New company gets IT professionals hired the Hollywood way

We all know that celebrities have agents to handle their careers. We may never have heard of many A-listers had it not been for the talent agencies behind them.

If you’re in IT, wouldn’t it be nice if a talent agency was backing up your career?

Well, that could be a reality now, thanks to 10XManagement.

10XManagement is a talent agency for coders, programmers and information technology professionals.

The premise behind 10XManagement is simple: It only represents the best programmers and IT professionals around. As a result, it is building a reputation for being the go-to company when a company needs someone with top-notch technology skills.

10XManagement is the brainchild of a freelance web development professional and two talent managers.

Altay Guvench is an expert JavaScript and Ruby on Rails programmer.  After graduating from Harvard University, Guvench became an alumnus at Y Combinator, which is a known startup accelerator.  In between crunching codes, Guvench also plays in a band.

Guvench had a bandmate who was friends with the founders of Brick Wall Management, Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg.  Solomon and Blumberg’s company was responsible for jump-starting the careers of John Mayer and Vanessa Carlton, among others.

This is how the tech talent agency was born.

A programmer no longer has to spend time scouring job ads just to land a work-at-home or freelance gig.  They can focus on what they do best and just earn money.

Companies will basically be gaining access to a talent bank, so they can find the perfect individual for their technical needs in no time.

10XManagement takes care of all contract negotiations from deal structuring to payments to terms. This frees both parties from haggling and hassling each other even before the work has started.

A recurring problem for companies looking for freelancers is the fact that any person could easily lie about his or her qualifications just to snatch the job.  Companies can end up hiring the wrong person and paying more because of mistakes they made. In addition, it wastes a lot of time.

On the flip side, freelancers have to worry if the work is stable and if they’ll get paid in a reasonable time frame.

With 10XManagement, both parties can gain a certain degree of credibility and trust.

There are a lot of job marketplaces for IT nowadays.  But, it is inherently a “buyer-beware” market.  10XManagement is more than just a temp staffing company that tries to plug holes when a programmer quits.  The talent who works with the company is assured a steady stream of work.

For companies, 10XManagement takes the guesswork and the waiting out of the entire process of hiring. 

Take a look at 10XManagement’s list of clients:

• Google
• Mozilla
• The White House
• Microsoft
• Apple
• Warner Bros.
• The World Bank
• CitiBank
• Intel
• Academia.edu
• Harvard University
• Stanford University
• Funders Club

10X Management works with companies of any size and budget.  Freelance technology professionals can get the chance to work with some of the best companies around. How much better could that get?

Here’s a Q&A we did with Solomon to give you more insight.

TrainSignal: What kind of IT workers do you represent?

Michael Solomon: Very high-level freelance technology professionals. That includes all flavors of developers, project managers, designers, data science, data visualization and hardware specialists.

TS: What feedback have you received from your talent and/or clients?
MS: So far, everything is working exactly as we hoped and is even exceeding our expectations. We have now had tremendous feedback from our talent who really enjoy and value our services. We have a backlog of many hundreds in the tech talent community who would like to have us represent them. 

We are now moving away from proof of concept and into scaling, which is challenging as we view this company as a personal services business. We can create many efficiencies with technology but ultimately, we can only scale as quickly as we can maintain this level of service.

On the customer side, we are seeing repeat customers who come back asking no questions about who we will send them as they have grown to know, our people deliver. They are trusting that if it is a 10xer, they will be happy. That was our ultimate goal. We have a way to go before the public at large thinks of us in those terms, but that is exactly where we want to go. We have also started to get calls and emails from Fortune 500 companies who see the value in our clients.

Finally, we are beginning to see the VC world pointing their companies toward us since the biggest waste of their money is having portfolio companies burning through their investment, while spending months trying to find the right in house team. Sure, our people cost more per hour than having an in-house person, but not when you factor in the opportunity cost of a whole company sitting around for months before they get to an MVP.

TS: Is this Hollywood-type hiring the answer to employing a qualified tech professional?
MS: Having come out of the music business and co-founding 10x, I believe it is and we are already seeing why it works.

TS: Can this be the future of the tech workforce?
MS: It can and it will be. The supply and demand equation for talented people is not pretty, and their value will continue to rise as the shortage grows. Even if immigration laws change and more people are imported from other parts of the world, there is still going to be an overall shortage, and of course there is always going to be scarcity for the best of the best.

TS: How are you making money out of your business?
MS: Our clients pay us a percentage of their contracting income.

TS: Do you get a percentage of your hourly rate or are companies paying you a flat fee to recruit for them? Or both?
MS: The companies who hire our contractors don’t pay us anything. We are paid exclusively by our clients. The deals can be either flat fee or hourly depending on the needs of the customer.

TS: In your opinion, how profitable is this type of business?
MS: We are committed to this for the long haul so we believe in it. The value proposition works for all parties involved.

Our clients get great jobs that meet their lifestyle and financial goals. Our customers get access to fantastic talent much faster than they can find it anywhere else. We get the satisfaction of providing great service to both those masters and making money while doing it.

TS: Do you think Silicon Valley is ready for this type of hiring?
MS: Absolutely. The hiring model is broken and we can really help move this in the right direction.

TS: From the many tech professionals you’re managing now, what tech skill-set is the most in-demand?
MS: Ruby, Python, iOS and Android.

TS: What is the most in-demand profession (computer programmer, web developer, web designer, data analyst, technical writer, etc)?
MS: Developers are in the highest demand.

TS: What is the difference between 10xmanagement and a temp agency or a headhunting service?
MS: We are dealing with the highest level talent and we are paid by them, which makes us closer to CAA than GoodTemps.

Website: http://www.10xmanagement.com/

Email: info@10xmanagement.com

Phone: (212) 501-0748

Twitter: @10xmgmt

10x has offices in New York and San Francisco.