Not many know, over a decade ago, Pavel Shynkarenko identified an emerging need within the freelance service economy. And then he founded Mellow in 2024, a platform designed to streamline and manage relationships between businesses and freelance talent. Today, after the psychological shift caused by COVID-19 and the entry of Gen Z to the employment market, Mellow might be a critical partner for businesses that want to use the best talent.
TFN spoke with Shynkarenko as a part of our ‘Founder in Focus’ series about his journey and approach, and why Mellow offers such an important service.
From lawyer to founder and innovator
Shynkarenko spent his early life and career in Ukraine and Russia. Born in St Petersburg in Russia, he grew up in Ukraine and attended Kharkiv Law Academy. Feeling his options were limited in Ukraine, and speaking both Ukrainian and Russian fluently, he moved to Moscow and specialised in internet law.
It was while doing this that the idea, and desire, to start something else came to him. “I wanted to mix my experience in legal practice and legal support and the internet business with my way of thinking and understanding the core activities of technology,” Shynkarenko recalled. He founded Solar Staff for the CIS market, later splitting it to create Mellow, a global platform.
The challenge of contract hiring
The problem that Shynkarenko identified was that hiring contract and freelance workers could involve significant administration and risk. While there are a series of checks for employees, backed up by a contract, these are rarely in place for freelancers. Mellow solves that problem.
“For the small businesses, it works like the private talent cloud,” Shynkarenko explained. “Just describe what you need to be done, when, and how much? Just those three things, and we will convert that into the contract.”
For businesses that deal with multiple freelancers, or don’t have their own HR department, it can be critical. And it provides security for both sides, since Mellow not only checks the freelancer, it also handles payments, providing assurance they won’t face invoicing nightmares.
Mellow’s growth
The change in work has powered Mellow’s growth, now a global company based in Cyprus. “Our major market is the US. The second one is a mix of European countries. And the third one is the UK,” Shynkarenko told us.
His main regret, in fact, was how he handled expansion. “When we decided to start our expansion, we chose the Netherlands, and that was a mistake.” Although motivated to learn in a smaller market, Shynkarenko felt it meant they missed some opportunities in the US as a result. “If you see the hugest market for your product, go there first,” he advises. “Do not waste your time with the smaller and tiny ones.”
However, the misstep appears to have done little to hold Mellow back. They are working with more than 1,500 companies and 400,000 contractors. Along with the Cyprus HQ, they now have offices in Amsterdam, Hong Kong, and New York, and are currently opening a new office in London. More impressively, the growth has been entirely self-funded.
The future of work
Shynkarenko believes that Mellow will be essential for businesses of the future. Covid, he says, transformed the workplace. “After Covid, we started to get new clients from different fields and industries,” he told us. “After Covid, almost everybody knows how to work remotely, and you have all the necessary infrastructure for the remote communication.”
However, it also accelerated a cultural shift. “More and more people are trying independent contracting as their main income,” Shynkarenko said. “They do not want to go in office and just have one job. They are trying independence as a contractor.”
Shynkarenko notes that working as a freelancer is not necessarily easy. “It’s not a safe harbour. You have to be a self-managed person,” he said. However, the benefits of freelancing mean he feels it will only become a more popular option. “A lot of talented people compare their remuneration between hiring and independent contracting, and they find out the last option means an extra 30-35%,” he said.
Although many businesses are pushing for a return to work, implementing hybrid or even full-return policies, Mellow’s ongoing success suggests Shynkarenko’s assessment is correct. And Mellow’s model, which makes the process easier and more secure for both the business and the freelancer, is only likely to become more important.
Indeed, it might be that for some businesses, it’s not just about convenience, but about their potential for success. Shynkarenko believes those that get it wrong might soon pay the price. “In a couple of years, maybe two, maybe five, maybe ten, if you have a business and cannot work with the alternative workforces, you will be so strictly limited in talent acquisition.”
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