Talia Friedman is the Co-Founder of WERKZY. While still studying at New York University, Talia took an internship at the global auction house, Sotheby’s, and never left. Over the next 18 years of her career at Sotheby’s, Talia held various roles, including most recently as head of the firm’s Los Angeles office. Talia lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children. While there were many exciting and glamorous moments working for one of the world’s premier auction houses, her most unique professional experience was in college serving as a foot model for a friend’s shoe company.
What is WERKZY all about?
WERKZY is the only online marketplace exclusively for small businesses searching for professional talent. Part-time, full-time, contract-based, or project based, WERKZY is the one-stop shop!
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
Asya Geller and I worked together for 10 years at the global luxury auction house Sotheby’s. When we both decided to leave in early 2020, we were discussing our next professional moves and were both looking for something that would be equally flexible and meaningful. As we started our search, we found there were limited platforms offering these types of opportunities. As 2020 evolved, with small businesses AND women being so disproportionately affected by the economic crisis, we knew we had to build WERKZY.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
Finding great talent! As we were building our “team”, including outsourced professionals, it was really challenging even just finding great resources and recommendations. That said, the search to find these people only reiterated to us the need for our own platform!
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
Give yourself time to build out your product and team. Once we really decided to make this happen we were all-systems-go. But we didn’t realize how long finding talent or refining our messaging and building our product would take. We were often setting up meetings when we weren’t yet ready because we just wanted to keep moving forward. It’s better to delay a launch or meeting to get things right than to meet some arbitrary deadline you assigned in your mind. It’s also important to remember that success does not come overnight. Even those incredible stories of success are NEVER overnight. So allow yourself the time it takes to grow.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I read the HARO emails every day! It’s how we wound up in the Washington Post and how we wound up here!
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
Two books that were instrumental in founding our company were “The Lean Startup” and “The Membership Economy”. The former helped motivate us to bootstrap and keep momentum. The latter helped shape our business model and messaging.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
We are learning so much about what actually drives our members and their previous pain points. We vet every member, so we have the opportunity to really quantitatively and qualitatively learn how to best design our platform for them.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
I didn’t realize this, but I COULD NOT have done this without my partner. Asya and I are not only great partners in terms of our complimentary skill-set but having someone you trust entirely but also LIKE helps make the hard days manageable and the great days a blast! 2020 was also filled with a lot of personal struggles for both of us, and having a partner to pick up the heavy lifting on days when one of us has a full plate has been something I could never have anticipated needing as much as we each did. Plus, while a spouse or best friend is cheering you on is great, when you have a win it’s the best feeling to have a partner to share in the triumphs.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Social media – paid and organic. We are trying to build a membership community, so having our own platform really leans into that idea. And we are loving engaging with both the small businesses and the talent.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
Buy a website domain, become an expert in Canva and then work on building an amazing deck to fundraise! 🙂
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Do your research and try and meet as many people in your field as possible. Many of them will be supportive and many will be critical. Listen and take away what makes the most sense. You will never find 100% buy-in. But for those with constructive criticism, look at it as someone pointing to a crack in your ship. Maybe they are giving you the opportunity to plug it up before it becomes a giant whole. It’s not always easy to take criticism but it also shouldn’t be a reason to give up!
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
When I have certain tasks to do – design, content creation, etc – I turn my phone on to “Do Not Disturb”. I’ll check it every 20-30 minutes to see if there is something time-sensitive, but those texts and alerts can otherwise be SO distracting!
What is your favorite quote?
Currently, the one that speaks to where we are in growth, as well as to what our entire platform is about is …
” The smartest thing I ever did was to hire my weakness.”
– Sara Blakely
How is running a company different than what you thought it would be?
I knew that when it is yours there is no such thing as 9-5. What I couldn’t fully appreciate is that even weekends and vacations don’t really ever feel off. You are always seeing things that bring up other ideas or talking to people and getting new insights. That said, it’s so exciting to constantly be motivated to do the best work for YOUR company.
How can readers get in touch with you?
talia@werkzy.com
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