IMPACT 0544: CREATING JOBS FOR STUDENTS, HOMEMAKERS AND SENIORS
Youth Action Challenge (YAC) is a platform for youth to provide solutions that tackle the issues we are concerned about. Since October 2021, over 80 teams and more than 310 youths have undertaken the YAC Season 3 journey.
Nicholas Lim, 26, is the CEO of Outside, a company that creates bite-sized earning opportunities for the untapped labour markets such as homemakers, students and seniors, so that they can earn flexibly while juggling their responsibilities.
Today, he shares more about his journey with Outside.
What was your role within your YAC project?
As the CEO of Outside, I’m in charge of business development – sales, partnerships, operations and a lot of paperwork.
What motivated you to join YAC?
I came across YAC on LinkedIn when I saw projects done by previous years’ participants. I also heard directly from one of the project founders that he had gotten a lot of opportunities and support from the programme. As an early stage start-up addressing an issue that requires a lot of support, I was really intrigued and excited at the possibilities and opportunities that could come about if we participated in the programme.
Can you share with us your experience with your YAC project?
We had access to masterclasses that covered the bases of entrepreneurship, as well as access to industry mentors who are well connected and experienced. We’ve gotten to learn a lot from their input and I’m really glad that we decided to join the program.
What are some challenges you faced while working on your YAC project?
As we’re working to create the future of work, there’s a lot of “education” required when reaching out to potential clients and partners. We did not know how to best present our ideas and reach out to the right people to pitch our solution, hence the narrative and selling point for the project was definitely one of the harder challenges that we faced.
Aside from that, as the platform is essentially a micro job marketplace, we needed to ensure that there was a supply and demand match. It took us a while to figure out which side we should be focusing on and also to set up systems to help us scale up our outreach and impact effectively.
Could you share more on how your project has a positive impact?
One in four Singaporeans, which is approcimately over one million people, above the age of 15 are currently not in the workforce due to family commitments, health restrictions, education level and/or lack of training. Outside creates flexible opportunities for these individuals in the untapped labour market to work conveniently and earn reliably while catering to their personal responsibilities.
I believe that Outside can serve as an alternate form of hiring for businesses that will allow for effective spending, while also allowing for a greater work-life harmony for individuals who require our solution for micro-work.
Were there any key takeaways or learning points from your time with YAC?
The journey with YAC allowed us to validate the problem we are working on along with the solution that we are creating. We’ve gotten a lot of interest and good feedback from the public via the YAC website, judges and mentors. This has given us a confidence boost – that we are working on a solution that can help to improve people’s lives and potentially pioneer the future of work.
This article was published on Apr 27, 2022
