Building Trust Through Technology: How WurkNow's Founder is Revolutionizing Light Industrial Staffing

Trust isn't typically the first word that comes to mind when discussing light industrial staffing. But in a recent episode of Category Visionaries, WurkNow founder Sammy Singh revealed how prioritizing trust - between workers, agencies, and employers - has shaped his company's go-to-market strategy and product development approach.

Consider this scenario: In Southern California's warehouse districts, you might find "30, 40 staffing agencies within a five mile radius," with many of them "serving the same customer," as Singh describes. Workers bounce between agencies, often getting placed in the same positions at minimum wage. Meanwhile, employers remain largely in the dark about who's showing up at their facilities.

This fragmentation creates inefficiencies and trust gaps throughout the ecosystem. Singh's response wasn't to build another point solution, but rather to tackle the entire workflow. "Our typically agency is going to use about five to eight different technologies to run their business," he explains. "We tried to make it end to end, kind of like the way HubSpot works."

This ambitious scope came with significant challenges. Singh admits they "screwed up on many by going very broad." When customers would identify gaps - "oh, how do I track the time?" - the team would build solutions, sometimes at the expense of focus. While this approach consumed time and resources, it ultimately led to a more comprehensive platform that addresses real customer pain points.

What's particularly noteworthy about WurkNow's GTM strategy is their emphasis on customer success over rapid scaling. "Work as hard as possible to make who you're serving as successful as possible, and it'll come back to you in leaps and bounds," Singh shares. This philosophy has driven both product development and customer acquisition.

Rather than pursuing traditional venture capital, WurkNow found success through a different path: "Everything we have raised has come from friends, people we have done business with in the past. But the largest chunk came from our own clients who looked at our software and said gosh, if you're solving this for me, I know others can use this."

This customer-centric approach extends to their implementation strategy. Despite the challenges of COVID-19, when it was "near impossible to get someone on the phone, let alone on a meeting," the team maintained their high-touch approach. As Singh notes, "Our folks are physically still showing up at clients, making sure success is occurring and then following up accordingly."

Looking ahead, Singh's vision for WurkNow is ambitious but focused: "Work now is going to be the authority of hourly labor." He envisions a future where the platform becomes essential infrastructure for the industry, "because we have a fair, equitable and amazing user base system that really flags not only the client but as well as the temporary worker."

For founders building enterprise software in regulated industries, Singh offers a counterintuitive piece of advice: "Go slow to go fast." He suggests planning in quarterly increments because "what you think will take you one month is going to take you three to five months." This measured approach helps manage both the technical complexity and the mental toll of building a company.

The results speak for themselves. WurkNow is "pretty much at track of doubling our business from last year 70% to 80% growth every month versus last year." But perhaps more importantly, they're building something that could fundamentally transform an industry that affects millions of workers and thousands of businesses.

Singh's journey offers valuable lessons for founders tackling complex enterprise problems: focus on solving real customer problems, even if it means taking on more scope than initially planned; build trust through high-touch customer service; and remember that sometimes the best growth strategy is to "go slow to go fast."