Redefining freelance transactions

Earlier this summer, I spoke with Brock Predovich. We discussed everything entrepreneurship, his startup Trustio, and business development strategy. This is the third episode in the bi-weekly series titled “The People Behind Innovation”. The series is available under Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify streaming services, or on Anchor with no account needed to stream. Please contact my email, owen@exponentialimpact.com, if you have any comments or founder stories.

Brock Predovich is an Air Force Academy alum who’s spent the early part of his career as an entrepreneur, and founder of multiple companies. He is now the CEO of Trustio, a startup aiming to help provide more transaction clarity in the service-based economy. His product acts as an escrow service to ensure contractors get paid after satisfactory completion of their work while also providing greater transparency regarding legal issues and project progress.

When we have Venmo, Paypal, and other digital payment platforms, why do we need payments tailored towards service providers?

Trustio is an invoicing, payment and project management platform for service providers and their clients, but it has a unique twist in that allows a service provider to receive the funds for a project upfront before they begin work. That money is held into an account and then gets released immediately once tasks within that project are completed. This way the client knows that their money is safe until the job gets done, and the service provider knows that they will get paid and they’ll get paid on time. Trustio is our solution to solving the problem in service based solutions.

The gig economy where service providers are chasing after clients for weeks and months to finally get paid or not get paid at all. We want to bring trust and peace of mind to every service transaction. So if you are a digital agency owner, a freelancer, a home contractor or consultant you can use Trustio to solve your cash flow problem and make sure you get paid.

How has your mindset changed on your career and entrepreneurship?

I grew up and my dad was in the military. He was very risk averse and had planned everything out. I grew up and had my whole life kind of planned out for me. I was going to be in the Air Force as a pilot, then I was going to retire and become an airline pilot, and then around 45 years old I was going to start a business — it has always been my dream.

But I realized in college after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, my brain just exploded. I can do that now — I don’t have to wait. I don’t have to wait till this eventual date to actually start this process and all the things that I need to learn.

How do you receive meaningful feedback to update your product?

When the customers are in the setting up process I actually go and chat with them and just get their feedback — what do you like about this and what don’t you like? Whether it’s emails, phone calls, or in person things, I really wanted to be there and know what they’re thinking.

In the last four months we launched a second version. But before we gave it out to contractors, I actually went out and started a side hustle to self fund this venture and to get real world feedback from clients — how the service provider sees this app, what they want, but also the client, how do they see it, what they like, and what they don’t like about it.

I started building garden sheds, green houses, fences, and home remodeling projects — I’ve been pretty busy the last few months. Within the first six weeks, I had already closed remotely about $45,000 worth of business. I think its pretty unheard of in-terms of home services to be able to close those clients that I never even met. I was able to get these people to pay me upfront for their project, and I think that was pretty cool from the marketing perspective. There’s things that I found valuable working as a contractor myself these past couple months of Trustio that I didn’t see before, so it’s also helped improve our marketing and messaging.

What are you working on now with Trustio, and how do you support your team through this?

I would say, in terms of where we’re at in terms of development, it’s mostly what’s in front of us. We’ve been working on version three of Trustio, which is more of a pro account feature that allows a contractor or digital agency owner that’s working with subcontractors to receive funding for that project. That money immediately goes into each subcontractor’s account, but it’s held until they complete their tasks. It’s a way for anyone thats working on a bigger scale with multiple parties to stay safe in that transaction

Each week we meet on Mondays to see what we got done last week and what are the problems facing us? We follow this routine for every meeting that we have. So that’s what happens, and then on Fridays we have another meeting for a recap of the week. What kind of planning for what we need to do for the following week?

What has been the main value you’ve found from the Exponential Impact Amplify program?

The main value for Amplify program is specifically once a month for a whole day we get to sit down and work on our businesses, rather than in. When running a business, you get so drawn into the daily tasks. Programs like this, with the mentorship involving different speakers to come in and talk to us, really gives you a chance to look at your business from the outside.

It also challenged some of the assumptions that I’ve developed over the month before, so I think that’s a really huge value of a program like this.

If you could narrow down successful entrepreneurship into three traits, what would you say those are?

Discipline

You have to do the anonymous, unglamorous, dubious tasks every day that your business requires

Resilience

You have to be willing to fail, to get knocked down, and then get up again. That’s really the core of resilience: do you get up again? For example, I’m tired, and I need to take a 10 or 15 minute break. Do I go back to work or do I stay scrolling on my phone?

Patience

This is a marathon. You definitely need to sprint at times and get stuff done, but you also need to realize the biggest part of bravery actually is being patient. It’s not just the initial charge into battle that’s brave — it’s getting up and going to fight again each day.

Want to hear more? Listen to “The People Behind Innovation” on Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify streaming services, or on Anchor with no account needed to stream.