Leaders,

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet Steve Jobs during his second stint at Apple? That’s what this meeting felt like, as Hooman is already a tech legend, and Collective is the leading financial management solution for freelancers, solopreneurs, and independent business owners. Hooman himself built and sold AddThis to Oracle in 2016. 

Collective was launched in 2020. In 2023 it raised $50 million in a funding round led by Gradient Ventures, Innovius Capital, The General Partnership, General Catalyst, QED, Expa, and Better Tomorrow Ventures. 

Collective was one of the first to democratize a secret…most wealthy people have S-Corps, and while anyone can have an S-Corp, the forming and managing of an S-Corp is complicated, confusing, and manually intensive. For example, even Ashton Kutcher, one of their investors, has an S-corp. To solve this, Collective is a financial platform that handles everything from incorporation to accounting, to bookkeeping, to quarterly tax payments so that freelancers can save on average $10,000 on taxes without the manual management of everything required.     

Key takeaways:

1. So much bigger than freelance, Hooman views our space as the realization of the 1 person, 1 billion dollar business.
2. Hooman refers to freelancers as founders, and shows how massive the gap is between traditional founders and the venture ecosystem compared to solopreneurs and the lack of a financial ecosystem.
3. Hooman nailed the ideation stage by talking with over 200 solopreneurs to build their MVP. The result is that they’ve been iterating rather than pivoting. 
4. Our industry is complementary, NOT competitive.  
5. AI will bolster the freelance economy.