From Office to Arcade: SocialCrowd's Radical Gamification of Employee Output

David Shultz

David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.

From Office to Arcade: SocialCrowd's Radical Gamification of Employee Output
Evan Xie

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.

After he quit his job as a product manager at Google, thirty-one-year-old Raphael Akinsipe got to experience the myriad complications of managing people.

As chief growth officer for a healthtech startup called Casetabs, Akinsipe realized, he was in a position where he had to manage a larger team of people than ever before. “I was spending way more time trying to keep everyone on track versus actually doing my job of driving our business,” says Akinsipe. “I was like, ‘I feel like I could probably automate a lot of this.’”


His experience at Casetabs underlies his latest project, a software startup called SocialCrowd that helps workers and managers keep track of goals and progress by automatically rewarding employees for work they’re doing. He calls it a “Fitbit for work.” Even though you won’t need to buy a watch to use the software, the concept is the same: SocialCrowd tracks what workers are doing on the job and dolls out rewards–usually a gift card of some sort–when they hit their goals.

By interfacing with existing software used at work like Salesforce, Slack, or Square, SocialCrowd allows employers and employees to set goals, which could range from selling a certain number of milkshakes in a shift to cleaning and turning around an operating room in a certain amount of time, or even getting a certain amount of engagement or impressions on social media.

Completing goals nets workers points that are then redeemable for gift cards or other rewards. “If you're someone who manages a team of any kind, you spend a ton of time tracking their metrics, sending them reminders, … and then trying to find the right way to reward people,” says Akinsipe. “We take those three pieces and automate it for you.” SocialCrowd offers this streamlined convenience as a two-tiered subscription model for either $3.99 or $5.99 per month.

The company just closed a nearly $600,000 pre-seed round with major investments from Gala Capital Partners and VC 414, and has already signed up thousands of users on the platform after drawing attention from some big names like Motorola and Sonic Drive-In.

It may all sound a bit Big Brother-esque, but Akinsipe points out that all of the metrics that SocialCrowd is leveraging are already being tracked by employers. He cites the fact that, sales teams often post leaderboards to inspire a little competition; fast food restaurants are constantly monitoring order fulfillment times; and brand managers are are already tracking page views and engagement. In other words, if you’re going to be surveilled at work, you might as well get rewarded for what you do.

“So for a lot of the end employees, it gives them a sense … that if I hit my targets, or I hit this goal against a certain order speed, or I get a certain sales number, or I get my trainings done, I'm going to be recognized and rewarded for that instantly,” says Akinsipe.

Especially in the new age of hybrid and remote work, both employers and employees are more interested than ever in trying to measure and track worker productivity. Economists and researchers are still debating how much impact the shift has had on productivity, but the results appear mixed, or at least depend on how you measure productivity. And as Akinsipe and others have experienced, much of this reporting and tabulation tends to fall on the shoulders of managers, who may or may not enjoy that aspect of the job. With SocialCrowd, managers are freed from the new obligation, and employees no longer rely on a manager to recognize their effectiveness on the job.

SocialCrowd is still a small outfit, with just 5 employees, but the company is looking to basically double in size over the next year. Akinsipe declined to specify how many users he’s got in the pipeline for the future. But he says his projections put the number into the “hundreds of thousands” by this time next year. In addition to hospitality and sales, the company is also in talks with some big healthcare brands and construction groups. “Our pre-seed investors are all pretty committed to our next round,” says Akinsipe. “We'll be raising a significantly larger round going into the start of next year, and a lot of that's going to drive that growth.”

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LA Tech Week Day Two: Social Highlights
Evan Xie

L.A. Tech Week has brought venture capitalists, founders and entrepreneurs from around the world to the California coast. With so many tech nerds in one place, it's easy to laugh, joke and reminisce about the future of tech in SoCal.

Here's what people are saying about day two of L.A. Tech Week on social:

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LA Tech Week: Technology and Storytelling for Social Good

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech Week: Technology and Storytelling for Social Good
Photo taken by Decerry Donato

On Monday, Los Angeles-based philanthropic organization Goldhirsh Foundation hosted the Technology and Storytelling For Social Good panel at Creative Visions studio to kick off LA Tech week.

Tara Roth, president of the foundation, moderated the panel and gathered nonprofit and tech leaders including Paul Lanctot, web developer of The Debt Collective; Alexis Cabrera, executive director of 9 Dots; Sabra Williams, co-founder of Creative Acts; and Laura Gonzalez, senior program manager of Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI).

Each of the panelists are grantees of Goldhirsh Foundation’s LA2050, an initiative launched in 2011 that is continuously trying to drive and track progress toward a shared vision for the future of Los Angeles. Goldhirsh’s vision is to make Los Angeles better for all and in order to achieve their goal, the foundation makes investments into organizations, creates partnerships and utilizes social capital through community events.

The panelists shared how the work they are doing in each of their respective sectors uses technology to solve some of society's most pressing challenges and highlight the importance of tech literacy across every community.

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LA Tech Week Is Back! Here Are the Events We're Watching

Kristin Snyder

Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.

LA Tech Week Is Back! Here Are the Events We're Watching
Evan Xie

This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.


MONDAY

LA Hardtech: Local Talent Meets CEOs: Want to see robots in action? This hardtech event will showcase product demos and feature conversations about all things aircrafts, satellites, electric vehicles, robots and medical devices. June 5 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in El Segundo.

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