Opening Keynote: Why Freelance? It Just Makes Sense
How leading companies are leaning into talent platforms and flexible workforces for growth, efficiency, and innovation
In fall of 2024, Matthew Mottola keynoted to 150+ Enterprise Executives in Germany at Malt’s Freelance Forward Executive Summit.
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Sample of presentation slides
- Just a sample of what you'll learn...
- State of the global freelance economy
- How F500's are embracing freelance
- Big wins and business cases
- Tactical steps to get started
Highlight Videos
Where Will Work Be In 2030?
“The reality is that Freelance is here today, but it looks rogue. It is not outside of your contingent talent budget. It is 5% to 10% of your unmanaged spend, which is 75% of your total $1 to 5 billion dollar contingent budget.
Tomorrow, the rogue will become reality for 80% of work”
The "Definition" of freelance?
The boring: If the supply side is self employed, and the mediation is digital first, call it freelance.
What to tell your team and your customers: It’s just Salesforce for work.
What if you don't?
“You’re going to become Blockbuster. Why? You won’t ship on time. You’ll have poor acquisitions. And you’ll be stuck with B players rather than A player talent.”
How Startups Are using the human cloud to disrupt incumbents
Startups use freelance in three ways to disrupt incumbents.
First, they go where the puck is. They don’t set up a HQ in growing areas, they build freelancer clouds.
Second, they scale up just like the computational cloud, not over investing when things are bad, then meeting demand when they hit product market fit.
Third, they are both specialized and broad, leaning into the growing fractional movement.
Matthew's Experience Freelancing
“I thought it was a gig, I then started at a Big 4, and realized in two weeks, that I wouldn’t make it because I wouldn’t make an impact, unlike when I was freelancing”
What's Broken With Traditional Work
“Then we throw all these layers when we want to make it external. You have all these layers, and freelance just literally says, this person you want to hire, you can connect with them directly, why do you need all these layers? And there are four massive break throughs.
First, why put a recruiter at the center? Put a network at the center, and use the network to augment the recruiter?
Second, arms length transactions, you don’t know who is doing the actual work.
Third, paper resume’s just make no sense, instead freelance uses digital profiles.
Fourth, excess slack and margins, rather than the exact person, at the exact right time, working on the exact right work.”
Why Freelance Is The Future
“If you think there’s a permanent workforce, it’s now cute, and niche, not freelance”
Matthew's Learnings
“Think simple but think specific. You’re alumni groups, why are people leaving, why don’t they join an alumni freelance pool?”
Deeper Than The Data
“I can tell you that over of the US workforce be freelancers in the next three years. Is it right? Actually yes, that one is over stated.”
We've Been Doing The Same Things For 50 to 75 Years
“If you think a paper resume makes sense, it doesn’t. If you think multiple lines of interviews make sense, it doesn’t.”
What To expect
We’re going to cover three things.
- The benefits of freelance (we’re here to make money).
- How to get started and scale your freelance workforce.
- What if you do nothing? Hint…it’s a very German analogy.
If Your Not Early, You'll Be Locked out of the human cloud
“If you don’t lock into the Human Cloud, you will literally be locked out of talent. If you’re not building up a bench right now of good freelancers, you will literally be locked out”
The Human Cloud Is A Fundamentally New (better) way to rewire work
“What I do know, and what I will go to the grave knowing, is that this is an aqueduct strategy. You’re not building cute, incrementally better HR solutions. This is a fundamentally different, better, way to rewire work, and what you work on today, your predecessor, and predecessors’s predecessor will work on, this is a 50 year out strategy.
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