Today we’d like to introduce you to Craig J. Lewis.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Craig. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After playing professional basketball in Europe, I became a student of payroll technology, selling over $10 million in payroll-related software for the likes of ADP and others. Prior to building Gig Wage, in 2012, I was the Chief Strategy Officer of Kairos, a venture-backed facial recognition/emotion detection startup. Kairos was named one of the “Top 20 Startups” by The Wall Street Journal, was selected to participate in the first-ever Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab, and reached a 130M valuation.
As an avid student of the gig economy and payroll technology, I continued to see the lack of technology to help companies pay contractors. The majority of contractors are still paid by check and I knew there needed to be a faster, simpler, yet more nuanced way to pay these contractors to save companies time and money. So, I became an expert on the topic, brought on world-class investors and hired the best team possible to build a simple yet paradigm-shifting product.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Being an entrepreneur is never “easy.” Founding a company has entailed many long nights and a lot of uncertainty. Fundraising is always interesting and challenging yet rewarding. It was all about getting in the right rooms and showing people that we’ve built a product that will impact many people’s lives.
Gig Wage – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Gig Wage is a payments platform specializing in independent contractors. With our technology, we make it simple, fast and easy for companies to pay, manage, and support their contractors – making it easier than ever to recruit and retain world-class gig talent. Gig Wage navigates the complexities of banking, payments and the IRS, so companies don’t have to. We offer software for businesses and contractors and APIs so developers can integrate with ease.
What sets Gig Wage apart from others is that we combine the nuances of traditional payroll companies with the user-friendly ease of modern payment platforms. We are incredibly proud of the platform we have built, the customer service we provide, and the continued growth we have seen. Since founding in 2014, Gig Wage is now used to pay contractors in every state in the U.S. Gig Wage has sustained continuous growth with a 30% growth rate month over month. We offer one of the most innovative products on the market, coming out with the Contractor Proof of Income Report and Electronic 1099 Filing over the last year, which are both IRS-compliant documents that make things easier than ever for contractors.
In the payments & payroll space, most companies end up “fronting” and “advancing” money or pre-funding payrolls in order to ACTUALLY get money to their people FASTER. Often there is a fee associated with this type of lending. A typical workaround. Unfortunately, the technology behind the payments industry just wasn’t able to move money as fast as people needed it or as fast as companies were able to pay it.
This problem, this NEED, this DEMAND for faster payments is why Gig Wage exists. We built our payment platform with these technical capabilities at the forefront of strategy. Gig Wage was built for speed, literally. So the next day, same day and instant payments don’t require you to put up large lump sums of cash or require additional fees. We believe companies should be able to pay contractors fast and easily. So, we built the platform to do just that.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me personally, success has been about how many companies we can help with our product and using our product to spotlight the benefits of the gig economy. The gig economy provides many opportunities that people may have never had before. It’s incredibly accessible. I believe that the more people we can guide to the gig economy through Gig Wage, the more successful we are.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1601 Elm St Floor 33, Dallas, TX 75201
- Website: https://gigwage.com/
- Email: hello@gigwage.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gigwage/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GigWage/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GigWage
- Other: https://medium.com/gig-wage
Suggest a story: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
