Welcome to another episode of Category Visionaries — the show that explores GTM stories from the tech's most innovative B2B founders. In today's episode, we're speaking with Anthony Mironov, CEO and Co-Founder of Wingspan, a payroll platform purpose-built for contingent work that has raised $30 Million in funding.
Here are the most interesting points from our conversation:
- Anthony's Background: Anthony shared his journey from private equity, focusing on payroll and benefits, to founding Wingspan. His experience in evaluating investment opportunities and a successful sale to Paychex provided him with deep insights into the payroll sector.
- Founding Wingspan: Motivated by the administrative burdens on companies and freelancers in the gig economy, Anthony, leveraging his experience as an independent consultant, founded Wingspan to tackle these challenges.
- Investor Confidence: Wingspan's vision attracted investments from prestigious firms and notable founders, signaling strong investor belief in its potential to revolutionize freelance work administration.
- Market Validation: Anthony observed early signs of the freelance work trend, which COVID-19 accelerated, reinforcing Wingspan's mission to update the outdated system of record for freelance work.
- B2B Focus Shift: Initially a direct-to-consumer model, Wingspan pivoted to a B2B focus upon realizing the scalability challenges of the former approach. This strategic shift targeted companies built on contingent work, leading to Wingspan's scalable success.
- Vision for the Future: Anthony envisions Wingspan becoming a leading financial services company for the professional services market, aiming to create a unified platform that simplifies the complexities of working independently.