2017 – Launching Trusted Herd

All big things have humble beginnings and Trusted Herd is no different. On January 14, 2017 Brian Fox launched TrustedHerd.com as a way for gig workers to unite, review companies, find event gig jobs and help companies find the best event professionals. Something clicked, because within just 10 days, 500 workers joined the platform!

To thank those who had joined the herd and were creating company reviews, Brian hand wrote and sent out letters with checks for each review they completed. He recalls it being a tedious process filling up the weekends, but it was rewarding when users received physical mail then shared online. Great way to grow the community!

2018 – Conferences and Pitch Competitions

In 2018, Trusted Herd hit the ground running! To kick off the year, Trusted Herd was 1 of 15 startups selected to compete in ABQid’s Ski Lift Pitch contest! We were 1 of 4 out of state startups rep Chicago, Illinois and the Midwest proudly! This was a great opportunity to spread the TH word to Western Venture Capital firms!

The next stop for Trusted Herd was Collision, a conference that is self proclaimed as “The Olympics of Tech.” We got the opportunity to pitch Trusted Herd in Collision’s PITCH competition and advanced as a Top 20 Global Startup! This was also the first time Brian was recognized randomly as “Brian from Trusted Herd!”. Alessandra was working a gig for an exhibiting company, and using TH to review her gigs and as a resource (pictured, left).

Trusted Herd started 2018 off strong with conferences and pitch competitions. We also finished the year at the same pace with over 13,000 searchable promo company reviews on the platform, entirely submitted by workers.

2019 – Launching Apps

In March of 2019, Brian attended Expo West, a natural products event held in Southern California. He was constantly being stopped by promo workers to say ‘Hi.’ The natural and organic food and beverage industry is an important part of Trusted Herd. There’s so many companies and entrepreneurs trying to “make it”, with the number one way being in-store demos using brand ambassadors. The show was a success spreading the word that Trusted Herd should be part of the go-to-market strategy.

A major product milestone in 2019 was launching our mobile apps on Android and iOS. This allowed more people to access Trusted Herd with increased ease of use!

2020 – Keeping positive when the pandemic hit

In 2020, while events took an unplanned hiatus, Brian decided to take advantage of this free time and started Trusted Herd Live! THL became a 27 episode series of livestreamed interviews with top industry experts. Many of the best companies on Trusted Herd jumped at the opportunity to join the show and tell their stories such as:

• Paige Seager, Founder & Managing Principal of Next Level Marketing
• McCall Peck, Head Honcho of Norton National
• Buffie Amoroso, Founder and CEO at Forte Event Marketing LLC
• Jade Edwards, President of A+ Staffing
• Matthew Trehub, Founder and CEO of 8 Days a Week
• Brittany Menestrina, Owner of InVogue Marketing
• Tinslee Poor & Eric Alder, Co-Owners of The Grayscale Agency
• Calum Mcguigan, President of Fervent Events Inc.
• Dayna Gilchrist, CEO of The Hype Agency
• David Heiser and Bridget Aragon, Co-Founders of Grassroots
• Edwin Goitia, President of Final Stretch Events
• Mandee Flanders, Director of Operations at Oxford Marketing
• Fritz Heffinger, CEO and Founder of OutCold
• Lauren Raimondi, Owner of All Aces Promotional Staffing Inc.
• Shelly Justice, CEO of CMT Agency
• Brian Moore, VP Marketing and Business Development at Turnkey
• Kim Thompson, President of Karma Casting
• Bethany Scherbarth & Paul Edgewater, CEO & Co-Founder/CMO of Busy Bee Promotions
• Sara O’Driscoll, President and Owner of Aras Promotions
• Jack Shannon, CEO and Co-founder of Recess
• Jordan Clendenin, Founder of Guerilla Roots Marketing
• Matt Black, CEO of Geaux
• Krystie Phannareth, Owner of KPG Event Staffing
• Steve Randazzo, President of ProMotion Experiential Marketing
• Martin Solorzan, Founder and CEO of Staffed Inc.
• Brenda Skouras, Owner of B9 Model Event Staffing
• Lucille Williams, Senior Director of JBC

Trusted Herd also continued to grow and evolve its features in 2020. Most notably, we introduced the worker endorsement feature. This feature allows event workers (and companies) to endorse their fellow workers if they have a good experience. This is just one more feature that creates future opportunities for workers, the ability to take their Trusted Herd profile from gig to gig, and build reputation.

2021 – Growth, Growth, Growth!

In previous years, Trusted Herd was growing, but in 2021, TH started growing really fast! Our pre-pandemic monthly growth peak was 1,236 event jobs posted per month (Feb ‘20). By February of ‘21 we had already surpassed our previous peak and only continued to go up from there. By June of 2021, we had almost tripled our previous high.

We finished off this amazing year of the Herd’s growth by adding more workers than ever before. 2021 concluded with over 30,000 workers on the platform!

2022 – Rocketing Pace and Premium Companies

At this point, we can see Trusted Herd becoming what we know it as today: the largest live event job site in the US and Canada. A great resource for gig workers and companies alike! In 2022, we had more companies sign on as premium members than ever before, for a total of 55 companies by year’s end. 

Trusted Herd finished off our best year ever with over 58,000 jobs, 70,000 workers, and our company pages being hit over 60,000 times in a month!

We’d like to shout out all of the companies that joined or renewed Trusted Herd Premium in 2022! They make it possible for use to continue adding new features and making an all-encompassing, future Trusted Herd. Thank you for your support and we are looking forward to another successful year of events for the entire live event marketing industry!