Page 22 - Forbes - Asia (March 2020)

ENTREPRENEURS
By Vicky Valet Photograph by Michael Prince for Forbes

LinkedIn for

the Working Class
20

Jobcase is building a social networking site for warehouse employees and waitresses.

S

Sasha Contreras despaired
when she had to quit her $12-an-hour Xerox
customer service job and uproot her life in Yelm,
Washington. Her husband was starting work as
a chef at a casino in rural Mississippi in Febru-
ary 2016. A year later she discovered he was hav-
ing an affair. Unemployed and alone, she spent
every waking moment searching Google for jobs,
then discovered Jobcase, a social media job-
search platform for blue-collar and service-in-
dustry workers.
“That site literally changed my life,” says Con-
treras, 55. A free sign-up granted her access to
millions of job listings and a stream of helpful
posts written by strangers, many of whom were
also searching for work. Through a link posted
by a member, in late July 2017 she got a custom-
er service job that paid $10 an hour. Two years
later Jobcase led her to another customer service
job that paid $13 an hour. Though she’s not look-
ing to make a move, she logs on to Jobcase daily.
“If I see something that touches me, I’ll respond
because I remember what it was like to be look- complish—create a site where the 80% of work- Jobcase founder
ing,” she says. ing-age Americans without a four-year college de- Frederick Goff at
his headquarters
“We’ve got to do this for everybody,” says Fred- gree can network, find jobs and manage their ca- in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. In 1991
erick Goff, Jobcase’s founder and CEO, after hear- reers. (A LinkedIn spokesperson says its mission he hitchhiked from
ing Contreras’ story. When he founded the Cam- has always been to support the entire workforce.) Toledo to New York
City to land his first
bridge, Massachusetts-based company in 2015, he Goff has raised $118.5 million at a valuation full-time job.
set out to do what LinkedIn hasn’t been able to ac- for Jobcase that Pitchbook has at $445 million.

F ORBES A SIA MAR CH 2020