Cleo Capital Thesis: Blue-Collar Work Enablement
Cleo Capital is a thesis-driven fund and in addition to our previous focus areas, we are newly focused on 3 key areas: Blue-Collar Work Enablement, Cross-Border FinTech, and Cybersecurity. We invest from pre-seed to series B. No one is too early for us to fund.
This article is part of a series explaining our thesis areas and the specific markets we are interested in.
Blue-Collar Work Enablement
We seek to fuel economic growth in blue-collar jobs by enabling workers at every stage of their career.
Do well in high school, get into a good university, get a well-paying white-collar job — for billions of people, that was the ultimate dream. There was the overarching perception that white-collar jobs were somehow more lucrative than blue-collar ones, and that success meant having a job where you sat at a desk all day. However, we seem to have overshot the mark, resulting in an imminent blue-collar labor shortage, projected at 85 million workers by 2030, with an $8.5 trillion annual economic loss for the US alone. It’s time to not only shift the perception of blue-collar jobs – but also their place in society.
Refocus the American dream
A university education provides a great return on investment if you are able to find a job with which you can earn enough money to pay back your loans. Unfortunately, those cases are becoming few and far between. Over 42.8 million people have US federal student loan debt, which averages $37,853 each. It's an amount not many people are able to pay back with their salaries.
Blue-collar workers — which traditionally consist of those in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, maintenance, and trades, though can also be expanded to include transportation, hospitality, fitness, retail, travel, and other sectors — often do not require a three-or-four-year bachelor’s degree to enter the field. Many can enter the workforce with little to no student debt, and have the potential to earn over $40 per hour, making around $83,000 per year. With the Average American household income at $74,755, blue-collar workers have the potential to succeed financially, often making just as much as or more than white-collar employees.
In addition to good pay, many blue-collar workers have the opportunity to join a union, which provides worker protection, regulated hours, and healthcare coverage.
A blue-collar revival
Blue-collar workers make up roughly 15 percent of the American workforce. Even with a severe labor shortage in many areas of blue-collar work, many blue-collar jobs are expected to grow immensely over the next decade. For example, taxi drivers have a projected growth rate of 26 percent while industrial mechanics and millwrights have a growth rate of 14 percent.
As the job market shifts, so do people’s sentiments. Social media has recently seen the rise of superstar blue-collar workers and supporters like Mike Rowe, who runs a foundation supporting students entering the skilled trades, and Melissa Petersmann, also known as the diesel queen, who is a heavy equipment mechanic.
These social media influencers showcase the benefits of being in the blue-collar workforce, which is something not previously promoted in popular media. Younger generations as well as those currently in the workforce are seeing that blue-collar workers have the potential to earn a great living while doing something they enjoy — all the while avoiding being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt.
We seek to boost blue-collar jobs in all their forms
In our post-industrialized world, we initially chose to leave blue-collar jobs behind in favor of knowledge-worker positions. As a whole, we are now realizing that life is miserable without the blue-collar workforce. If there is a shortage of construction workers, plumbers, or hotel cleaners, society as a whole suffers.
We seek to fund startups that boost blue-collar jobs in a multitude of ways, from streamlining real-time pay to providing loans for professional development. Thematically, this thesis area is an evolution in the investments we have already made in startups that decentralize the enterprise and enhance the future of income. While many blue-collar workers are part of large organizations and unions, others are independently running their own small businesses or contracting their services to multiple organizations. There is no one way to make a living as a blue-collar worker, and we are exploring the many ways in which it is possible for them to rewrite the classic American dream.
What are some examples of startups that enable blue-collar work? The field is wide and varied.
A to B offers the trucking industry fuel savings, such as through fuel cards and a large discount network. One of its products is a real-time map that shows fuel prices that truckers can check while on route to their destinations so they know the best places to fill up. Tools like these support blue-collar businesses small and large, helping them manage operations and increase profits.
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company that uses artificial intelligence and comprehensive data aggregation to conduct operations in over 60 projects across the globe. These types of startups take innovation to another level, raising the bar in their industry and elevating blue-collar workers to the top of their fields.
Designed for the health, fitness, and wellness space, Playbook enables coaches to create a digital business, monetize their expertise, and reach a large online audience. These types of startups help blue-collar workers expand their often-local work on a large geographical scale, reaching people they would not have contact with otherwise.
Another example of blue-collar enablement, is startup StyleSeat. Designed specifically for the beauty industry, StyleSeat helps people find and book beauty professionals in their area. These types of startups are necessary to help consumers find and hire blue-collar businesses and individuals.
Cleo Capital: Request for Startups
Success comes in different forms. For some, success looks like a fast-paced office job For others, success is blue-collar work. Society needs both — and it’s how we combat the multi-trillion-dollar labor shortage.
In order to support blue-collar work enablement and the many ways in which blue-collar workers can find success, we are looking for the following types of startups. However, there are no hard and fast rules — if your startup doesn’t fit into any of these categories but still enables blue-collar work, we want to hear from you.
Operations and human resources: Recruiting, hiring, payroll, real-time pay, scheduling, and communications — these are integral to a successful blue-collar business, no matter its size.
Workforce development: How can new blue-collar workers get into the field, gain experience, fund their education, and get accredited? We are looking for startups that offer financial assistance, mentorship, training, and other forms of support.
Small business support: Many blue-collar workers want to set up their own small business but don’t know where to start. They require legal, marketing, operations, finance, and logistical tools and expertise.
Career change: How can people from white-collar jobs switch to blue-collar ones? They need reskilling and opportunities for apprenticeships, as well as ways to apply their previous experience to blue-collar work.
Artificial intelligence: Only 1 percent of blue-collar jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI. In what ways can the other 99 percent use artificial intelligence to enhance their skills and spark economic growth?
Awareness and recruitment: The perception of blue-collar work, especially amongst generation Z and alpha, requires an overhaul. How can startups educate younger generations on what it means to be a blue-collar worker?
Consumer discovery: How can we make it easier for consumers to find, hire, and pay blue-collar workers? What tools do they need to streamline the process?
Other: Blue-collar work enablement comes in many forms. Tell us what you think it can look like.
Join us in supporting blue-collar work enablement. Get in touch at cleocap.com.