WorkBuddy

In an increasingly digital working world, WorkBuddy is a pioneer for a transparent and authentic job search. Since its inception, the dedicated founding team of Andreas Almer, Daniela Rückert, Victor Rabe, and Mirko Schliemann has pursued redesigning the job application process. With its innovative platform, WorkBuddy offers job seekers the opportunity to communicate anonymously with current employees of companies and thus gain an honest insight into the corporate culture. In this interview you will learn more about the history, mission, and vision of WorkBuddy and how the company uses Tokenize.it for modern and transparent fundraising.

When did you found the company?  

We founded WorkBuddy on May 6, 2022 in Stuttgart, Germany. The founding team comprises Andreas Almer, Daniela Rückert, Victor Rabe, and Mirko Schliemann. Together we bring extensive experience in recruiting, IT, and digital marketing. From the beginning, our goal was to revolutionize the application process by creating more transparency and direct communication between job seekers and companies.

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What kind of service(s)/product(s) do you offer?  

WorkBuddy is a community-based platform that allows job seekers to speak anonymously with current employees of companies to gain authentic insights into the daily work routine and corporate culture. This direct and unbiased information helps users make informed decisions about their applications and find the right job. Our platform offers a native app for Android and iOS as well as a browser-based solution, giving users the flexibility and convenience to communicate through multiple channels.

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What is your vision/mission?  

Our mission is to bring transparency and honesty to the job application process. We want to enable job seekers to gain real insights into companies to make better decisions, while companies can provide authentic insights into their culture. The goal is to find not only the ideal job but also the right cultural fit for the candidate. In this way, we create a win-win situation that improves both the application process and long-term employee satisfaction.

Who is your target group?  

We target job seekers who are unsure if they should apply to a job posting because they often lack critical information. Studies show that 53% of candidates do not apply for a job because important details about the company culture or job requirements are unclear or contradictory in the ad. In addition, according to a Monster study, 68% of job seekers want app-based communication and 59% want to speak directly with the department.

WorkBuddy provides these job seekers with exactly the information they need to make a confident decision about whether to apply. The direct exchange with employees of the company makes it possible to gain deep insights into the daily work routine and to avoid misunderstandings. At the same time, it helps companies attract candidates who might not have applied without this transparency.

How does your roadmap look like?  

WorkBuddy has been on the market since September 2023 and is designed as an intelligent job messenger solution. In addition to a native app for Android and Apple, our platform also offers a browser-based solution. Users have the flexibility to choose whether they want to chat through the app or the browser (even asynchronously). We offer businesses a comprehensive web-based solution with many helpful features to make their day-to-day work more efficient.

Our roadmap includes features such as a user scoring system based on generated feedback and gamification approaches to further promote user engagement. We also take privacy and data security very seriously. More customization features will soon follow to give users even more control over their data and profiles.

In the near future, we want to make WorkBuddy the leading job search platform - regardless of whether someone is specifically looking for a job or just wants to "surf". Smart algorithms and user-centric customization will make the application process even more personal and effective.

In the long term, we want to put the fun back into job searching. By developing the platform towards a more visual, interactive job search - including the possibilities of 3D metaverses - we want to make the job search a more pleasant and efficient experience. Our goal is to free the job search from its formal corset and create a relaxed, transparent, and fast process.

How did you come up with the idea for your service/product?  

The idea for WorkBuddy came from the many years of experience of Mirko and Daniela, who are also the founders of Aloha Talents. In their work as consultants, they noticed that talents were often unsure whether to apply for a job because important information about the employer was either missing or contradictory. Thanks to their extensive network, they were able to put their talents in touch with people from the company - sometimes even from the team. This personal contact helped the talents clarify their uncertainties and make an even more convincing decision to apply.

With such interest in this service, Mirko and Daniela decided to create a digital solution that would allow all job seekers - even those without a large network or direct connections - to gain similar insights. This is how WorkBuddy was born: a platform that gives job seekers the security they need to make informed decisions in the application process through direct interaction with company insiders.

How did you find out about Tokenize.it?  

In collaboration with the innovative blockchain startup Onino, we talked about alternative financing options that better fit our vision of WorkBuddy. Our core values - authenticity, digital transparency, and equal opportunities - are issues that also play a central role in the Web3 and blockchain community. Together with Onino, we discussed different approaches to tokenization to see how we could integrate these values into our funding model.

At this stage, we decided to tokenize our company as it is an innovative way to involve our community more in the growth of WorkBuddy. Tokenize.it is not only the leader in this field but also a pioneer in implementing this technology in an efficient and compliant way. The cooperation with Tokenize.it allows us to live our values in capital raising and at the same time offer a modern, digital, and transparent financing solution that makes investments accessible to a broad target group.

What prompted you to use this method of raising capital?  

One of our co-founders, Mirko Schliemann, is not only a founder but also a business angel. He knows the challenges of financing as well as the mindset of investors and their expectations. WorkBuddy's business model aims to enable many people to find jobs more easily and transparently, and to build a critical mass of community. However, traditional investors often struggle with such business models because they invest larger amounts and expect low risk in return. In addition, many traditional investors are not part of WorkBuddy's target audience and therefore find it difficult to empathize with the needs and expectations of job seekers.

WorkBuddy, on the other hand, scores particularly well with people who have experienced the painful "journey" of the application process themselves and therefore directly understand the added value of the platform. For this reason, we focus our funding campaign on the community and rely on smaller investments from a broader community. This allows us to involve people who are not only financially but also emotionally interested in improving the application process.

What we particularly like about Tokenize.it is the revolutionary idea that WorkBuddy also claims: To involve people in a great idea and its commercial success, without a lot of formalities and in an innovative way. Tokenize.it gives us exactly this opportunity. Through tokenization we can easily let our community members participate in the growth of WorkBuddy and give them the chance to invest in our company - digitally, transparently, and future-oriented.

What was the reaction of your investors to the introduction of GmbH tokens?  

So far, WorkBuddy is fully bootstrapped and we have a strong partner at our side in Polygran, an innovative IT company that acts as a company builder for software development. Polygran supports us not only technologically but also strategically in our growth process. The company has an open and future-oriented mindset that fits perfectly with our vision. Igor Janz, CEO and founder of Polygran, supported our decision to focus on Tokenize.it's token solution from the very beginning.

His assessment: "The investment market is changing and it is no longer enough to stick to traditional forms of financing. You have to be open to new opportunities. What Tokenize.it offers is a huge opportunity - not just as an alternative, but as an important addition to the existing investor landscape.

The team at WorkBuddy and Polygran recognize the potential of tokenization as a way to appeal to a broader range of investors. The introduction of GmbH tokens allows WorkBuddy to not only mobilize traditional venture capital but also activate its community. This allows us to involve people who are interested in the success of the company, but who previously had no access to such investments.

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