Summary of Case
Through its meritless allegations in this lawsuit, Openforce attempts to slow its deteriorating market share by asserting baseless allegations against a competitor that it cannot beat in the marketplace. Why? Because GigSafe's products and services are simply far superior to Openforce's.
Rather than compete with GigSafe based on the strength (and weaknesses) of each company's offering, Openforce filed this lawsuit alleging that GigSafe somehow used its "secret sauce" to win business, all while orchestrating a media smear-campaign to confuse and dissuade customers from doing business with GigSafe. But Openforce's claims in this lawsuit are false. GigSafe independently built its system years ago in response to customer concerns and their demand for a solution that actually works to solve those concerns.
Simply put, GigSafe created a better product, and Openforce is struggling to keep up, losing customers each quarter that it fails to improve its products and services. In this suit, Openforce brings its claims in bad faith through false and misleading allegations in order to spin a narrative to its fleeting customers. The narrative goes that GigSafe hatched a scheme to feign interest in doing business with Openforce, acquired Openforce's "trade secrets" through a meeting between the parties' leadership, instructed its employees to "hack" into Openforce's system and access its "trade secrets," and used the "trade secrets" to develop GigSafe. In reality, it was Openforce that was interested in doing business with Para (as GigSafe was originally known); it was Openforce that acquired Para's proprietary information through this meeting; and apparently, it was Openforce that instructed its employees to access GigSafe's system. Given that backdrop, it should surprise no one that Openforce recently launched a new iteration of its product that closely resembles GigSafe's product in many respects. What's more, Openforce's alleged "trade secrets" are posted publicly all over the internet. Take, for example, its secret "three-legged stool strategy" that it claims was confidentiality disclosed to GigSafe in October 2023. Openforce publicly posted about that strategy on its own blog back in 2020.
In short, Openforce knows that the information shared at the meeting and its enrollment workflows are not trade secrets. But headlines like "Openforce Files Lawsuit Against GigSafe & CEO David Pickerell for Trade Secret Misappropriation & Unfair Competition" sure sound salacious and further Openforce's goal of confusing and potentially dissuading customers from switching to GigSafe. For the reasons detailed below, Openforce's claims fail and GigSafe should be awarded the relief requested through its counterclaims.
Introduction
1. Unable to compete with GigSafe's innovative platform, Openforce hatched a scheme of its own by filing this lawsuit to keep its customers from switching to a better product—a product designed and built from the years of experience operating as Para and before Defendants met with Openforce.
2. Defendants began as entrepreneurs in the gig-economy business with Para, an app that was designed to empower gig-economy workers like Uber and DoorDash drivers, and that offered more transparency and autonomy in selecting gig-jobs. After years of trial and error with Para (including launching "Para Recruit," a platform for businesses to recruit gig-drivers) and in the face of a shifting market that resulted from the COVID- 19 pandemic, GigSafe was born.
3. GigSafe offers companies a groundbreaking platform to efficiently onboard, credential, insure, and pay contract workers, while monitoring and maintaining driver compliance. Although a new business model, at the heart of GigSafe's platform were the same technologies and features developed, built, tried, and tested by Para since its inception.
4. Openforce has always targeted businesses (not individual drivers), and prior to filing its lawsuit, Openforce consistently expressed interest in exploring ways for Openforce and Para to partner, including a "possible acquisition" of Para by Openforce. While Defendants were open to the idea and even met with Openforce about the prospect— the same meeting that Openforce now tries to say Defendants orchestrated to steal its trade secrets—the financials of Openforce's proposals ultimately did not make sense for Para and its team. Contrary to Openforce's representations, the meeting mainly consisted of Para presenting its platform and offerings with Openforce specifically and intentionally sharing only public information. Para and Openforce went their separate ways.
5. Subsequently, Para rebranded and launched GigSafe. Para's team sought to combine their existing technology, know-how, and insights into a best-in-class experience that would allow contracting companies to onboard drivers as quickly, efficiently, and compliantly as possible. And they did just that. GigSafe's early results were impossible to ignore: decreasing driver onboarding time from weeks to days, saving customers money on insurance, and doing the heavy lifting of monitoring and maintaining driver compliance so customers didn't have to. Unsurprisingly, more and more businesses began switching to GigSafe.
6. While Openforce attempted to keep up—albeit by poaching former GigSafe team members and instructing Openforce employees to access non-public areas of GigSafe's platform to see how GigSafe did it—it was unsuccessful. So Openforce embarked on a deliberate campaign to sully GigSafe's reputation and confuse customers, starting with the filing of this lawsuit. Openforce continues to disseminate false and misleading statements in press releases, on podcasts, and in promotional materials (including by weaponizing filings in this lawsuit). Openforce attempts to confuse and mislead customers into believing that GigSafe has unfairly competed with it by "hacking" it systems and stealing its "trade secrets." In reality, it is Openforce that is attempting to stifle competition, and it is Openforce that has done exactly what it accuses GigSafe of doing.
David Pickerell Para Inc dba GigSafe david@gigsafe.com