What does once in a 100 years reset button mean to the workforce? Most people are worried about the fearful things we have been hearing after the pandemic struck.
What will happen to our jobs now?
Are we going into a recession?
What industries will survive post-pandemic?
The answer to those questions! Whatever happens in the future, Marketplaces will still be the backbone of the modern economy just like how it was over the past decade.
Why and how online marketplaces have taken this position in the modern economy?
A majority of the workforce today is a part of some sort of marketplace which makes money, whether it be a landlord listing their house on Airbnb for short term rentals or a plumber listing his services on Airtasker. The last decade of the workforce has been heavily dominated by marketplaces to earn income.
Well having said that, Ever since this trend started, marketplaces have gone through multiple transformations right from the time ODesk and eLance (which is now Upwork) were trading separately to the current marketplaces like 99designs and Expert360. Labour marketplaces have evolved drastically embracing trends in tech and the changing complexity of the jobs.
From a gig economy to knowledge economy, marketplaces handle from a very simple gig-based, short commitment to complex and long term work commitment.
I stumbled upon on an article that was published by NFX (A San Francisco based Venture firm) recently and the deep research that went into the evolution of marketplaces and their future]. I was awestruck to see what was going in my mind for months, in the form of a well-elaborated article.
The tough times we are experiencing in the recent pandemic times, we are heading into a major disperse of talent and a massive transformation of the workforce ever. So, what do we expect the labour marketplaces to look like in the future?
The "Big bang" of the modern workforce.
This is definitely the big bang of workforce everyone living in this generation will ever witness.
We will experience quality over quantity, flexibility over longer commitments, Agile over surprises, Knowledge over ambiguity.
These are some things, I anticipate marketplaces will embrace in the coming future.
Higher complexity in product delivery and greater levels of service.
The demand for skilled labour will be of greater consideration.
Upskilling will be the most powerful ingredient.
Marketplaces will go more niche and build stronger knowledge around it to cater for its users.
User experience will be everything. No more compromise on bad and ambiguous processes.
Is this the best time to build a marketplace for the future?
Being in the tech industry for close to a decade, the rise of niche platforms such as Pluralsight, have set a very high benchmark on what specialising in an area means to a startup's growth. The new norm of Work From Home has clearly indicated the enormous opportunity for many professionals to pursue flexible work style as an option, especially with the amount of work you can stay at home and work (read my article on tips that I recently shared to easily freelance from anywhere).
After rigorous research on marketplaces, here are some important takeaways I have identified to launch a successful marketplace of the future.
Go niche - Fully. It's not how much you can do that matters in the future, It's what you do the best matters. So pick the area you can show the real value to your customer.
Integrate "Learn and Upskill" into your product offering. It's a default. Keep your audience constantly educated on skills that will allow them to grow and evolve.
With the growing amount of dispersed workforce, standardising some part of the delivery will help them leverage and help them deliver efficiently.
I have been hearing from many of my friends talking about being laid off or being redundant due to the tensions COVID-19 is posing for businesses. During these tough times, I hope the future entrepreneurs who are especially building marketplaces should consider these times as GOLD to recreate the new era of workforce marketplaces.
I hope some of my points will give you food for thought to innovate better if you are building anything that surrounds #TheFutureofwork.
Let's disrupt for future good.