Shrlock
Make running an HR practice feel like one workspace.
A platform for independent HR consultants. I cofounded Shrlock in 2024 after years at Bambee designing HR software for small businesses, and led product, design, and brand from research through MVP launch.
The idea came from six years designing HR software at Bambee.
Years at Bambee designing HR software for small businesses gave me a clear view of where the market was. Tens of thousands of small companies couldn't afford in-house HR, and independent consultants were serving them around the margins of full-time roles, with no product built for the way the work was done.
In 2024 the gap widened. As businesses pushed toward efficiency, internal HR teams shrank and the layoff wave moved experienced professionals into consulting. SMB demand kept growing, and the consultants stepping up to meet it were still working out of someone else's tools.
What struck me across those conversations: they knew HR cold, and running a business was brand new. The name came early in the build, wordplay on Sherlock.
Eighty interviews with working HR consultants.
We talked to 80 working HR consultants. The picture was consistent.
The over-tooled cohort was paying around $1,500 a month for four to six SaaS subscriptions and using a fraction of any of them. The under-tooled cohort was running entire practices on spreadsheets, email, and memory. Both groups juggled every client's HR stack on top of their own. Every consultant lost meaningful billable time to call-and-text chaos that never made it to an invoice.
The interviews pointed to one product shape: consultants did not need another HR tool for one client. They needed a workspace model for a book of clients, with communication, documents, time, billing, and compliance context scoped per engagement.
One workspace per client.
The center of gravity is the client workspace. Each engagement gets its own environment with the consultant's communications, documents, time entries, and compliance context scoped to that client. A cross-client dashboard sits on top so the whole book is visible at a glance.
Six modules ride on the workspace. Client management, staff profiles, projects and tasks, scheduling, time tracking, and billing and invoices. The integrations layer connects each client's existing payroll, HRIS, and recruiting tools (Gusto, BambooHR, Paycom, Rippling, Deel) so the consultant stops switching platforms to do basic work.
Launched in 2024: six modules on a workspace-per-client model.
Shrlock launched its MVP in 2024, built from eighty discovery interviews. I designed the brand and the product across six modules on a workspace-per-client data model, and it shipped with an offshore engineering team. I led it from research through launch as cofounder and head of product.