Angelist's Naval Ravikant On Outsourcing
During last night’s PandoMonthly event, Angelist’s co-founder Naval Ravikant made very interesting comments about how the structure of companies may look in the future. He explained that a company will only need a fraction of the employees it currently takes to become a billion dollar business.
Hosted by PandoDaily's founder and Editor-in-chief Sarah Lacy, this two hour interview was incredibly informative and very entertaining. Naval's stories about how he went to Washington and passed the JOBS Act, the future of Angelist, and his overall insights about the future were just… awesome. I highly recommend carving some time out to listen to the entire interview.
Naval’s Take On Outsourcing
My favorite part of the talk was near the end, when Sarah follows the tradition of asking each guest the same final two questions. Sarah asked Naval “What is the one thing you believe, that very few others believe?”.
Naval’s response:
Naval says "You will be able to break out and outsource pieces that today you don’t think are "outsourceable". You will be able to outsource your sales, you will be able to outsource your revenue collection, you will be able to outsource your bookkeeping, or reconciliation.."
Guess what Naval, the future is now.
There are already great startups tackling the outsourced services he described. Here is a list of a few startups that focus on outsourcing critical parts of what a startup needs to grow and be successful:
Outsourced Accounting, Taxes, & Payroll
Indinero (YCS10) has created a platform where they are act as your company’s accounting department. You can have their team completely handle your accounting, taxes, and payroll. They have an awesome team, led by co-founder Jessica Mah, and I’m excited to see where they take the service.
Outsourced Sales
Elastic Sales (YCW11) has been providing startups with sales-as-a-service for over a year. They are able to handle each aspect of the sales process, including the creation of the process itself. Recommended for startups with B2B SaaS products and services, or inside sales.
Disclaimer/Shameless Plug Alert: I work as a Hustler at Elastic. If you need to ramp up sales resources quick, shoot me an email!
Outsourced Database Management (DBaaS)
MongoHQ (YCS11) have been providing companies with the first-ever DBaaS (Database as a Service) platform to help companies manage and scale their MongoDB databases.
Outsourced Developers (That are actually talented)
Toptal (Investors include A16Z) connects top developers around the world with companies looking to bolster their development resources. Speaking from experience, their talent pool and/or network is amazing. Startups that are known for their talented engineering teams are even using Toptal like Stripe and Airbnb.
Who else is out there?
Do you know of any other startups that are offering an alternative to hiring internally? Post them in the comments below and I will add them to the list!
