Just Go Grind #163: Adam Jackson, Co-Founder and CEO of Braintrust, the World's First User-Controlled Talent Network, on Inverting the Economics of the Marketplace Model, Advice for Fundraising and Investing, and Being a Marketplace Entrepreneur
Adam Jackson is the co-founder and CEO of Braintrust, the world’s first user-controlled talent platform-- one that aligns incentives, removes expensive middlemen and gives value and control back to talent and organizations. Braintrust’s unique network model allows talent to retain 100% of their market rate, while enabling organizations to pull together flexible teams of highly-skilled technical and design talent, no matter where they’re located. Organizations ensure budgets go 2-3 times further by cutting out unnecessary, expensive middle men. This new business model of minimizing fees and enabling users to control the network is uniquely enabled by a blockchain token.
Adam is a serial technology entrepreneur and investor that has spent his career creating and deploying capital into software systems that make complex tasks simple and intuitive. He has founded 4 VC-backed companies and an asset management company over the last 16 years.
In August, 2017 he co-founded Cambrian Asset Management, a blockchain asset management company. In 2012, he co-founded and served as CEO of Doctor On Demand, a healthcare service that provides video visits with board-certified physicians and psychologists. Doctor On Demand delivers services through employers, health systems, health plans, and directly to consumers and has raised $165M in VC.
Adam's previous business, DriverSide was founded in 2007 and was acquired by Advance Auto Parts in September of 2011. His first venture-backed business, MarketSquare, founded in 2004, was the first online local shopping destinations on the Internet. It was acquired by Intuit in September of 2006.
Adam is an angel investor in 45+ companies/projects, including: Bolt, Placer, Aktana, Skale Labs, Protocol Labs, JCTurbo, Apero Health, Rapportive, MyTime, Automatic, Womply, Superhuman and Zenefits.
Connect with Adam Jackson
Some of the Topics Covered by Adam Jackson in this Episode
- What is Braintrust and how Adam came up with the idea
- The problem with two-sided marketplaces
- How Braintrust is inverting disastrous marketplace economics and the complexities that come with building a new model
- Using their own marketplace to hire freelancers to build Braintrust
- Braintrust's business model
- Acquisition on the enterprise side of the business
- How COVID has led to incredible growth for Braintrust
- Adam's advice for building marketplaces
- The challenge of fundraising for Braintrust
- Adam's experience founding Doctor on Demand
- Adam's entrepreneurial spirit and being "unemployable"
- How Adam approached his exits and transitions
- Adam's experience as an angel investor and deciding to be an LP
- The big vision for Braintrust
- Why Braintrust is Adam's passion and how he manages his time
Links from the Episode