The Industry
Chris wanted to do something to help his former team. He knew that losing their jobs and their health insurance was among the most traumatic things they might go through. “If you lose a job, the stress of it is insane and it often heralds a really challenging period,” he said.
Instead of finding a useful solution, he found outplacement services that were, in his words, “Very corporate, stiff, not really the right fit for tech employees. And it was also very expensive. I just didn’t have the money to be able to spend thousands of dollars per person when I was shutting down the company.”
The Solution
For Chris, the anonymity of the job search process needs to change and he’s working to do just that. Starting simply from a spreadsheet of employee names and qualifications that he shared on LinkedIn, Chis has created a community – Silver Lining – designed to help the recently unemployed know that they’re not alone.
With more than 2,000 members – and growing at a rate of something like 100 or more per day – Silver Lining is a community in every sense of the word. It’s a place for job seekers, job providers, coaches, and peers to interact in unique ways through mentoring, webinars, and message boards set up around topics ranging from how to get health insurance to tips on salary negotiations.
In our conversations, we talked about how dehumanizing it can be for those looking for work, or as he puts it, people are forced to “Throw resumes and applications into the abyss,” and never get any kind of response. Rather than furthering that faceless process, Silver Lining is designed to foster connection.
How is that Troublemaking?
Prior to the explosion of COVID-19, Silver Lining was gaining traction. Now, it’s growing exponentially daily. But for Chris, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect – yet.
“Actually, I’m flying by the seat of my pants,” he said.
But that isn’t stopping him from continuing to iterate and explore how to make this community useful and relevant for both job seekers and job providers. And he and his advisory team are also exploring ways to monetize Silver Lining, keeping in mind that for job seekers it will always be free.
Chris isn’t afraid to admit what he doesn’t know yet, ask for help from wherever he can find, and stay true to his goal of making sure that for community members, Silver Lining “has your back.”
From a hard-core tech entrepreneur with major funding, Chris now finds himself in a completely different seat. That of a compassionate capitalist.
And now he measures success for himself and his collaborators much differently. “Seldom do you get or work on businesses that really touch your heart. And I can tell you that this is the first project that I’ve worked on that has really been doing an incredible thing and I see that every single day.”
Out of his failed company has come a Silver Lining for many, many more.
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