See a Need, Start a Company
Written by Shala Hainer Tuesday, September 20 2011
Snapshot: Sara Sutton Fell, founder, FlexJobs
Sara Sutton Fell turned a personal challenge into a thriving business – twice. When she was pregnant with her first child in 2007, she began searching for a job that would allow her to further her professional career, but one that offered a flexible schedule to allow her to spend more time with her son. Frustrated at the lack of legitimate jobs that met her criteria – part-time, freelance, or telecommuting positions – she founded FlexJobs.
Starting a successful business wasn't new to Fell: While in college, 21-year-old Fell co-founded the entry-level job listing service JobDirect, which she later sold to Korn/Ferry International. Tapping into the power of the then-new internet, Fell and her partner designed a service to help college students connect with employers, an idea that was born out of their difficult experiences searching for internships. Using award-winning marketing techniques, Fell helped drive the business from 5,000 users during its first few months to 750,000 at the time of the sale.
Fell brings that entrepreneurial passion to FlexJobs. She and her team of 16 employees seek legitimate, professional, flexible opportunities for their more than 125,000 subscribers. Her commitment to her work stems from more than personal experience and recognizing the need for parents to find a better balance between work and family. Fell sees the potential that flexible work situations offer for the future, including reducing lost work due to illness, lowering turnover ratios by increasing job satisfaction, allowing people to relocate without losing their jobs, and reducing the carbon footprint of businesses by no longer requiring staff to travel to work daily.
Fell lives in Boulder, Colo., with her husband, Jason, two sons, ages 3 and 4, and a chocolate lab. Finding her own work/life balance means she has more time to enjoy her friends and family, cooking, gardening, mountain biking, and skiing.
Womenetics: Having started two companies from scratch, how did you find funding for both? Did you reinvest money from the sale of JobDirect to fund the startup of FlexJobs?
Sara Sutton Fell: My first company was initially funded by personal loans (for us), friends, family, and angel investors. We did end up having venture capital firms invest as well after several years. And to fund my second company, I did invest in FlexJobs, and we also have a great group of angel investors.
Womenetics: You've said before that it was a tough decision to begin charging job seekers a subscription service fee rather than charging companies to list their jobs. What difference has that change made for FlexJobs?
Fell: The decision has allowed us to focus on job seekers as our clients and to really focus on improving the job search experience for them. In this day and age, the job search experience is generally very frustrating, with lots of junk, ads, and scams mixed in with job leads, among other problems. We are working for our customers to remove that pain point. Also, we know that we are going against the current, so we have to be that much better to succeed. When our competition is free, we have to really make sure that we offer a truly great service in order to have people give us a chance and use us.
Womenetics: What percentage of your clients are women? How are the needs of your job-seeking female clients different than those of your male clients? For example, are they more in need of part-time work, a flexible schedule, or the ability to telecommute?
Fell: Our audience is about 60/40, women to men. Generally, women are looking more for telecommuting, flexible schedules, and professional part-time jobs, and men slightly more for freelance jobs. But having said that, our users’ interests really do overlap, and they seem open to most flexible opportunities even if they thought initially they only wanted a telecommuting job, for example.
Womenetics: How do you market your FlexJobs site? How do you incorporate social networking?
Fell: We market FlexJobs through many channels, including social media, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, trusted partners and affiliates, and press. We keep our eyes open to different opportunities, with the common factors being that we want to present ourselves through trusted sources that emphasize quality and integrity. We are continually exploring social media, particularly Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and we are using them to build our presence, to communicate with users, and spread the word that a service like ours – that focuses on professional and legitimate jobs – even exists.
Womenetics: How do you and your employees embrace the ideals behind FlexJobs, such as working from home? How has this offered you a rewarding work experience?
Fell: All of our team members embrace the ideals behind FlexJobs and have reasons why workplace flexibility resonates for them in their lives. It definitely provides a more rewarding work experience because this isn’t just a “punch the clock” for any of us. It’s a job we all believe in and that ultimately helps people find jobs that better fit their lives and which can in turn benefit their families, friends, communities, and even our environments (there are so many green benefits to telecommuting and alternative schedule jobs.).
Womenetics: How is the thrill of building a successful business different as a mom than it was as a young college student?
Fell: I get more excited now about the gratification of creating a company that is doing something good and something I really believe in -- I’m sure because, in part, if I didn’t feel that way it would be really hard to choose work over my children. And while I felt that with my first company, too, there was a whole other element of adventure with my first company and being so young – the media, the conferences, the national tours – it was all really active and energetic and high profile. This time around, I am also MUCH more aware of how my “work” fits into my “life” and the balance between the two whereas in my first company, I pretty much ate, slept, breathed work.
Womenetics: What characteristics do many stay-at-home moms possess that make them your ideal demographic?
Fell: Many moms are the CEOs of their households – they are often college educated, highly capable, and truly eager to find jobs that would allow them an opportunity to use their intellects in a way that also allows them to be dedicated to their families. Also, there are many skills (time management, multitasking, negotiation, diplomacy, etc.) that are very transferrable to work and beneficial to employers. Finally, many stay-at-home moms have had careers before they started their families and chose to leave the “work force” because it was near impossible to find job opportunities that allowed them to comfortably do both. That, thankfully, is changing.
Womenetics: Have you seen a change in your market demographics or in the motivation of your clients to seek out your site since the economic downturn?
Fell: Yes, we have seen a broadening in both our audience of job seekers as well as the types of jobs and companies hiring for jobs with flexibility options. Because the traditional full-time, on-site jobs aren’t as readily available, people are looking outside of the box for different kinds of opportunities, and often outside of their local areas.
Womenetics: What are your plans for the future of FlexJobs? Are you expanding to other countries?
Fell: Our biggest plan for FlexJobs is to continue growing the awareness about our service and the many benefits of flexible work, both for job seekers and employers. We are reaching out to employers more than we have in the past, adding on more features and functionality for our users, and focusing on creative marketing strategies.
Womenetics: How do you think freelance and telecommuting jobs might change the professional landscape?
Fell: I believe freelance and telecommuting jobs are trends that are here to stay, especially with telecommuting. There are numerous movements in the work force that support them, such as Gen Y’s innate mobility, the environmental benefits of telecommuting, and the need for emergency preparedness (severe weather, swine flu, and other pandemics), to name just a few.
Womenetics: What advice do you have for women who have an idea for a new business but aren't sure whether they should move forward?
Fell: If you can’t get an idea out of your head and really think there may be a window of opportunity, I recommend taking the initiative to really do your research on the industry, potential competitors, and funding options. Through the research, if you find yourself getting discouraged, that’s not a good sign. But in the case you find yourself getting more and more fired up – well, that IS a good sign.
Womenetics: Do you think you would encourage your children to continue your legacy of working from home and helping other people work from home or to stick with a more traditional work environment and schedule?
Fell: I would encourage my children – and anyone -- to find a job situation that is right for them. I do not believe that there is a one-size-fits-all work situation that would make everyone happy, even as great as I think a flexible-schedule, telecommuting job is for me. People are in different stages of life, have different personalities, different work ethics, and different strengths and weaknesses, so what defines a “great work situation” for each person might be different and might evolve through their lives. But the point for me is that there should be legitimate options. The traditional work environment and schedule was set up in a time when most families had one working parent (the father), and the mother was responsible for the home and children. It’s pretty clear to me that having two parents with a traditional work situation has inherent challenges, and that with all of the technology we have available to us, we should embrace flexibility as much as possible.
Based near Atlanta, Shala Hainer has been writing and copyediting since 1995. Beginning her career at newspapers such as the Marietta Daily Journal and the Atlanta Business Chronicle, she most recently wrote and edited articles for several nonprofit organizations before purchasing a flower shop in 2006. She earned a bachelor’s in communications from Jacksonville State University.
