute one that just kind of stands out. Well, I really appreciated you taking the time and sharing your story, best of luck, and thanks so much for being on the show.

Mark Steiner
Maren, thank you.