Careers in the retail sector are a mess.

Most millennials working in retail are dissatisfied with their careers and are confused about growth opportunities.

There are 15 million people employed in US retail.

Employees in retail feel it takes too long to grow, want to get promoted faster, and are starving for career development opportunities.

Most career development tools today are not effective:

1. “One size fits all” model
   There is no one-size-fits-all development program that works for all people. In fact, there is very little evidence on what works and what doesn't.
   
2. Not available to use outside of the workplace
   Retail is 68% predominantly millennial smartphone users that wish to have more say from their mobile devices.
   
3. Are employer driven, focused on tracking and regulations
   Existing Training and Development processes and systems are not about employee growth but rather about compliance and about tracking employee activity to meet regulations.
   

It’s cheaper for Retailers to invest in existing employees than to find new ones.

• 66% of employers that are hiring have open positions for which they say they cannot find qualified candidates.
  

• It costs companies $3,328 to find, hire and train a replacement for a $10/hour retail employee. That’s way over 2M incurred cost per year for a 1,000 employee count retailer.

• The national average cost incurred on extended job vacancies is almost a $1M.

With madeBOS, employees bridge the requirement gap to get the job or promotion

madeBOS empowers employees to proactively manage their career development by:

• Showing real career opportunities available

• Creating an individualized plan to reach these opportunities

• Exposing development plan and activity with mentors and other company influencers

madeBOS adds transparency to the career development process and makes each user accountable to their own progress.

• madeBOS replaces and automates the Individual Development Plan process.

• Employees do not have to wait for their managers to deliver scheduled reviews that could take months to a year.

• Employees work daily towards their growth plan progress.   

madeBOS helps managers make right decisions by giving them access to insights on employees progression.

• Our software facilitates transparent and effective hiring and promotion decisions and allows candidates to access objective and immediate feedback if they were not selected.

• Employees join the company’s talent pool for their top career selection triggering leadership and other influencers that could support them through the process.

How it Works

For the Employee:

Naomi, a cashier at Walmart, is currently pursuing her BA and unaware of long-term company career opportunities.

In 4 simple steps, Naomi creates her career development plan.

Naomi’s HR manager:

1. Sees Naomi’s (and other employees’) personal career plans and progression activity

2. Better allocates learning & development resources

3. Makes objective and strategic talent investments

Traction

The madeBOS “formula” is based on 10+ years of experience giving people individualized plans to grow and develop professionally. Below are some recent stories of those who attest the formula has proven to work.

“I couldn't understand why after receiving my master’s degree I spent over 6 months unemployed failing close to a dozen interviews. madeBOS inspired self-confidence and incited a drive to accomplish what I hadn't thought I could, it gave me a tangible plan that I was easily able to follow – and it worked!”

"I was in a role where I was not utilizing my natural strengths and abilities. madeBOS recognized this and realigned my focus to a role that would allow me to use my talents. It showed me what I was capable of and gave me a plan to get there.”

"As a manager I was pretty content. However, madeBOS showed me I was capable of more and put a plan in place to earn my Bachelor’s Degree! In addition to my education plan, I was able to learn more about myself and what I did really well in my career and be able to focus on those strengths immediately."

"But more than that, it helped me build a pathway to my goals and ultimately success. The madeBOS formula sets plans and drives users to execute them step by step effectively. “

People Operations Executives at companies like Abra, Mi Pueblo, and The Save Mart Companies are excited about the upcoming madeBOS app.

“madeBOS is creating user driven career paths to alleviate the confusion for people seeking advancement”
–Angela Mills-Dixon, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, Executive Director, HR, The Save Mart Companies

Developing and retaining talent is consistently one of the top three concerns of CEO's, yet many organizations haven't solved for the challenge yet. madeBOS comes to the rescue with a powerful solution to engage your employees in the process, empower your organization to meet their needs and leverage the latest science and technology to make development simple and effective."
–Daniel Sonsino, Founder, Guia Consulting, madeBOS Advisor

"I am encouraged with the forward thinking of madeBOS, and how it aligns with ABRA’s Corporate immediate goal of becoming the Employer of choice.The concept of customizing this product, with our specific needs further piques our interest. We are establishing a focus group, to dial in on our priorities of how this product could best serve our needs, and look forward to more interaction toward our partnership with madeBOS."
–Greg Peeters, Regional VP at ABRA Auto Body & Glass

Business model

madeBOS will draw revenue from two sources:

Business users:

Individual users:

Downloading the app for the general public is free, however, unlocking next level of app usability charges the independent user a small $2.99 annual fee.

Market

Initially our plan is to focus on retailers pained by turnover and are value aligned, however, other major industries such as hospitality, service, manufacturing, claim they also suffer a talent gap and face significant turnover issues.

Competition

*Employers pay, on average $10 per employee, per year on Learning and Development Systems.
**madeBOS adds several solution layers and still presents a 20% savings.

Our biggest differentiators

• We are mobile

• We provide flexible, actionable and attainable plans

• We integrate external resources in the plan
  

• We act independently but collaboratively with Talent Management and Learning and Development Systems

• We meet employees where they are at in their development process
  
  

Major Competitor Flaws

• Web-employer site based

• Focus on internal learning resources limiting potential employee creativity regarding their growth

• Provide one-size-fits-all solutions or resources that are not user driven or user adaptive

• Honor traditional tactics where managers access information through the software solution but they have to deliver and collect data manually, opening for subjectivity to take part in the process.

Growth strategies

1. Direct sales to companies

2. Strategic partnerships with:

1. Job aggregators and social recruiting platforms

2. Talent acquisition and talent management platforms

3. Learning and development solutions

4. Educational Institutions

3. Word of mouth

Use of funds

We are raising to hire the right people to develop the technology behind the madeBOS app. We need to hire key talent in development and engineering. People are our greatest asset, and as such we are looking to create an environment that will attract the best talent.

Timeline

madeBOS product v.1 is under development coming in September 2017.

Team and Story

My name is Martha Hernandez and I love helping people reach their full potential. 

I began my career supporting underrepresented students acquire the necessary skills to attend college. Later I found that getting teenagers into college was only part of the equation. I learned that ½ of recent college graduates take jobs that do not require a college degree and at the same time, employers are starved for qualified talent.

As a Talent Acquisition executive with over 10 years of experience, I learned that the talent gap problem is too big to fix one company at a time and thus decided to build a scalable, global solution. 

I am excited about combining my experience in sales, talent strategy, selection methodology, technical product sourcing, business requirements understanding, systems integration, implementation and compliance plus what I love most, selecting, developing and managing highly effective teams.

Growing up I struggled to navigate Oakland public schools. I made it to and through Occidental College thanks to the TRIO program, Upward Bound, completed the Mills College Institute for Civic Leadership Program, graduated from prestigious leadership development programs such as Coro Fellow Program in Public Affairs and ML4T (Management Leadership for Tomorrow) even though all odds were against me. 

I didn’t even speak English but when my mentor, Romeo Garcia said to me, “if you stick to the plan, you will have a career”, I understood and believed him. 

It took one mentor to believe in me and show me whom I could become. Since then, every day I make sure to stick to the plan.

Our team

Like me, the madeBOS team members and advisors also have amazing stories to tell and can relate to our target demographic. Together, we are experts in software and mobile development, talent management, talent engagement, business strategy, workforce development, operations, finance, development, marketing and analytics. 

Our advisors

Our advisors are supporting madeBOS because they understand the problem enterprises face and because they believe that our solution can position us to be the first to actually solve the growing talent challenges.

Join us

We are thrilled about madeBOS’ impact in people’s prosperity. With your investment, today we can all pay it forward and give people around the world the chance to live a more fulfilling and financially sustainable life. Thanks to industry experts such as the madeBOS team and advisors we are positioned to compete in this market.

Bet bold for opportunity and Invest in madeBOS! Thank you.