Custer company named one of 10 ‘Innovative Startups to Watch’
By Brandi Makuski
According to a Milwaukee trade magazine, a local startup is on the fast track to success.
Mysa, an online platform connecting vetted freelancers with businesses that need their help, has been in the beta testing phase for about a year. Founder Jeff Rice, of Custer, said he plans to formally launch the site to worldwide business within the next few months.
The company was recently featured in an issue of Milwaukee Biz Journal.
“It was an idea I had maybe two years ago, to connect small-to-medium-sized businesses with freelancers working in programming marketing, human resources, accounting…the idea is to connect local businesses with local freelancers,” Rice said.
Rice admits there are other platforms offering a similar service, but most of those don’t address location or quality.
“The issue with those is, that for the business, most of the freelancers you’ll find are from India, China, Eastern Europe,” he said. “It’s hard to find freelancers who understand your market, like Stevens Point. From the freelance side, if you’re trying to compete, you’re competing with people who will work for pennies on the dollar compared with what you need to earn.”
Rice, who previously worked in marketing for the National Wellness Institute and Stevens Point-based Skyward, currently runs the day-to-day operations for his family’s company, Origin Family Homebuilders. He has also worked with students taking business classes at Ben Franklin Jr. High.
The idea is to connect local people with local people.”
Rice said the company is still in a beta phase—“we’re still working on the guts”, he said—but they are collecting information from interested freelancers and companies. When they’re ready to launch later this year, he said, all that work on the backend of the business will have built a stronger foundation for the company’s future.
“We’ll look at their portfolio of work, and rank their abilities,” Rice said of the freelancer vetting process. “There are plenty of projects out there; some are pretty simple, some are more complex. And we want to connect the right abilities with the right detail and custom jobs.”
Mysa (pronounced “mee-sa”), is a Swedish word meaning cozy. Rice said the word describes the feeling he wants his customers to have about working with his company.
