“Together Talks” #131: Work Perks - presented by KLS

Some Background on Work Perks

For today's edition of "Together Talks" campaign, KLS had the chance to speak with Work Perks and Co-Founder, Beau Grzanich. Fringe benefits that work for everyone. At Work Perks, they believe that you shouldn't have to break the bank to offer world class, competitive voluntary benefits to your employees. Just set your budget, and let your employees decide what the best ROI is.

When did the company begin?

The company recently began as we started in the last month.

Story of how it was created?

We found it as a problem through a different company that we were working on. It was focused entirely on pet insurance as an employee benefit. We had been taking that to market for a a couple months and the conversations had been around the lines of people acknowledging that pet insurance was a cool thing to do for employees. The rising costs of that we're starting to hurt but for most employers the there is roughly 70% of their employees that will have pet insurance and then there's 30% that won't have any. The conversation pivoted to how do we make it also valuable for the 30%?

We basically took that as a concept and said let's create a budget for just extra benefits in general. So whether that's pet insurance or gym reimbursements or anything that people think is something beneficial add-on to add to their benefits offering to their employees, Let's put it on under one budget and then let the employee decide what the best ROI is.

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What separates your company from competition?

There are competitors in the industry that have built things that are called lifestyle spending accounts, and there's a few of them. And it's a relatively new concept in the benefits world. I think the first one was probably around 2019 when they were founded. It's a very new five-year-old industry. The differentiating factor I would say is that we are agnostic to however someone would want to implement extra benefits for their employees.

A lot of our competitors believe their function as a marketplace to service. For example, bringing in different vendors for different products, rather than letting you do a gym reimbursement, you do some type of sign up for LA Fitness.

We just will do whatever the company wants. So if you want to do gym reimbursements, if people don't want to sign up for certain things that they want to sign up for others, we're just trying to be very flexible in regards to how these plans get implemented.

What have been the biggest challenges?

I would say because we're bootstrapped, the stereotypical or traditional tools aren't really on our plate. Just being scrappy and trying to get the right contacts to prove we are here. Genuinely trying to make this work since we're new as well. It can be a little bit of a red flag for people.

Reflect on a goal you set and how it made you feel to accomplish it?

Our first goal as a company since it is new, was to find five clients who are ready to jump in and be our first users of the platform. And our goal for those five companies is for them to fall in love with our platform. We think that by focusing in on those five company's use cases,

pieces, and making sure that we don't stop until they love it. Ensuring that their employees love it, that we're building a platform that genuinely contributes to the employment experience in the market. I'm happy to say we're at two right now.

Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?

Once we are satisfied with those five companies are in a good spot, then what I would like to hit month over month is roughly a 20% growth. We want to achieve that for the first year, and that should land us around 50 clients by the end of the year.

What were your concerns about making this transition?

It was a very difficult decision. It's taking a bet on yourself is both an exhilarating concept or a dream for a lot of people, but it also taking the training wheels off and seeing if you can do it. I've been pretty public with it posting on LinkedIn sharing the journey. I've had people that have reached out and have talked to me about the launch period or what what made me do it and I think the most important thing to remember and acknowledge in that period was I needed to accept the idea that failure was a a potential outcome. That was holding me back for a while was not acknowledging that taking the risk does have potential that this might not work. But that brought me into a position of facing reality instead of considering it as a fantasy. By acknowledging that things can fail, then I saw it much more clear and said that it was still worth it to try it and give it a shot.

How have you grown as a leader?

Entrepreneurship is tough, that it takes a lot of grit and passion. Remembering why you do it and what was your catalyst. There are things that I've learned, from a technical perspective as well, that SEO component, understanding marketing, and how to get internet content out there. Coming from a customer-facing role prior, that wasn't in my wheelhouse, but going off on your own, you kind of have to learn everything. Adapting and becoming more of a jack-of-all-trades.

How does having a Co-Founder help?

One of the things that I learned from my last role was they were all co-founders in this company and they had this mission statement, you should always start businesses with your friends. I always resonated with that. My buddy Idan and I, we had an idea before Work Perks, truthfully we had like 10 ideas before that one as well. We've done lots of interesting and fun things and I think having people to talk to is incredibly important. Having a co-founder keeps you, keeps the ideas alive, and keeps you accountable.

What do you need to work on as a leader?

Continuing to network. Getting out in front of people and becoming more a part of the community. Sharing what it is I do, what our company offers, and how we can help.

What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?

I would say the freedom. I think that it is I'm a bit of a a of a workaholic. I really enjoy working. But working on your own terms is really great. The freedom is really, really powerful, and that gives you such room to experiment and just try and find what works.

Share a mistake and what you learned from that experience?

I don't know if I've felt like a strong mistake per se. Again, it's been a short venture. We're still experimenting. I think every day I make subtle or small mistakes. I'll use LinkedIn posts as an example. One a day I make posts that I think are relevant to my target audience that we're trying to sell to. Sometimes I just make posts about entrepreneurship. I can tell based off of the impression counts of those different posts does LinkedIn think that these are good? Are they sending it to people? Or are they not?

Sometimes they get such a little traction, you're like, oh, that was definitely a dud. But I don't know if it really matters that much. Sometimes you throw out duds and sometimes you throw out bangers, and it's just rolling with the punches. Maybe it's hard for me to even resonate with the idea of a mistake, because it's kind of just a lesson learned.

What types of companies do you view as a potential fit?

I would say the biggest green flag for a company are ones that have already invested in some way in a fringe benefits idea. Whether they do gym reimbursements, or they have an EAP or any type of program that they're paying for that are outside of their core benefits. And they enjoy it. It's something that they genuinely appreciate and that they talk about really strongly.

When I talk to someone who appears to be a good fit is when they discuss winning awards like Crane's best best business or best places to work. Those are the leaders that are prioritizing making a workplace a really great place to work. They are going to be a good fit for our platform because they're in it for the right reasons and the things that they request or the things that they're trying to accomplish out of work perks by providing these fringe benefits are where we want to help. We're really trying instill a culture and finding people who are really good leaders and invest in their people

What is your why?

I just love the idea of starting a business that is creating out of fundamental good and helps people in a way that both solves problems and makes their life a little bit more enjoyable. I happen to have landed on fringe benefits and that is the end result. But again, we've had lots of ideas to get there and I think with anything with good intentions can be created as a good result.

If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your industry?

Letting costs not get in the way of what is right. And it is maybe like a little bit more adjacent to our industry, but just the healthcare industry in general is a pretty expensive thing. Even with the best insurance and getting the right help can get really expensive. If we could wave a magic wand and provide all these things for free and build solutions that people enjoy I think that'd be great.

Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?

When we get really positive feedback, it brings me a lot of joy in that. Hearing them find what we are offering is useful and a good product gets us excited. Positive reinforcement is a good thing and validation is appreciative in this journey. But with that I also get excited when people negative feedback as well, because it means that whoever it was that was giving that negative feedback, trust me enough to provide it. It's still in the idea of community, because even in negativity, you can find positive components with it.

Piece of Advice

Watch the TED talk by Simon Sinek, called "How great leaders inspire action". If entrepreneurship is something that you're interested in, figure out what your why is. That was a video that I watched when I was very young and the whole concept has stuck with me for a very long time. Having your life guided by the values I think is much more important than what you are doing. Following why you want to do it I think is important.

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In Closing

KLS wants to thank Work Perks?and Co-Founder, Beau Grzanich for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!

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