A Company is Born (kind of)

I have always found it weird how a company that has been in the market for a while can undertake a “launch”. But here I am today, doing exactly that with Collage — a company that was incorporated in February, renamed in May (for the second time), and onboarded its first customers in August.

Today we are announcing ourselves to the world with a little bit of press coverage, some fresh branding, and a new website. But when we look back at our launch day six months or a year from now, I think we will view it as more than the sum of those things.

We are still a young startup, but to me today’s launch is a recognition of how much we’ve grown up. It is an announcement to the world that we are ready to accept more responsibility.

For months, we’ve been working on launching a business built around an innovative business model in a market that needs a solution. During this time, we’ve had a good understanding of what we do. But as of today, I can say with confidence that we also now know why we exist: to help businesses take care of their people.

The Mission

I’ve always loved the (likely misattributed) J.W. Marriott quote:

Take care of your people and they will take care of your customers.

As a co-founder of a growing business, I’ve now experienced how powerful this idea really is. I’ve also experienced how much administrative and process-oriented work is involved with executing it.

This makes me feel really confident that Collage is addressing the right problem.

At Collage, we believe that taking care of people in a business isn’t about ping pong tables or espresso machines (though these do help sometimes). Taking care of your people is about creating a professional and enjoyable work environment where everyone in the company has the opportunity to do their best work. It’s about providing support for the health of their employees and the health of their families. It’s about building a culture of transparency and efficiency. It’s about making sure every person in the company feels like they are a crucial part of an important mission.

No HR software platform can fully automate the job of taking care of people; however, Collage allows business and HR leaders to deliver an amazing employment experience with the least amount of effort and the least amount of cost.

What’s Next

Here’s what you can expect from Collage as we move forward:

• Our amazing team is going to become even more amazing-er. We’ve been diligent about recruiting a supremely talented team that cares about doing great work. We are hiring for key positions.

• We are going to change the way that Canadian businesses manage their people: The amazing team mentioned above is working on a number of projects that will push the HR and benefits industries to new heights.

• Our disruptive business model is going to help us to create a lot of value for underserved businesses: Collage earns money from insurance commissions instead of charging our customers directly. This model allows us to deliver a transformative HR experience at no cost to Canadian businesses big and small.

• We will continue to be grateful for having the best partners in the world: Collage is backed by Diagram, an incubator that helps to launch financial, insurance, and health technology companies. The support we receive from them gives us unique advantages to build an amazing company.

• We will expand our partnerships with leading companies in adjacent industries: The HR and insurance tech community is burgeoning. We are keen to work with other companies in our industry to make taking care of your people as easy as possible.

If you believe in taking care of your people, I think we’d get along really well. Let’s connect.