How consultants are exchanging their skills for equity

"It doesn't have to take up our entire workload, but a lot of us have downtime... and others may want to break into a new industry."

The marketplace enables founders to pitch their idea and the work they need completed and then professionals can connect with the founder and negotiate how they'd like to be compensated. As well as equity, this can be in the form of a profit share, staggered payments, part-payment, equity buyback or an exchange of services.

So far 90 per cent of all pitches have received a connection and of those approximately 15 per cent have resulted in a contract being signed.

For now the platform is free to use, but the Ms Fay said she was working on paid features to enhance the functionality of the marketplace and generate a revenue stream.

"We're looking to monetise in January. We won't put a fee on for service providers to register or businesses to pitch, but we'll charge for upgrades and providing more support through the process," she said.

"It'll really just reduces the risk for the business of the collaboration. Basically [as part of the premium version] the business will get to go and select the service provider they want to speak to... and in the top tier product we’ll develop their pitch for them and then reach out to the providers we think are the best fit and the most motivated."

To date The Pitch Portal has been bootstrapped, with the exception of a small investment from a family friend, but Ms Fay said it would likely look to raise capital ahead of expanding offshore in the future.

One business using The Pitch Portal is property financing start-up NestEgg Living, whose co-founder Tony Harris says joining the services market helped connect the company to other entrepreneurs, as well as professionals who understood what it was like to be a start-up.

Mr Harris connected with two people from the firm Know Digital, who are helping them test their market ahead of launching their property co-investment product.

"We needed a company like Know Digital who could build our lead funnel," he said.

"We believe we have a great product solving the deposit gap, but if we can’t get the message out and build the client base, well it will be a very long and arduous journey and we could waste lots of money and time, and not achieve the critical mass we require for the business."

Mr Harris said he was open to offering up to a 10 per cent stake in the firm if Know Digital agree to a success-based arrangement.

"We want to work with people and companies that believe in what we are trying to achieve in the market place and we are willing to share the upside with equity in our company," he said.