This is This is straight straight straight out of Crumpton with your host, Greg Crumpton. Good day, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Straight Out of Crumpton. I'm Greg Crumpton, your skilled trades advocate and recruiter and overall spokesperson, bringing you, some good content today, I hope. I hope you'll enjoy it. I have with us today Rushear Shaw. Roshir is the CEO of SkillCat. I almost said skills, but skill cat, singular. So welcome to the show, Roshir. Yeah. Yeah. Excited to be here. I've heard great things. Well, that's good that you've heard that. Maybe, maybe it'll go well enough to where you won't feel, let down afterwards. So Yeah. Hey. I always like to kick these off a little bit with a little, kind of a show and tell. Tell us a little bit about you, how you wound up here, what you're doing, you know, kinda like how you got into this world. Yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah, I haven't actually myself worked in the skilled trades, but I've been around education for the skilled trades for pretty much my whole career. So, like, in college, I did policy research on the BP oil spill, and training was one of the biggest issues that caused that spill. And so build out a company right out of college, with online courses and simulations to train oil and gas workers. And so I ran that. We grew it quite a bit. And then, took a break, went to business school at Stanford, came out, and it was COVID. And everyone in oil and gas was getting laid off. Yeah. And so all these folks from our platform who were super hardworking and super skilled, going from making six figure salaries to then going to working at a grocery store. They just didn't know what other industries needed workers and how to get there and started doing some research. And if you look back, like, a hundred feet view, this has been happening for the last fifty years across the country where people have been losing jobs in industries like manufacturing or coal. And instead of reskilling, you know, with super applicable mechanical or electrical skills, they kinda drift off and and they struggle to find new careers and and and great jobs. And so that's kinda what inspired SkillCat is, hey. How do you what if you make it easier for folks to move to these really great jobs that have a massive, massive worker shortage? Like in the construction trades, like in telecom, in manufacturing, new manufacturing jobs. There's just this huge shortage of jobs that don't need a college degree, but still have a lot of specialized skills, so they pay really, really well. And that's kind of been the mission of SkillCat from day one is how do we bring as many people as possible into the trades? You know, there I I talk a lot about the difference between the unemployment rate and the employee engagement rate, you know, or the, I'm I'm I'm screwing the wording up, but it's the people that are eligible. Work, work participation. That's the that's what's killing us. You know? We've got all these people that are able-bodied and of the right age group to work that aren't working in, from a participation standpoint. So getting those folks reskilled is is super important. I've always wondered how you came up with the name SkillCat. Nothing mysterious. So, I was looking for good names that had, like, you know, dot coms available, around skills. Because I think for us, we're all about how do you make hiring managers and just anyone in the trades think about skills and not just about experience. And then the brainstorming with a friend, we thought about skill kit. She drew a little picture of a cat with a hard hat, and we were like, skill cat. It just kinda stuck, and, it stuck. And it was just it's yeah. It's been it's a catchy name. It's fun. We have a mascot of a tiger coming out at some point. But, so, yeah, that's it. Nothing no no magic to it. Just a a catchy name that has skills in it. Well, it's always interesting to me of how people name different things, you know, what they name them. And it can be as benign as what you just said or or as crazy as some life changing experience people had. So Yeah. Exactly. Alright. So background wise, you grew up in in Connecticut, Rhode Island. You went to Stanford, your your MBA, I'm assuming, or whatever you went for. Yeah. How was that bicoastal difference in what you saw in in people, in in mentality around work? Was it big difference between the East Coast, West Coast? Or No. And then I spent, so I went to college at Rice in Houston, and then I lived in Houston for four years after that. So I've kinda seen, you know, every part of the US in some ways. And I I think yeah. I mean, I I don't think there's a significant difference. Right? There's people everywhere. I mean, you see a lot of talk of, you know, the coast versus, you know, you know, the the inside of the country and, like, all these differences. I think a lot of people are generally the same. Right? Everyone wants to to have a good job, have a rewarding career, make money for their family. And, you know, I think there's a lot more that connects us than than sets us apart. You know, I I was thinking about it this week, this past week rather with the election. And, you know, our our company, ServiceLogic, where I work, during the day, my day job, we have people all over the all over the US and in Canada. And I hear all these different people talking about, well, the left coast and the right coast and you know? But to me, people who want to work figure out a way to go to work or figure out how to get retrained to go to work, and and what you're doing, offering a way to do that. I think people wanna work. You know? It's and and the people that really wanna work really wanna get after it most of the time. They don't want a freaking job just to go and be mundane and, you know, just punch a time clock. Yeah. I I think no. I think skill trade jobs are super satisfying. Right? So, like, there's a I think a lot of people are shuffled into office jobs, and a lot of office jobs don't have much soul. Right? You're like a cog in a big corporate machine. You have very little authority or ownership of your work. You can't really see your results. That's where I think, like, the trades are really powerful in that they help a lot of the people who may think they don't like work actually have a sense of purpose. Right? Like, people are in life, I think you look for purpose. And, I yeah. People wanna do something with their lives. Right? So Well, you know, you said rewarding, and I I'm in the middle of a project in my house. We're we're expanding our I call it the okay room. We're trying to make it a great room, but we're encompassing our back porch into the into the living space. And I did the electrical and and all that stuff on the on the, on the job. And it really is rewarding, even, something as minor as what I did. I had to move, you know, a handful of outlets and run a cable, you know, just crap like that. Mhmm. But it's really fun to be able to you know, I was tired because I'm sixty, and I don't do this every day now. But to be able to sit back and look at the result and be ready for the inspector, like, yeah, man. That looks good. It feels good. And and I take my bucket and, you know, go back around the other side of the house. But I think that's super rewarding. And and people you know, we hear a lot today, man, about people being depressed and anxious and upset. And there's nothing better to me than being tired and looking at a result of what you've done that day and going Mhmm. Big check mark. Like, okay. I nailed it. Not that's so rewarding mentally. No. You can't beat that feeling. Yeah. Gotta be some kind of endorphin release when you get that when you're able to to do that. So okay. Enough about my psychotherapy treatment. How does skill cat work? How do how do you how do you get people? How do you recruit? How do they train? How does that work? Give us the the synopsis of what the the the machine looks like. Yeah. So we built a training platform for the skilled trades. We have about fifteen hundred hours of online simulation based training focused on HVAC, plumbing, electrical, appliance repair. And, you can get certified in a whole bunch of different certifications all online through your mobile phone. And we've trained about three hundred thousand people. We just started doing some marketing efforts, like, last month. Before that, everything's been organic. So So we were free for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. We were free for a while, which became really popular. I think there's a lot of people out there who wanna get into the trades. They've heard about those jobs. They've heard about the opportunities. They wanna work, but they just traditional, mechanisms to get into the trades are just often expensive and time consuming for a lot of people. So we've tried to create an alternate pathway where you don't have to necessarily leave the workforce while you're training for your skilled trades job. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars. You know, our app is actually just ten dollars a month and gets you access to everything. And so how do you make it as easy as possible for folks to get a pathway into the trades? And now we're doing all sorts of partnerships to add more content onto the platform, add elements of the of the of our online school that actually include a hands on component where you partner with different contractors closest to you to get some hands on training. So, really, the sky is the limit. But the the basic premise is how do you make this easy for people? And you get along, you know, around a lot of the barriers. You know, the the ease of use is in in super important. I'm glad to hear the the hands on piece because theory can can get there a lot quicker if you're able to go and do it in in person and hands on. So you learn electrical theory or you learn HVAC or whatever you're learning. And to be able to go apply that skill while you're still fresh on the frontal lobe is super important because you're able to, like, mentally connect the dots. Okay. I read about this. I understand how electrons flow, but being able to connect two wires on a junction box is a different thing than reading about it. And that's where, you know, we see artificial intelligence or VR or whatever coming into that front. I I just I think the mixture of all of it is really good. You know? The the theoretical, the reading, the watching of video, the VR experience. But there's nothing like turning a wire nut with your fingers feeling that that No. That's kind of yeah. Good stuff. Yeah. And so I think for us, it's you know, we can well, through our virtual simulations on our and we'll go as close as you can to, you know, getting hands on. And, you know, then if you're already working at a company, then we're a great apprenticeship solution where you have that hands on. You can log the different things you do in the field hands on while going through online training to support that. And then if you don't have access to a company, if you're still not in the industry yet, that's where we're looking at partnership where you can come into a local contractor near you for a weekend, you know, or, you know, a day every week for several weeks and just creating a more flexible alternative to, you know, traditional fixed schooling so that you get that hands on and online in a really flexible way. Well, you know, there there are people out there like, Blue Recruit, friends of mine at Blue Recruit. Mhmm. They are always looking for alternative ways to get awareness created. And and I think that's such a huge piece of of how to get people involved. You know? Is it somebody doing a, you know, a a weekend or a summer internship and and giving them a little bit of exposure to it to see if something ignites there? Because so many people, man, when I when I talk to people in the industry, which I try to do continuously, it's so weird how many people come into the trades through some unpredictable backdoor way that they never would have thought they would have ended up doing what they're doing. Mhmm. And I just think about, okay. We've got, you know, x amount of workers in the skilled trades now. But what if we made it really easy to get involved instead of stumbling into it? How quickly we could cross that chasm between our numbers of people we have versus what we think we need, is huge, huge, opportunity for creating that awareness. And, you know, I talk to to folks all the time about that. How are you doing it? And, there there's there's a bunch of different ways that it's happening through social, through traditional apprenticeships, through technical school technical school enrollment still up again this year, like, sixteen to twenty percent. So we're we're we're, you know, I feel like we're right there on the I just got a email from Interplay Learning, you know, what they're doing. I mean, literally just popped in with what what Doug and, Donovan and that group are doing. There's so many different ways that it's it's kind of, organically becoming more, easier, I guess, for lack of a better word, to get involved. And, you know, when talking with your your crew, when when Brendan was on with us, you know, we just talked about different ways to get people exposed. And that's, you know, middle school or earlier talking about the trades, returning military, people that got laid off from their previous job that are looking, you know, to to do something for the next twenty, thirty years. So many opportunities. What what do you what do you think about how do you like to think about creating the awareness for people to know not only skill cap, but to know about the trades opportunity in general? Yeah. It's something I'm really focused on as well. I so I think there's if I had to look at the skilled trade worker shortage and, you know, this workforce problem in the country, it's awareness and access. Right? So on the access side, we're really focused on recreating this really lower cost, like, more flexible pathway to get into the trades and to grow in the trades. On the, on the awareness side, we've tried a whole bunch of things, and I think we're just getting started on that. So, like, our initial focus was how do you get people who already wanna get into the trades and make that easy for them. Yeah. On the awareness side, and I've been doing a lot of LinkedIn posting, but I think, you know, even though there's not a lot of trades folks on LinkedIn compared to some of the other platforms, there's a lot of people who are very influential and involved in education, education policy, a lot of parents, a lot of people who, like, just don't know anything about how incredible the opportunities are on are in the trades, and they're just, like, supremely misguided. Right? And so they have great intentions and wanna do the best for their kids, for the people they know, and but they just don't understand how much money you can make, how great the job security is, how happy people are. There's, like, a huge number of misconceptions. And so I think it requires going beyond just traditional channels where the trades people are and looking at alternate sources where there aren't that many trades people, but just a lot of Americans who who need to learn and understand more about the trades. So yeah. You know, you you said something that I focus on, which is the parent. You know, to your point, there's not a lot of service technicians and welders and electricians that I interact with on LinkedIn, but the parents of those potential employees are on there. And I'm I'm helping a young man right now get started in his career. And I don't communicate with him on LinkedIn, but I talk to his dad on LinkedIn. You know? So, it's just really one more way. You know? I'm not good at Instagram. I don't do TikTok, and I don't do Facebook. But, you know, I try to use what I've got to reach the people who are influential, in lives and and, you know, kids, young people are I don't know if this is a good statement to make, but I'll make it anyway because I believe it to in in some way. And I I don't know if I'm wording it right, but there tends to be a a a longer tail to the child parent relationship than there used to be. Uh-huh. Years ago, when you were eighteen, you were on your own, or when you got out of college, you were on your own. Mhmm. That tends to be a longer tether now of after you're eighteen or after you're out of school that that familial I don't know what it is. Not not approval, but consultation tends to go on more. You know, when I was eighteen, I was like, okay. I'm gonna do this, and that's what I'm gonna do. But now, you know, when I talk to my friends and and my neighbors, their college age and their working kids still have those kind of communications with the parents. Like, what do you think about this? Mhmm. I don't know. I I think that's good. It's just different for me to think about it that way so that when a when a young person, maybe they're a lot more mature than I was at that age by realizing I need to go to my peers or or my my, elders and ask what they think about it because they've been through a lot. I don't know. Just kinda thinking out loud. Yeah. I think there is a lot more reflection. Right? I think people are Maybe that's a good one. Yeah. There's a lot more back and forth and reflection and a desire for work to be meaningful. Right? I think there's there's, like, a higher standard for a lot of folks, a lot of young folks these days. They wanna really have work life balance, have independence and autonomy, maybe able to work for themselves. There's just a lot of things people are looking for. And, fortunately, for for our industry, the trades actually are phenomenal for a lot of those things. So Yeah. There there are, a lot, but there's also sacrifice that comes with the trades because you're, yeah, you're getting a a premium wage, and you're gonna have good benefits most of the time. And, like, for us, education is included in our program. But if you're on standby for emergency work, you're gonna have to work some weekends, and you're gonna have to work some nights. That piece has been a little bit clunky for us as an industry to work through, because people have the mindset, some some of our new folks when they come on board, it's eight to four thirty or seven to three thirty Mhmm. As opposed to understanding Christmas Eve and the department store is cold or hot, you gotta go. Yeah. So there's a little bit of of real life that has to be peppered into those conversations of, yes, we want you to have a good work life balance, which is a word you'd never heard of ten years ago. Yeah. We want you to have that. We want you to be mentally fit. You know? But there are the trade offs. You know? It's cold outside when it's snowing, and you're laying in the snow trying to get a furnace to light off, on a rooftop. Mhmm. But trade off is you've got all this other good. So I think it's a matter of laying it out and really having candid conversations around what the expectation of the job is. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. No. There's definitely I I would argue that there are a lot of trade offs and challenges with the trades, but there's also a lot of hidden trades off trade offs and challenges with desk jobs. And I think people don't understand the amount of depression that a lot of office workers have, like, a lot of the health issues, a lot of the lack of satisfaction and kinda misery. And so I yeah, of course. I mean, I think, like, yeah, of course, there are there are challenges with with trade jobs as well, but, I think our society spends a lot more time talking about those challenges than they spend talking about the challenges with the office jobs. Yeah. I totally agree. You know? Nilofer Merchant's a lady that I've read a lot about, over the years or read her her books. And, you know, her big thing a couple years ago she came out with was sitting is the new smoking, you know, because people are are sitting at their desk or are not mobile in their jobs as much as we used to be. And the health implications that came with that of sitting at a cubicle for eight hours a day. And Mhmm. That became the rising desk and work standing up and all those things that tried to get people more mobile, to your point. So there are trade offs. You know? Mhmm. I wouldn't be nuts if I had to sit in an office and work every day because that's not for me. You know? I like to be outdoors. Even when I'm in my office working, I'm looking outdoors. And as soon as I can, I go outdoors? If I gotta take a phone call, I go walking up and down the street like some kind of I'm sure my neighbors think I'm a lunatic. But, you know, I'll I like that, ability to be mobile. And, working in the trades allows a lot of that, especially if you're a mobile kind of technician. Mhmm. And you get to travel and see and do and meet and just all kinds of cool stuff. Love it. Love it. Yeah. So the tell me if you will, Rishi, that the numbers you're hearing, from how many people do we need to recruit into the skilled trades to catch up? I mean, I've heard a lot of numbers. I think it's, you know, in the in the many millions. Right? So, there's millions of people needed across every trade, and that number grows every year because there's just, you know, so many baby boomers retiring and a lot fewer young people joining. So every single year, there's an increased and growing shortage. It's a larger shortage than software developers, a larger shortage than nurses, a larger shortage than pretty much any other industry, and it's not talked about enough outside of our industry. So, yeah. I I think people are beginning to understand that because if you want something done even at your house, let alone your commercial office, you wait. You know? People are waiting because there's not enough plumbers or there's not enough, you know, cable installers or whatever. So waiting on service has become the new norm as opposed to calling up the plumbing company and having somebody dispatched right away. And I'm I'm a boomer. I'm the youngest boomer. I was born in sixty four. So, you know, when we we lose, a hundred thousand people a day to retirement nationally, that's a heck of a lot of of people. And just thinking there's ten percent of those hundred thousand that are skilled, that's ten thousand a day being super duper conservative. And Mhmm. We're not recruiting that many, a day. So it'll be a, a continual charge. You know? We we have to keep that keep it moving. Absolutely. I got it. I'm gonna pause right here, and I'm pausing at three, two, one. Alright, Rasheer. I'm curious. I've been thinking about this a little bit. How do you go to market? How do you how do you make people aware of your services, you know, other than social? Because you do a great job, on LinkedIn. I follow you. How do how can people connect? How are you connecting with schools? How how does all that work for you? Yeah. We're pretty open book. Right? So, we, we have a a small team. We're all focused on the trades and always building new content and, pretty involved. So I mean, feel free to send me an email. Anyone on our team, you need an email. You have to contact us on the website that goes to a bunch of people, including me. So, pretty easy to get in touch with us. I think our goal you know, for us, feedback is a gift. Right? I always tell this story how I you know, when we first got started, our rating on the Play Store was two stars. And we had, you know, a couple hundred reviews of people who hated us or not hated us, but they didn't think we were a great app. And now we're four point nine or even five stars on Sundays, you know, with thousands of reviews. And that that's just been because of feedback because a lot of tradespeople are super brutally honest with what they think, and, we love that. And so we're still constantly building based on things people say about us on Reddit, things people email in or share. We're constantly trying to build a better and better product, for for our users. So, honestly, reach out if you have ideas, but also reach out if you hate something or you think you know? The the more feedback is really a gift, so we wanna hear everything and everything and anything from you. I love that because to me, that means you're not hiding anything. You know? People who don't want feedback, usually have some dirt in their own backyard, so that's cool. And so skill cat dot com? Yeah. Yeah. Skill cat dot com works. Yes. Or you can if you're free to send me an email, if you have anything specific as well. It's richier, r u c h I r, at skill cat app dot com. Skill cat app. Alright. Well, I know that there are going to be people who are in the skilled trades or whose kids need to be in the skilled trades listening to this. So, I appreciate it. You also find you on on, like I said, LinkedIn, Rishi Shah. You do a good job of posting. And I I told you earlier, I love the photo of you, and your grandfather. That was always cool to to or or cool to see. I had really, spectacular grandparents. My my paternal grandfather, he was a little rough around the edges. My wife says when I'm acting inappropriately, I got that from him. But, a lot of good grandparent memories for me, for sure. Alright. So Rishir Shah, I want you guys to go check it out. SkillCat app, SkillCat dot com. Check them out. Get some people excited to build a career, and this is one way to do it. It's a way to get exposure. And this is, what three hundred thousand people have already been, through. That is incredible. Just And we're just getting started. So, so it'd be cool when it's three million. Yeah. We'll get there. We'll be there soon. We'll we'll we'll do another podcast when that when that gets to that. It sounds great. It's a plan. Well, guys, thank y'all for, taking a few minutes with us today. Rishir Shaw with SkillCat, love what they're doing. We love helping, get the word out on the skilled trades. And for people who are passionate about doing it, this this is a calling. You know? We don't do this for just the money or just the exposure or whatever. It's for the good of our country, I believe. Because without skilled tradespeople, you don't get your lights working and your toilet doesn't run and your car doesn't re get repaired. And just so many things that we take for granted that have to be done by people that get, bloody and dirty knuckles. So think about it. Think about the kid at church who doesn't know what they wanna do. You know? Just those kind of folks just need a little nudge, and shooting them over to SkillCat or or a similar platform is just a great way to do it. So that's it for me, Roshir. I really appreciate you taking time with us today. It's always fun to get to talk to a fellow advocate and, somebody that's a lot better looking than I am on camera to look at. So, I'm Absolutely not. I was gonna say the opposite. I hear you. Well, guys, thanks for listening. Greg crumpton dot com is where you can go to get some more of the podcast recordings and download those. Apple, Spotify, all the normal places you go to get your your, podcast content. Feel free to do that. Share it around. We're gonna turn this world around. We're gonna have more skilled trades people than we know what to do with one day. So I can't wait till that happens. But Yeah. For me, for Rasheer, thank you for joining, and we will see you on the next episode.
