By Jenna Abdou
One of my most special interviews was with Jeff Wald, the Co-Founder and President of Work Market. Although Jeff introduced me to the rise of the soon to be trillion dollar freelance economy, I was most intrigued by his description of Phase One people — The team members who worked on the earliest iterations of Work Market.
He said, “Phase one people, there’s something a little bit wrong with them. They aren’t wearing shoes all the time. They don’t shower for a few days. They are brilliant in a very unstructured way.”
I was struck by Jeff’s declaration that he missed the early days. I assumed he was unique in that sense; How could you miss working until 4:00 a.m. seven days a week?
My recent conversation with Adrian Granzella Larssen, the Editor-in-Chief of The Muse, answered that question.
As she described the early days of Co-Founders Kathryn Minshew, Alex Cavoulacos and her squeezing on a couch, eating whatever they could, she similarly said, “I look back on those days quite fondly.”
Despite The Muse’s $10 million Series A and a thriving community of over 3 million active users, today’s success is grounded in the late nights during Phase One.
“We had crazy impromptu brainstorming sessions and no real idea of what was going to happen in a day or a week,” Adrian shared.