JOHANNESBURG – Dean Furman believes financial services firms have been putting the cart before the horse for way too long. Telling people to budget, save and invest is all very well, he argues, but what about solving their more fundamental problem? The issue of insufficient income.

“You tell people the whole time to save for retirement or buy life and short-term insurance. You try to educate people about budgeting. Most people, especially those who are financially stressed, understand their budgets. But if they are worried about putting food on their table that evening or paying for their children’s school fees, the last thing they think about is saving for retirement or buying insurance,” Furman contends.

Instead, he and business partner, Rudie Shepherd are asking the question: how do we actually help people create additional income?

“That’s something that’s never really been looked at by the financial industry, when they say their purpose is to secure financial well being,” says Furman, an actuary who has worked in product development for more than ten years.

Enter BetterWage, a website featuring some 450 companies and endless opportunities to earn money offering services that you’re good at and passionate about.

Understanding the gig economy

Sceptical? In order to understand what BetterWage is all about, you need to understand the gig economy, sometimes referred to as the on-demand or sharing economy.

These terms essentially describe an environment in which goods and services are made available – often with immediate effect and sometimes in exchange for other goods and services rather than money – as and when they are needed

The gig economy means that your car can become a taxi à la Uber, or your home can be transformed into a hotel, à la Airbnb.

But that’s just the beginning.

Take Fiverr, which allows you to offer a service for as little as $5. “I will write an attention grabbing press release”, advertises one Fiverr contributor, “I will read your script with a warm and smooth male voice”, says another. For $150 another Fiverr member offers to design “a simple logo with an illustration”.

Offering more than 40 000 courses, Udemy allows you to design and sell online courses to those who want to learn new skills. The site offers anything from a course in 3D animation for $50 to a photography master class for $30 and a project management course for $20.

Did you know that on website Cambly you can get paid to have conversations with people who want to improve their English?

“Outside of your normal 9 to 5, you’re able to make extra income and provide services to people on the other side of the world,” Furman explains.

These may not be huge amounts, but every bit counts, right? And you might just hit the big time, as maths teacher Rob Percival did when he designed a coding course and made $2.8 million in nine months on Udemy, according to Furman.

Backed by Alexander Forbes

Using an algorithm, BetterWage’s WageFinder asks you a series of questions and then hands you a report at the end with a range of potential earning opportunities that fit your skills and passions.

These could include regular day jobs or prospects to earn a couple extra bucks by coming up with a company slogan or doing a voice over, for instance.

BetterWage plans to constantly refine its algorithm, says Shepherd, tweaking the questions to deliver results that speak more specifically to peoples’ needs and passions.

Shepherd is a systems architect who spent 20 years driving Alexander Forbes’s systems strategy.

The challenge, admits Furman, is that there are a large number of ‘make-easy-money-online’ scams out there. “We don’t want to make unrealistic promises, we want to educate people as best we can and give them the tools to succeed,” he notes.

An actuary who’s worked in product development for Discovery and Alexander Forbes, Furman left a senior position at Forbes in late 2015 to start BetterWage with the financial services firm’s backing.

He describes the group’s former CEO, Edward Kieswetter as “quite a visionary”.

“He realised that in order for anything really disruptive to happen we need to separate totally from business as usual,” Furman explains. “Forbes said go ahead and disrupt the way that things are currently done. Creating the world’s best life insurance solutions doesn’t help if people don’t have money.”

While its current service is free, BetterWage has plans to charge users for more focused input on how to maximise opportunities offered up by the gig economy.

The start-up would also like to eventually provide financial services solutions for its users’ enhanced disposable income.