Skip to content

Client case study:
Mindvalley

Ndy Macaulay, People Operations Specialist
My key responsibilities include but are not limited to contractor management & payroll management for full-time employees.
"A platform that takes away the long hours of managing freelancers so that you can spend the time on doing more strategic tasks"

Stats

  • 35%

    of freelancer payments made cheaper

  • 20M followers

    across 195 countries

  • 60%

    less admin time from payment processing

Questions & Answers

  1. In your own words, can you describe the nature of your business for the benefit of our subscribers.

    Mindvalley is the world's most powerful life transformation platform and is the next step in online learning. From longevity and wellness, to peak performance and spirituality, we provide leading-edge personal growth programs from today’s brightest teachers. You can see an example of our programs here. Mindvalley has a following of 20 million people across 195 countries and our goal is to provide non-traditional school education that will reach 100 national schooling systems and every company in the Fortune 500 over the next decade....at the end, we want to evolve the way we learn.

    Vishen is the founder and CEO of Mindvalley. He is one of the architects of modern personal growth, elevating many brilliant and recognizable names in the industry.

  2. What is your role in the company? Tell us a little about your key responsibilities.

    I'm a People Operations Specialist. My key responsibilities include but not limited to contractor management & payroll management for full-time employees.

  3. How many freelancers do you use, where are they located and what sort of work do they do for your company?

    We have over 100 freelancers & they are located all over the world. They provide services like Podcast editing, Customer service, video editing, general admin tasks, Android & IOS development services, data analytics etc. 

  4. What specific problems were you looking to solve when you decided to look for a management system for your contractors?

    We wanted to solve the problem of long waiting times for contractors to receive their payments, inefficient business processes for our internal teams as well as the full optimization of resources. Managing all of our contractors on one platform allows us to automate payments and improve business efficiency for a better business process, with the goal of improving the productivity of team members.

  5. What systems or processes were you using to manage, pay and organize your talent before you switched to a Freelancer Management System?

    We were using another platform before TalentDesk but were also manually processing invoices in-house. We had people making the payments for them but also did manual processing of payments at the end of the month as well.

  6. What would you say was the biggest pain-point or challenge you were facing?

    Paying people globally and on-time, definitely.

  7. How much were you paying in bank fees/FX fees for cross-border payments monthly, pre-TalentDesk?

    We've saved about 35% on payments since we moved to TalentDesk in terms of payment cost and processing fees. 
  8. How much time is your business saving each month by not having to manually check, process and reconcile each contractor invoice?

    We spend about 60% less time on payment admin tasks. I'd also say we are saving around 15 to 20 hours per week from reviewing invoices (time saved on manually preparing invoices, going to the bank, receiving approvals, manually stamping and signing, issuing payments…). This process typically involved the Finance team as well as my team (Operations). 
  9. How would you approximately quantify the benefits below from our platform:

    • 5% of time saved on work allocation 
    • 35% freelancer payments made cheaper
    • 60% less admin time from payment processing

    Allocating tasks has been easier with TalentDesk because we can keep track of the milestones on the platform rather than emailing back and forth. The onboarding process has also been seamless. We can now collect documents directly through the platform.

  10. Do you now have more visibility on contractor payment costs and budgets by using TalentDesk? Please summarize the extent of how this has changed for you by using our platform.

    Yes, we do have more visibility. We had two ways of managing payments: one was on the old platform and the other was manually processing invoices. Our inboxes were flooded with invoices sent by freelancers, which meant we used to miss invoices sometimes. The whole process took about a week - from going through the emails, to approving them, and issuing the payments. We were working on two different platforms simultaneously, which got confusing once the payments increased. Now, we have more visibility since we can do all of the above on TalentDesk alone and because most of the payment process is now automated.
  11. What is the biggest benefit that you have seen since using TalentDesk.io?

    Time and cost saving, definitely.  

  12. How often would your contractors receive a wrong amount and/or late payment, monthly?

    If there were mistakes being made, they usually came from the banks. On our end the amounts were double-checked to minimize errors. We did however deal with a lot of late payments!
  13. Would you say your relationship/retention of your freelancers has improved since using TalentDesk? If so, how?

    Our relationship with the freelancers has definitely improved. They are much happier with TalentDesk's process. Previously, the timeline was really long for them between processing invoices and receiving their payment. With TalentDesk, that process is way easier for the freelancers, for us, and for the sake of ensuring timely payments.

  14. How does the internal team feel about using TalentDesk.io?

    Talentdesk came to relieve us of a huge burden, we are beyond grateful. 

  15. How would you describe TalentDesk in 3 words?

    Great Customer Service!

  16. How would you describe TalentDesk.io to someone new?

    I'd say TalentDesk is a platform that takes away the long hours of managing freelancers so that you can spend the time on doing more strategic tasks. 

  17. Who would you recommend TalentDesk.io to?

    To every company looking to solve the issue of contractor management. 

  18. What is your favorite feature on TalentDesk?

    It has to be the approval button. It's been updated to include voiding, approving and editing, which I really like! Now, we can edit invoices and it takes seconds to ask for amendments, void and approve invoices rather than canceling invoices and sending new ones.
  19. Will Mindvalley rely more on contractors with looming recession?

    Mindvalley is expanding and growing and we’re luckily still hiring despite the recession. It's easier for us to hire contractors because it takes much less time than finding employees and it allows for more flexibility, especially because we work on short projects that last 2 to 3 months.