Bambee provides human resource assistance for small businesses
Allan Jones Headshot – Allan Jones founded Bambee to give small businesses access to human resources managers. Photo provided by Allan Jones.
Jones wondered why he gravitated toward small business owner-centric tech companies. He realized it was because one of his grandmothers owned a small dress shop, his parents owned a mini market and his other grandmother owned a childcare that she ran out of her home. He loves helping small businesses because he was raised by small business owners. There is a deep level of empathy for that segment.
That love and empathy is why the 35-year-old Black LGBTQ+ Jones founded Bambee, an outsourced Human Resources compliance solution for small businesses that is driven by empathy. It provides those businesses with a Human Resources Manager, Human Resources Director, or both, based on the needs of the company.
According to Jones, there are 6.6 million small business owners in the United States, and 96% of those do not have a Human Resources Manager. It means there is no one running Human Resources within those companies.
Bambee’s aim is to be the active HR Manager for those companies and help small business owners and employees navigate their relationships. The outcomes include better businesses, better relationships with their employees, longer tenures at those companies and better outcomes for the employer.
“Bambee helps to navigate those internal dynamics. And, on the way out, if employees decide this is not the best place for me, or employers decide this is not the right place for the employee, Bambee helps gives guidance to make sure you’ve done everything you can to coax that employee to keep them around, or you at least give them a graceful exit,” Jones said.
Bambee is geared toward small businesses that have less than 99 employees. The starting price is $99 per month for businesses that have one to four employees, more than that, it goes up from there. The goal is for the service to be extremely affordable. Jones estimates there are one million firms that have between one and four employees.
Jones’ experience in tech has changed throughout the years. At his first tech job, he was the only person of color at the firm, and he heard borderline racist jokes. He also has experienced not getting the benefit of the doubt as a man of color trying to raise money.
“There’s a deficit you have to crawl your way out of first, before you’re given the credibility, regardless of what you’ve done operationally in your career,” he said. “As a man of color there was a benefit of the doubt not granted to me about my intellect that is often granted to other founders.”
His advice to other Black people and people of color in the tech space who are coming up against roadblocks: Find the people that see you.
“Whether that be co-founders, whether that be early employees, whether that be investors. Find the ones next to you. You know who they are. Build and operate your foundation based on those folks,” he said.
For more information about Bambee, visit www.bambee.com.
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