Gyld - the skilled trades network

Construction companies and general contractors struggle to find talent to meet their staffing needs. When they do, it is even harder to vet the candidate.

Great idea, difficult timing

In early 2019 a good friend approached me with an interesting idea and a need for a design resource. He wanted to bring new life to the construction industry and prepare it for the massive shortage of skilled tradespeople that looms ahead of the United States. The idea was simple in principle: Create a platform that would serve as a place for tradespeople and contractors to connect and showcase their work. It was essentially LinkedIn, but built to meet the needs of skilled workers. Believe it or not, this does not currently exist. (At least not at the time of this article.) This was the start of Gyld.

We connected with a large pool of potential users, iterated through several designs, developed a Beta, and even became finalists in the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan competition. However, the spring of 2020 came with some harsh realities. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic investors were being very cautious with their funds and our connections in the industry had their hands completely full looking for work or trying to figure out how virtual learning would work for a welding course. Then our third co-founder had to withdraw support and step away to aid his family who was affected by the crisis in Myanmar. We pushed forward as best as possible for the next several months. But a combination of dwindling funds and personal pressures eventually brought an end to our endeavor.

Regardless of that unfortunate ending I still believe we had a sound concept to meet a very real need. The work below explains the general functions and design of the app.

reaching out to potential users

In order to understand how to best meet the needs of this industry we connected with three primary categories of workers. We focused on general contractors, skilled tradespeople (sub contractors), and educators. Each category lent a unique perspective and helped ensure that activity on the app would produce new work opportunities and active monthly users.

“This will be a great way to network, building an advanced resource center.”

-Dale firary jr., diamond remodeling

Primary Features