10 years of Malt

10 years. It’s been 10 years since our first transaction on Malt.

And 3,652 days later, our ambition remains unchanged. The world in 2013 was a very different place from what it is now. Freelancers were more of a rarity, if not an oddity at times. Similar to unicorns, you knew they existed but somehow barely saw any with your own eyes.

10 years ago, Malt had its first successful match between a freelance professional named Loïc and a client in Paris, Lesfurets.com, an insurance company.

Today, with over 500,000 freelancers and 60,000 clients on our marketplace, this might seem like just another day on the job. But before that first success, we were unsure of how the website we built with a handful of freelancers would be received. Now we can say with confidence that we achieved what we set out to do.

We were convinced of the need to revolutionise the world of work and create better working conditions for freelancers. My co-founders Hugo and Jean-Baptiste, both freelancers at the time, had created the Lateral Thoughts collective to provide better conditions and services for its members. On my end, I'd experienced the difficulty of finding available professionals for freelance work.

This is what sparked our big idea. Our main objective became to bridge the gap between these two issues: finding skilled talent and providing freelancers with better working conditions.

From the outset, we knew that our project was more than just about connecting freelancers with clients. However, building a strong Community remained at the heart of our core values at all times. That’s why we quickly launched breakfast events and AfterMalt gatherings, as well as Malt Academies - organised by freelancers to share skills amongst other freelancers - with a focus on joy and mutual support. Our close relationship with the community allowed us to develop a product that meets the needs of freelancers and create strong bonds. Today, Malt teams are present in six countries to facilitate in-person team meetings and exchanges. I'm convinced that this proximity is key to ensuring that we can meet your expectations as best as possible.

We have a saying at Malt: “Ambition is the way”: we have been ambitious enough to get where we are and want to take it a step further for this new decade that awaits us. Our north star remains the same: to ensure an effortless collaboration between freelancers and clients, and being their marketplace of choice.

The Malt team works with our freelance community daily and with our client’s best interests in mind.  And in 2023, we are taking this a step further. This is the reason why, today, I’m proud to announce the launch of our first Freelancer Advisory Board. It will be made up of 17 European freelancers with the main objective to support Malt’s management team in defining our vision of freelancing for the years to come.

In the past 10 years, freelancing has evolved, as have the practices of companies. I'm convinced that we are just at the beginning of the transformation of the world of work. Our way of working will continue to transform to allow for more choice: the choice to choose projects and colleagues, and how to work. And we will be by your side every step of the way.

Let's celebrate the moments shared with the freelance community because these 10 years are just the beginning.

To many more!
Vincent