Before
- Manual and time consuming onboarding process
- Spending hours fielding contractor questions & providing support
- Multiple manual steps to track payments, due dates and reminders
After
- Automated onboarding, W-9 collection & direct deposit
- Help desk eliminates 90% of contractor emails and support requests
- Airtable integration through Zapier saves a ton of time and money
Founded and operated by Jimmy Daly, Superpath is a growing content marketing business with a lean team that generates revenue by matching vetted freelance content professionals with projects for high-growth startups.
Looking to scale his business without the administrative overhead of more employees, Daly partnered with Wingspan to automate key parts of his back office workflows. Wingspan’s API-first platform allowed him to use a Zapier integration to seamlessly integrate with Airtable and save countless hours validating hundreds of invoices and paying his contractors on time.
Challenge
In the summer of 2023, B2B companies and content agencies were increasingly asking Superpath for talented, dynamic writers to augment their content operations, but the company’s Co-founder & CEO Jimmy Daly had a big problem: the accounts payable software he was using to pay his contractors – Routable – made scaling writers, clients, and revenue difficult.
The entire process was incredibly manual, time-consuming and nerve-racking.
“I was constantly worried about whether my payroll information was incorrect, which would be serious in the case of an audit,” said Daly.
The payment mistakes and delays often led to Superpath’s writers asking Daly tons of questions.“I had to constantly communicate with contractors, often because they wanted to know why their payments were several days late,” said Daly.
He recognized these delays were a significant retention risk, posing an obstacle to scaling his global content marketing business. “I want to attract great freelance writers and keep them,” said Daly. “A big part of that is paying them on time.”
He even had a potentially new client that was looking for help with 80-100 articles a month, which would have made them one of Superpath’s biggest clients. Daly knew he needed a better solution that would allow him to service larger clients while building the infrastructure to scale for future growth.
Solution
Daly had concerns about replacing Routable, but was willing to take the leap if it meant he could be confident his contractors would be paid fast and accurately as he scaled. He was convinced the best way to do this was to automate as much of the payment workflows as possible.
“I knew it would be worth it if I didn’t have to worry about any of the administrative, back office processes down the road,” said Daly. He evaluated several tools by asking colleagues and peers in the industry and doing his own research. One of his trusted industry peers suggested Wingspan.
While conducting his diligence on Wingspan, he found the platform and its purpose-built capabilities for managing 1099 staff to be a significant unlock for his business. Daly decided to adopt Wingspan in July 2023 and it didn’t take long for him to start seeing the impact.
Wingspan also met one of Daly’s biggest requirements: integrating with Zapier, which allowed him to connect directly to Airtable, his primary command center to manage his writers’ projects.
“I set up a zap to send writers’ their payment automatically via Wingspan once the invoice is generated,” said Daly. “It’s awesome.”
Results
“In May, I was using Routable and spending countless hours managing payroll and fielding questions from my writers, “said Daly.
“By July, Wingspan was fully operational and I was blown away by how much money was being paid to the right people, at the right time, in the right bank account.”
That first month, Superpath paid out about $90k to contractors without any issues. The company is now on track to pay out $1M for the entire year. Daly attributes recent growth in payments to Wingspan, particularly to its smooth integration with Zapier. “Wingspan’s integration flexibility makes my life infinitely easier,” said Daly. “Writers change the article’s status in Airtable, and the Wingspan automatically generates an invoice, it’s like magic.”
These extra hours back are invaluable for Daly, who’s already strapped for time running a lean content agency. “The hassle of the 1099 season used to be awful,” said Daly. “Now, I don’t need to do much during tax season thanks to Wingspan.” He also loved how easy Wingspan was for his contractors to use. “I haven't heard a contractor complain about payments since we switched to Wingspan,” he said. “They can easily check their payment status straight from the Wingspan dashboard.”
Superpath’s writers can also access Wingspan’s contractor help desk if they have issues. “The fact that Wingspan’s help desk can answer our writers’ questions and provide support is incredibly helpful, and saves me hours and hours,” said Daly. “Nobody asks me anymore where to login or where to check their payment status or where to find their tax forms; it’s incredible,” he added.
Looking ahead, Daly is excited about growing the Superpath community and building an app for the business. “To grow, Superpath needs tools that can scale alongside the business. Wingspan is that type of platform,” said Daly.
“Wingspan makes the most critical part of our business, paying writers on time seamless. It’s easily the most important tool in our tech stack.”