Durable’s James Clift wants to make running a business the default option for people

After selling a business right before COVID hit, James Clift was left wondering what to do. His foolproof plan—to travel the world and take some time before deciding what was next—wasn’t in the cards.

Clift, who has been starting businesses since he was in high school in White Rock, started and sold off another venture (automated Slack updater Holopod) before turning his eyes toward making starting a business easier for budding entrepreneurs.

“It’s a business I’ve always wanted to build,” says Clift. “The broad thesis of it is that it’s still way too hard to run a business. How do we make it easier than having a job and make it the default option for people? Everything from building a website, running marketing campaigns, getting customers, following up, scheduling jobs. Essentially automating every part of the business except for the actual work part of it.”

Almost exactly a year ago, Clift’s Vancouver-based tech company Durable launched its first product—an AI website builder aimed at budding entrepreneurs in fields like home services, skilled trades and health and wellness. “I went into a bunch of coffee shops and just showed people on my phone and they’d go, ‘Holy shit. Hey, other person in coffee shop, you have to see this.’ That was the initial moment where I felt like it might [do well], because it had actual word-of-mouth and a wow factor and virality.”

Since that launch, Durable has helped build more than 5 million websites. The company has 15 employees and raised a $6 million seed round last year.

Primarily, Durable customers run service-based companies. “There’s a blurry line between owning a business and doing a job in a lot of those industries,” says Clift, who notes that his product is being used by dog-walkers, tutors, HVAC mechanics and barbers, among many other types of entrepreneurs. “You can get paid $12 an hour by a landscaping company or own your own and do most of the same work. If we can make the business side of that super easy, the work side gets easier.”

Clift sees Durable as start of a shift in which people covet running a business more than having a job. That’s already the case in the U.S. (where Durable has the majority of its customers), Clift argues. And while running a businesses is undoubtedly tough even with the advantages Durable gives its customers, jobs aren’t exactly the stable havens they once were.

“There are a lot of layoffs happening, and employers are figuring out automation and efficiency,” says Clift. “That, out of necessity, makes it a better time to open a business. You have that flexibility. That’s the real shift—the economy is crazy and the risk of a job is a lot higher than it was. Even a side hustle is really useful to grow on the side, especially if your job feels a little shaky. In a recession, a lot of great businesses are started, side hustles become full-time, and once everything gets back to normal, you’re in a position to grow. But what do jobs even look like in five years? I’m not sure.”