This week, we're chatting with Malachi Hinton and Deidre McAuley-Hayes, the mother-daughter powerhouse behind ShowAssist.
ShowAssist is a revolutionary platform that's transforming the equestrian industry by connecting barn owners with grooms, braiders, and body clippers.
In this episode, we discuss:
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
This week, we're chatting with Malachi Hinton and Deidre McAuley-Hayes, the mother-daughter powerhouse behind ShowAssist.
ShowAssist is a revolutionary platform that's transforming the equestrian industry by connecting barn owners with grooms, braiders, and body clippers.
In this episode, we discuss:
🐴 This episode is brought to you by Pegasus, the first modern event management system that makes it easy to host and run equestrian events. Sign up for early access at www.thepegasus.app.
Be sure to follow Pegasus on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and subscribe to The Oxer, the #1 weekly newsletter for global equestrian industry happenings. 🗞️
We've had people who were retired from the industry. They decided to come back to the industry because, again, they like the opportunity. They loved what they did and they liked the opportunity to still be a part of the industry to do grooming work, but they love the flexibility.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. My name is Noah Levy and I'm the producer of our Pegasus podcast, hosted by our founders, Sam Baines and Jen Tankle. On today's episode, we are hosting Malachi Hinton and Dudra McCauley Hayes of Show Assist, their daughter and mother first, and co-founders second. Show Assist is a platform for grooms to work at barns and shows, whether it be for full-time work or short-term gigs. This episode is particularly interesting if you want to learn about the gig economy taking place in the questry and as well as the challenges that both sides of Show Assist platform are going through. All right, let's get into it.
Speaker 3:Well, malachi and Dudra, it's great to see you, and thanks for joining us on the pod today.
Speaker 4:Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.
Speaker 5:For the audience that don't know who you are, do you want to give them just a quick intro on yourselves and your company and your technology?
Speaker 1:Sure, I'm Dudra McCauley Hayes and this is my daughter, malachi Hinton, and we are the co-founders of the.
Speaker 4:Show Assist app. As my mom introduced me, I'm Malachi and I am a professional show jumper. I've been in the sport for about 16 years now and I've basically played every single role within the sport. Specifically, I've done working student positions. I've done grooming myself. From my experience, that's really what we built Show Assist off of.
Speaker 5:Right, fantastic as out of interest. It's not very common that you meet a mother daughter combo who become co-founders in a company together. How did you two decide to go into business together?
Speaker 4:I feel like we've already been operating in business together. We've been a mother daughter duo for a really long time. It was pretty much organic. It was very natural for us to do this together. We like to be led by, finding things that need to be helped. We couldn't just overlook some of the difficulties that were happening throughout the industry. When it comes to the groom side of the industry, I think it was just very natural for us to say, hey, what can we do to help here?
Speaker 5:Sure Deidre, you come from a tech background. You brought the technical experience to the partnership and Malachi brought the industry and physical experience to the partnerships. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:That's correct. I'm an intellectual property attorney. I'm also an electrical engineer. I deal with technology on a regular basis for other people. It just really became natural for us to just work together on this. Malachi brought her knowledge of the industry, as she mentioned, working as a working student and as a groom for other people and for herself. Myself as a momager or a show mom helping her at the shows. We know the ins and outs of what's going on behind the scenes at the shows. We found it very natural to work together and figure out a tool that would be useful we believe would be useful for others in the industry as well.
Speaker 3:For those that aren't familiar with Show Assist, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Just to set the stage, because you do work with shows. You are professional riders just painting the landscape for those that might not be familiar with it and the problems that you guys are solving.
Speaker 1:Show Assist is a mobile app and it allows owners, riders, trainers to connect with grooms, braiders, body clippers, other equine body workers that may be looking for jobs at specific shows throughout the show season. It operates on a weekly basis, from week to week. Owners, they can go on the app and they can search the show that they're attending and they can select the days that they need help, the times that they need help at the show for the week, and they can post jobs on the app. And then grooms, braiders, body clippers they can get alerts job alerts to their phone, to their email, let them know what jobs are available for that show week and they can go on to the app and apply for those jobs if they're available. Once they apply for the jobs, their profiles are reviewed by the owners and if they're interested in speaking with them and moving forward to see if they're a good fit for the particular job, they can accept their profile and they'll immediately receive one another's contact information so that they can reach out and make a connection.
Speaker 3:Right. So all of those gigs that take place at horse shows that oftentimes people are trying to fill those roles, and then on the flip side, it gives people that do have that experience and would be looking for some gig type work the opportunity to then go and make some extra income and participate and help some riders when they're at the horse shows and whatnot.
Speaker 1:That's true. We found it to be from speaking to some of our users very helpful for people who, on the rider or owners or trainer side, may be in need of just an extra hand for the show week. Or maybe they have groomed that sick, or maybe they're only taking a select number of horses to the show and they don't want to have their home groomed, leave their home barn to tend to show with them. We have grooms who are strictly looking for freelance work. We even have riders who don't mind grooming and they want an opportunity to work with different trainers, and so they'll sign up to work jobs. Or people who used to be in the industry and love working with horses, but they don't necessarily want to work full time, and so this is an opportunity for them to just work on a flexible basis and still do something that they enjoy doing?
Speaker 3:Are you guys international too? Is it the case where anyone who's competing anywhere is able to utilize this platform and sign up and they can get some extra help, and then, alternatively, the freelancer is able to also sign up for various opportunities in their area?
Speaker 4:We're not international as of yet. It's just US and Canada at the moment. However, that is something that we have for plans in the future.
Speaker 5:You guys said that you basically came up and you developed this platform, one through your career as well as through Deidre's experience as a horse mum, but something again as someone who's come to the horse world later in life and has been outside and has been learning it.
Speaker 5:It does quite shock me how fluid the labor market is in the equestrian industry, how it just seems to be people hopscotching all over the place and they're at this farm for a little bit and they change states and they change I haven't changed countries and they change teams they're working on and all that sort of stuff. This might be a new question and a lot of people who are listening might think I'm a new for asking it. But how is it that that kind of just works? You know like there's so many variables constantly changing, especially if you're trying to develop a professional team, a high functioning team, a slick barn operation with there's a lot of knowledge about knowing what's good for what horse, what's bad for what horse, all that stuff how does that constant change of people in the team out of the team, in the country, out of the country, in the state, out of the state how does it just work?
Speaker 4:So I mean my thoughts on that is for one, the sport itself is very dynamic. There's a lot of movements. Especially I relate the sport of show jumping and a question is for some general To be very similar to like motor sports. In a way, you almost live like a nomad, traveling from place to place. His competitions are everywhere every weekend. So there's a lot of movement going on there.
Speaker 4:But in regards to what you say about you know, it being fluid and maybe the job market within the industry having so much movement where you would like it to be a bit more stable, I would say it's not. It's working OK right now, but I don't see it being sustainable that way. There are difficulties that I think and I've noticed working and others professionals, barnes and different things. There are difficulties when it comes to having new staff constantly and and not really having a stable team all the time, because horses, you know they need the same care in the same routine day in and day out. Certain horses might have allergies, certain horses might have very special needs and you just it takes a lot and you need to be careful with them. So I have seen a lot of conflict when it comes to that and that's ultimately something I think for it to be sustainable in the long run, that's something that's going to have to become better in a way. Yeah.
Speaker 3:How do you ensure that the people that are on the platform are qualified to do what they say that they're able to do?
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things we do, of course, we advertise that anyone who is on the show assist app. They need to be experienced. This is not, you know, for newbies just wanting to get into the industry. They need to have some experience. We do have them fill out information letting us know what experience they have. There is an opportunity for owners to request references from the grooms that they're interested in speaking with. So it's not something that there's a job, there's this app and I just want to get into the horse industry and I want to come and try my hand at grooming. It doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1:We do offer educational resources for the grooms. We have grooming webinars. Something that we're looking at doing in the near future is actually having lunch and learns grooming clinics at some of the horse shows in person to kind of help the grooms hone in on their grooming skills Body clipping, wrapping legs, you know basic grooming, advanced grooming. We have some grooms in the industry who have sort of come along with us and said that this is something they'd be interested in doing. So education is very important.
Speaker 1:As Malachi said, there are some grooms who like the flexibility, they like the freelance work, they like to make the extra money. They may be at the horse show Maybe their barn isn't as busy this particular day or this particular week, they're not showing and their experience and they want to help out and make that extra money and so therefore, it works for them. I think what ultimately is Malachi said, the grooms they want to work more long term when possible, if it works. I think part of the reason why we see so much movement in the industry is that there is a foundational issues when it comes to the working relationships or working environments For some of the grooms. So I don't know if we want to touch on that, but definitely want to touch on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, still all we had a conversation?
Speaker 5:Oh, we had a conversation After me.
Speaker 3:It's a raise awareness and getting people, all the different stakeholders, to be cognizant of that so that they can do better for everybody involved, not necessarily calling anyone out.
Speaker 5:We had a conversation with Courtney Carson, who's the head of the International Groomed Association, and she was talking about this problem, because this is essentially what her organization is set up to achieve, which is that there isn't really a clear career path as a groom and, if you zoom that out a bit further, there isn't really a clear career path from being a training student to being an entry level groomed, then becoming a senior groom, etc. And when you add on top of that the complexity of the fact that one you do have, people are changing operations all the time and it's not really like all these bonds are on LinkedIn right, where you can see the person's work history and you can, like, judge their quality based on what bonds they've come from, etc. Or bit word of mouth combined with the fact that the lifestyle is so hard, especially when you consider that the majority of the people in the equestrian industry are women the majority of the grooms are women and, as you know, maybe for a guy, as they get older, it might be a little bit easier to keep that more versatile lifestyle. But as a woman, as you're getting older and you think about having a family and having kids and trying to be in one spot especially.
Speaker 5:You're going through those first few years. You're nursing the children and need to be attached to them, you know, to breastfeed, etc. It's a perfect environment to mean that it's just not all going to work. Something's got to give somewhere. So I suppose that's kind of where your guys platform comes into it. It's creating, you know, in the same way in which in a metropolitan area people do Uber as a gig job, basically credit versatile employment lifestyle that allows them to work around their lifestyle requirements, you're trying to create the gig economy for the equestrian industry, which kind of it might not solve the systemic issue at large, but it creates a system that people can rely on when life and work become too challenging and don't perfectly interconnect.
Speaker 3:Would love to get into the challenges that you were just referencing.
Speaker 1:When we first started working on this app, malacat was doing research for us, just some research in the industry, just to see how, show us, this could help people in the industry.
Speaker 4:I was going to say that honestly. I feel as though show us this has been coming together over the course of a decade. Honestly, from my first experience within the industry of working for other people, really learning the show horse management side of things as well as the grooming position, I really saw. I saw the good and the bad. Good teams where everything works really well, everyone's very good at communication, everyone's very happy having a happy work environment and it leads to a lot of success within the team.
Speaker 4:But I've also seen some not so great situations where there's a lot of stress in the work environment, mostly from maybe disorganization, especially when it comes to having a lot of flow, when it comes to different people within the team.
Speaker 4:Maybe someone left and now you have some new people and you're trying to help them introduce them to the horses, figure out the routine, and there's never a real establishment of routine at that point.
Speaker 4:So I've seen the difficult side of things where there's a lot of stress, where maybe the work, the pay, was not very good or people were late in getting their pay and maybe their working position wasn't clearly described, so they end up overworking, they're not quite sure what their position really is or what their hours truly are, what their benefits truly are, and that creates a lot of tension within the work environment.
Speaker 4:So I honestly I learned that from a young age as a teenager working behind the scenes while I was also riding and I feel like that led to in 2020, where we really came together and saw that there was a need for some way in which we could help that part of the industry, specifically in allowing grooms and support staff to be able to have more opportunity when it comes to deciding how they want to work. I feel that show assist allowed us to be able to help people have more flexibility and make their own scheduling, more opportunity for short term jobs and even more pay opportunities that maybe they wouldn't have had if they stayed in a job that wasn't very suitable or good for them.
Speaker 5:Have you been finding it easier to onboard the businesses that are doing the hiring or easier to onboard the people who are filling the jobs, the freelancers, the gig employees?
Speaker 4:It was pretty organic with the first influx of people that onboarded onto the app Once people saw what it was and the opportunity because it's not like we haven't seen a gig type app in, like you said, with Uber. So people were already comfortable with doing something like that and once they saw the opportunity open they were like you know, we'll sign up, let's try it. So naturally there was a lot of freelancers who just onboarded immediately.
Speaker 5:Did you have to do much advertising or marketing. It was a literal like you just made it live and you told a few people and a few people told another few people.
Speaker 1:We actually did a marketing campaign and we first launched well, even before we launched, to let people know that it was coming, but then over time, it just really we noticed that it was growing organically. As Malachi said, it was, you know, word of mouth this groom told this groom, this owner told that owner, and then over time, we've just seen it growing that way. I would say today, right now, we have probably slightly more grooms than owners on the app, and we constantly receive emails from owners who are looking for full-time work, full-time workers and grooms that are also looking interested in full-time work. So I think people are noticing that show us is here to help me, and so they're seeking not only to fill short-term needs, but also they come to us, too, for assistance in meeting their long-term needs as well.
Speaker 4:Like my mom mentioned, we do get a lot of emails of owners looking to hire full-time, as well as grooms who would like to go ahead and try to apply for full-time positions. Something else that I've found interesting is we've had a couple of people who kind of wanted to get their feet wet and almost do work trials. So they've used the app to where they were able to temporarily become part of somebody's team and help to fill in, you know, fill that position for them in the moment that they needed it and ended up resulting in a full-time position where both the groom and the owner are happy with the new relationship. So that's been rewarding and awesome to see as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's interesting. So they'll start off on your platform and they'll have the show us, this team, as the people behind it, to ensure that both sides are happy, and then it's successful, and then maybe they'll go off the platform and then just be a full-time employee, for example. Is that something you've noticed?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and even with those teams who have done like one team that have had a situation like that and the group ended up becoming full-time with them, they still come back to our platform when they have short-term needs at shows Just to be able to sometimes it's nice, you rather be a little bit over staffed than under staffed. When it comes to traveling a lot to competitions, it allows there to be less stress for your team. Basically, so they'll still come back to the app and hire someone to step in and help be a part of their team at the shows as well.
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Speaker 5:Interestingly to your point. One of the challenges when you build marketplace technology is that you connect the buyer and the seller. They then connect in real life, they like each other and then they ditch you, the marketplace, and they go conduct business on their own. It is like how do you stop that from happening so that you earn your money from supporting that thing? The good thing about your guys marketplace is that you don't need to solve that problem, because if a person stops doing gig work and becomes a full-time employee, then they go join a place that they are now in a position to hire and they become just the other side of the market and they believe and trust in the system because they came from it. You've kind of created this. It's a unique marketplace and you don't need to worry about that problem because they just switch sides of the market as opposed to leaving the market entirely.
Speaker 3:But especially if you have all of those different education components where they are constantly upskilling themselves or inspiring a whole new generation to come into the sport and to be some kind of freelancer on your platform. So it sounds like to your point they might go to the other side of the coin, but there are still enough things happening on the platform where everyone can still continue to go back and continue to educate themselves and upskill themselves.
Speaker 1:Exactly what you said has happened. We've had grooms that have worked through the app found work through the app. Now they work for full-time barns and they reach back out and say, hey, we need extra help this week at the show and you know so we're going to post a job on the app to find someone for the show. So we do have them return to us from the other side and say, hey, we need help because it worked for them. They want to use the platform to help their barn in their new position and ultimately, we're here. We don't necessarily worry about losing people, because we like to see that people are happy working and doing what it is that they love to do. I wanted to go back to something that we touched on but we didn't really continue. Discussing is some of the things that we have seen in the industry and heard from our owners and riders, and then also from our grooms and other service providers, is the issues that kind of plague our industry, that a lot of people don't really want to talk about or address and, as Malachi said, one of it is communication. Another is, as some of the owners say, there's a lack of work ethic. They believe there's a lack of work ethic on the part of the grooms and on the groom side, there's a lack of respect, lack of pay, not being paid on time, not having if they're providing housing, not having suitable accommodations, not knowing what the job entails or, you know, working for them extreme hours and not having days off or at least a day off during the week. So we're hearing from the owners, we're hearing from the grooms and I think, ultimately, I don't want to say that there needs to be a meeting of the minds, but we need to take responsibility for the issues that plague the industry and see how we can best work together to address some of those. And the grooms have come to us and said they've seen jobs posted on the app and they're in. You know, we've sent them alerts saying, hey, you know, this person's looking for a groom. And they and they come to us and they say, oh well, that person's crazy. Or I know someone that knew someone that used to work for them and I wouldn't work for them. I'm not interested.
Speaker 1:And I think people need to realize that people talk in this industry, you know. You know the grooms. They talk amongst each other, they talk about the barn. You know, I don't want to see someone's blacklisted, but they know the barns that are treating their staff well and providing them with benefits, giving them a day off. And then they know the ones that, as you know, one groom told me they're crazy, I would never want to work for them. They know these barns. So I think there's something to be said about that and I think once we start to address that and accept responsibility with some of the issues, then I think that things can start running smoother on the back end with respect to the relationships.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm sure you're familiar with Upwork and Fiverr and things like that, where or even I mean Airbnb where both parties have an opportunity to review one another. So is that something that you all provide on your platform too?
Speaker 1:We do. We do so. Owners can rate grooms. They can do a up to a five star rating on grooms. Owners can also report grooms. If there's an issue that they've had at the show with one of the grooms that they've hired through the Showasis platform, they can, you know, file a report directly on the app, tell us what happened, what's going on, and we can address it. At the same time, Grooms can also report owners and if they're having any issues they had issues with this particular owner that they worked for for this particular show week they can reach out to us and let us know and we can address that as well.
Speaker 1:So we want Showasis to be a provide and promote a healthy work environment for the grooms and we want it to be a great experience, a show experience for the owners, so in Ryder. So if there's issues that come up, we take those very seriously and we address them as needed. So, as I've told Malachi before, Showasis is an app that is available for everyone who will use it correctly and will treat people the way they should be treated. They should treat them, but if they don't, that's something that we have a no tolerance policy We'll suspend someone from the app If we have a no show you know someone in show for work or if an owner is mistreating groom and we've researched it and found out that there's some factual basis for something that took place, we will suspend users and we will permanently suspend users from the app if necessary.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean the point you made about there needs to be a meeting of minds to basically solve that problem. It's a very optimistic way of looking at it. I doubt it's going to happen.
Speaker 3:But, the good news is the good.
Speaker 5:Well, the good news is is right. Like often, when something, when a major change like that has to happen, it's quite rare that the community get together and fix something. It's usually one person or one group of people decide they're going to fix it and they start taking action and fixing it Right. So if you guys succeed in building this into being the number one system that the entire labor market in the equestrian industry uses and you build with, more subtraction becomes more revenue. More revenue becomes a larger team. Larger team turns into more engineers on staff, which turns into greater platform. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. You will get to a point with the review system that you force those changes upon them, because by being able to basically force the bonds to risk a bad reputation and find themselves not able to get the labor, that jeopardizes their entire business operation and they will be forced to make the changes. They'll be forced to invest in improving the housing for the grooms They'll be forced to invest in maybe like actual professional employment contracts and employment benefits.
Speaker 1:And the same will go for the grooms.
Speaker 5:If you want to maintain your career, then you can't afford to be a dick. So it's going to be achieved faster if you guys make it the mission of your company and set yourself towards it than if you try and convince the industry to change.
Speaker 3:But I do think the conversation is already beginning, obviously, with the IGA and with Soasis, with so many people that are talking about it and even prominent riders who do take care of their grooms and they respect them and they appreciate them, but then they go to the show and the show isn't properly set up to give them food, give them a break and all those things.
Speaker 3:So I do think the conversation is at least starting and people are a little bit more aware of it, and even online as well, of course, facebook. Everyone loves to go on to Facebook and share their thoughts and feelings on things, and I have seen numerous postings about certain barns or riders that are looking for grooms, and it's these really long narratives of all the things that they're looking for, and it's basically like a 24, seven servants, but $9 an hour, and so the public shame that's coming from that of like, wow, you're expecting this person to give their life to you and you want less than minimum wage for this. So I think we're at the beginning and a little bit past the beginning.
Speaker 1:I agree, jenna. I believe there's been sort of an awakening that's taking place in our industry that there's a problem here and we need to address this. So, as you mentioned, iga and there's some other platforms that are talking about making things better for the grooms and there are riders that are talking about it, there are owners that do they take care of their staff. So we're seeing the change, or at least the conversation taking place, and we are happy to be a part of that conversation.
Speaker 3:Have there been any trends? This might be a loaded question, but, as the owners and the founders of show assist and seeing all the new people that are coming onto the platform, have there been any interesting trends or things that you weren't expecting? That, now that you're into it and you're running it and you've been running it for a bit Anything that you can kind of speak to about the labor market when it comes to freelance and grooms in the industry.
Speaker 3:Have you seen, for example, that there are some grooms that are changing between different disciplines Like or or certain ages, or just anything, that you had your own hypothesis about it, but then not even running it, it's you know, it's changed your perspective.
Speaker 1:We've had people who were retired from the industry. They decided to come back to the industry because, again, they like the opportunity, they loved what they did and they liked the opportunity to still be a part of the industry, do grooming work, grooming work. But they love the flexibility. So, you know, they might work and this shows that are because they now have their lives, are established and they live in. Let's say, for example, they live in Florida, they live near in Ocala and you have the shows there, and so they strictly look for jobs that are within their location and for weeks that they have or days that they have free time to be able to take on some freelance work.
Speaker 1:So that was kind of a surprise, I think, to us a pleasant surprise, and then they reach out to us and tell us how much they love that show, us this is available because they used to do this and they're not doing it anymore or whatever their reason. But that's one thing. And then the other I think we mentioned is some riders that they get on the app, for the app has two sides, you know the owner rider side and then the groom the groom side, and so they'll create a profile so that they have access on both sides because sometimes they want to be able to have some some time that you know they don't mind grooming and meeting other people, and they might not necessarily be showing in a given week, and so they're interesting using the app in that way.
Speaker 4:I was going to say exactly the same thing. Those were two trends that were surprising and I honestly, would have never thought about them being trends before we started this and really got into it, but they kind of just came up on their own. Naturally, I think it was awesome to see like some of the retired professional grooms step back into it and say I'm very experienced, you know, they have a lot of education when it comes to being a professional groom. And they were like I can do a week job for FEI. I have done this in the past and that's something that I love to do.
Speaker 4:And I think that goes back to a lot of people who are in, like most people in the industry, have a love and passion for working with horses. A lot of times when they have gotten out of it, it may have been for burnout or other situations that happened in life. So it's been awesome to see people return in that way and be able to, you know, have enjoy working with horses at that level again and enjoy the sport. And then also so the people who retired coming back into the industry. And then the riders seeing riders who had extra time on their hands, who they obviously love to ride, but they just have a love and passion for working with horses too, so they're like I have no problem with, you know, making some extra money on the side and helping with jump crew or helping at the barns, like it's something to do. So that's been awesome to see.
Speaker 3:Have you found that some of the event organizers are utilizing the platform for their own staffing purposes too?
Speaker 1:You know that's something that currently they are not using it for. That is not set up for that, but that is something that we were we're looking at doing in the near future, because we have had show organizers reach out to us and say, hey, someone referred us to show assist and said maybe show us this can help you. They help owners and riders find grooms. Maybe they can help you find staff that you need at the horse shows, and we've had multiple show organizers reach out to us to see if this is something that show assist can assist them with. And so we've really taken in that feedback and we're currently right now looking at ways that we can modify the app so that we can help those show organizers find the assistance that they need, the staff that they need at their shows.
Speaker 5:What about when it comes to looking at the different positions that people are posting? Have you found that there's been a relatively consistent job descriptions that people are using for different roles that they're recruiting from? That imply that there is a career path through the industry, or does it look like it's just random job titles all over the place? And if someone was to sit down and try and figure out well, how, where do I start? What do I need to do to get to the next stage, into the next payment bracket and the next level of responsibility, they could actually do that with looking at the job market data. You see, that's clear to you, but it's not really clear to people who don't have access to that data.
Speaker 4:So I would say, looking at the job market right now, the positions are always them. They don't always have the most clarity. Kind of along the lines of what Jim was saying. You might have someone post on Facebook who's like looking for a hundred different things within the position as well as like being a nanny on the side, which is Just random sometimes, and I think that's part of the miscommunication and confusion.
Speaker 4:Like when you get hired, you want to have clarity as to what you know you're expected in your job responsibilities are, so you can really judge your time and the pay and everything involved and be successful in that role.
Speaker 4:So I would say that something that's not the most clear in the market even today, but I would say that on show us is that's been something that's been nice to have is how our jobs are laid out, is there's so much clarity to it People are able to say exactly what they're looking for is all a la carte, so their services are already listed on the app.
Speaker 4:So owners can really go in and say you know they're looking for assistance at the stall specifically, or they're looking for assistance at the ring, and then under each of those headings you select professional services at the stall, like stall cleaning, bathing, tacking up and untack All of all of the things that you would expect and then also, when it comes to help at the ring is very specific as to like helping set jumps in the show ring as well as maybe horse handling, holding a horse at the show ring for a course walk or whatnot. So I think that's something that people have already told us that they appreciate about working on show assist is just how clear the roles are and they can accurately judge that the pay is appropriate for the amount of work being done.
Speaker 1:If you're looking for someone with FEI experience and Sam, you you kind of touched on how you move from the you know next what's the next level, and so jobs may indicate that they're looking exclusively for someone who has FEI experience. So of course, you know we have rooms who are a naturally interested in how do I get to that next level of being able to be an FEI groom, and that's something that's one of the areas that we're looking at providing some educational resources in person, educational resources on you know what it takes to step into that next role as an FEI room.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because that's a whole other level of education and credentials and experience. But I think it's really smart that you're doing that because it's right now, with Facebook, and it's just the thing that's the most prolific right now, unfortunately. But I think people are probably just so overwhelmed because there's a million things that they need to do at the show and even before the show and on the way to the show, and so just putting all those things out there and also realizing, well, I don't have a ton of money to spend. So here's all these things but no pay. So at least what you're doing is you can provide that outline where they can actually think through what are the exact things and what should I be paying them. So do you also have that component on your platform to where people can see hey, the average spend for, say, braiding is X dollars in this area, or for tacking up if you just need someone to help me tack up, it shows that it's why dollars. Are you able to provide that guidance as to what they should expect to spend?
Speaker 1:We are actually. We have owners that reach out to us and they say, hey, you know post, I want to post a job on your platform. And what are people paying? Stall cleaners, what are the trends you're seeing? And we actually have that data. And not only do we have that data, we have Data that shows the jobs that are actually being hired, the jobs that are most attractive to the grooms, based on what it is that the owner is saying they're needing and what it is that the owners and riders are paying you know offering in the form of pay. So we have that data that we Can provide to the owners if interested to know what maybe they should offer for a job that they're looking to feel.
Speaker 3:I think it promoting that, just including that on your own socials or anything like that as a form of education for everybody to then be able to pay appropriately. But I think that that's that's really valuable data that you have.
Speaker 4:Yet We've done a lot where we spoke into owners one on one, like we do have pretty open relationships with people, can easily contact us through the app and have conversations if need be, and so that that's probably going to be something we do in the future is go ahead and share some pay recommendations. We didn't do that right in the beginning because we didn't want to like Put pressure on people right away when they first got onto the app, but certainly I think that'll be something valuable is to go ahead and use the data that we've gathered over the years and go ahead and put some pay recommendations so that people can really see that and start to understand that a bit more to what does the next year, couple years look like for you.
Speaker 3:That's a good question, jen.
Speaker 1:One of the things, as we mentioned, of course, increasing our educational resources in person.
Speaker 1:We've, you know, we've done the webinars, we've done the webinar series through show us this platform and made those videos available, those educational videos available on our YouTube channel for people to go to and for braiding and body clipping and just basic grooming and then even FEI grooming. So those are available. But we're looking to do some come to the shows and come to the grooms and offer the these in person clinics, grooming clinics, where people can actually do hands on training and hone in on their skills. The other thing, as mentioned, we're looking at doing is assisting the shows in filling their needs, their staffing needs, during their shows throughout the year, and one of the ways that we believe that we may be able to accomplish that and also be even more available to our owners in our grooms is to work with show management companies and possibly integrate show partner and integrate Show assist with some of the show management companies and provide these, provide the show assist platform directly to their competitors and to the show personnel at these shows throughout the show season. Awesome, Malachi.
Speaker 5:So, since you guys are building a tech company, when are you going to jump ship from working in the field and go all in on building out the tech company?
Speaker 4:Are you Wait? Are you asking me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh, I think I'm just gonna have a foot in each door basically. But you know what I feel like? My days consist of like 48 hours instead of 24 hours, so I kind of just do both full time. Gotta put in the work, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:No, you can never stop writing. Yeah, but yeah, we're. We're for people that are interested in learning more about you. Where can people find you and connect with you?
Speaker 4:You can go to our website, show assistorg, to find all our information there. We also have our social media platforms Instagram, facebook and Twitter. We can find us. There is all just show assist and LinkedIn as well, and the apps are on both app stores Google Play Store and the Apple store.
Speaker 5:Fantastic. Well, thank you very much, guys. Really appreciate taking the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and thanks for all that you're doing for the grooms in the industries. Really great, thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you, it was great to be having us. Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of the Pegasus podcast. As you heard from our mid role, we are also releasing an equestrian event management software platform. Now it's easier than ever to host, sign up and sponsor for any equestrian event in the world, thanks to all the features of the Pegasus app. To sign up, go to our homepage at wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp. That is wwwthepegasusapp.