ETZ end of year review from CEO and Founder – Nick Woodward

2020 is a year that I am sure all of us will remember, but a year that we would rather forget!

However, 2021 I hope will be a year for great optimism as we all face the challenges ahead. My thoughts turn to the great economist John Maynard Keynes who reputedly said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.”

Running a technology business means you change your mind, a lot!

In spite of the challenges of 2020, I am happy to have a led an outstanding team that delivered new products and services such as:

• ETZ.One, our new challenger bank,
• Caspian, launching our innovative data mining service
• ETZ Umbrella to assist our customers with the changes to IR35, due in April 2021
• The Freelance Informer was launched as the place for the freelance community to be informed on the changing world of work.

Exciting new features for 2021

As we move into 2021, we are excited to roll out our premium data service, Caspian, which will give you your data, any way you want it.

With IR35 off-payroll changes scheduled to come in next April, ETZ is ready to support both agencies and your contractors with ETZ Umbrella and outsourced payroll services. 

Fundraising to enhance the product (and a chance for customers to get in early)

2021 will also be the start of our investment fundraising campaign. Most of our customers know that we have been a self funded startup since 2000, when I started ETZ on the proverbial kitchen table in Fitzrovia. We don’t have garages in old blighty as they do in sunny Silicon Valley, so it’s the old kitchen table for us Brits!

Constant change brings constant opportunity for innovative software companies like ETZ. We relish the opportunity to compete in the global market. However, there is a limit to what a company can do through organic growth and I have decided that now is the time to bring on equity investors to take our shared vision to the next stage.

Part of the fundraising will involve a crowdfunding campaign. This will allow our employees, our loyal customer base and the many thousands of freelance workers who rely on our platform to get paid each week to participate in an early round of our funding. We hope that you will support this campaign and look out for emails from us in the new year about this exciting initiative.

Thank you, and to a better year ahead

Thank you for your continued support through the most challenging of years.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish our employees, customers, freelance workers and your families, the very best for what will be a challenging Christmas season and I hope that 2021 will be a much better year for all of us.

Nick Woodward.