Who we are

SkillSpace was started by two brothers, Frank and Tom. We grew up in construction. Our father was in the industry for decades, and most of our early years involved climbing scaffolding in our diapers and smashing our thumbs with hammers.

We we're fortunate enough to see our dad grow from nothing to something with pure hard work and determination. He moved to Orlando in the early 80's to help build Epcot, and by the time Tom was born, we lived in renovated hospital trailer while our dad built out first home. He hung drywall at the time, and over the 15 years following, he built himself up to owning a general contracting company and developing land throughout Florida.

This example effected Frank I deeply. We came to understand the meaning of hard work and what you can do if you put your mind to something. This spirit is everywhere in the construction industry. Frank took this and started a number of companies, from building docks in his teenage years, to taking care of foreclosed homes, to becoming a pipe welder for a number of years, to finally starting and managing a large and successful roofing company. Tom spent his late teens and early 20's as a welder as well, later deciding to take this same work ethic and world view to the world of software.

And that brings us to today. Throughout the years, we've gotten to see just how great the construction industry can be for transforming lives and putting food on the table for hundreds of millions of people.

We noticed something however... While the world has sped up, it's left this industry in the dust. White collar industries have platforms such as LinkedIn for building professional relationships and helping the best workers prove their worth. Every white collar profession has heaps of tools for bettering the day to day lives of the people in that industry. No one has done this well for the people we appreciate the most. The ones who get their hands dirty and do the work that the rest of us take for granted.

Blue collar tradesmen.

Our goal

We want one simple thing: To build a fantastic community of skilled tradesmen. We want to give them the opportunity to share their work with others. We want the construction companies that hire these tradesmen to have the chance to find the best of the best in their trade. We want to give people a place to talk crap and be proud of their work, just like white collar workers are able to. Really, we just want to see a world where blue collar trades and the people who work in them are given the same respect as everyone else.

Here's how we're doing that... Our platform is meant as a place to share your work and build a "digital resume" that showcases just how bad ass a person or crew is at their trade. We're building a place to show off your skills and be proud of the work that you do, as well as discover other like minded individuals in your area of expertise (or other areas of expertise for that matter).

Then, we open the doors to employers. They don't pay us some fee for us to match you up with them. They don't just get some option to blast out a job post to people near them, with absolutely 0 insight into who the company is and what they do. They make an account just like the tradesmen do. Then you connect, completely at your own discretion, and work together should you so wish to.

Essentially, we open the lines of communication. We want to make everything transparent for everyone involved. Crews and individuals can build out a bad ass profile and show off what they can do. Companies can find them if they're impressed and ask them to work. They can find those companies and ask them directly if they need hands. That's the goal.

Oh, and we want to do it for free... Everything in construction is so expensive because no one gives you another option. You pretty much HAVE to bite the bullet and over pay for services which SHOULD be cheap. Job boards on average charge HUNDREDS of dollars to post on. Those same job boards don't give you ANY proof of quality. Workers still knock on doors to get jobs. It isn't scalable and it should be so much easier than it is. We do all of this hoping that some percentage of you will see enough value to pay us a few bucks a month for a subscription tier which gives you a bit of extra functionality. If you do, we thank you deeply. If you don't we're still extremely happy to have you, and we hope you get massive amounts of value from what we're building.

All of that being said, we appreciate your time, and we hope your on board for helping us move construction into the future. Thanks again.

- Frank and Tom, co-founders of SkillSpace