MustardHub is a company that helps small businesses grow by offering a suite of tools focused on marketing, customer engagement, and performance optimization. Pulse 2.0 interviewed MustardHub founder and CEO Curtis Forbes to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Curtis Forbes’ Background
What is Curtis Forbes’ background? Forbes said:
“I started my career as a jazz musician, earning degrees from Berklee and NYU before spending 15 years performing and teaching, often alongside Grammy winners and even as a member myself. In 2003, I shifted into entrepreneurship by founding Forbes Music, an education company that scaled into a dozen major U.S. markets and gave me firsthand experience managing distributed teams.”
“Since then, I’ve founded and exited multiple ventures, including a video technology startup exit in 2018 and a portfolio of education companies earlier this year. The pandemic sharpened my focus on workplace challenges, which led me to create MustardHub. Originally, it was an internal tool that cut our turnover by 80% and boosted revenue by 42.5% in its first year. Today, it helps other companies become destinations for workplace happiness.”
“Across music, education, and technology, my career has always centered on building systems that unlock potential in people and organizations. I’m also a husband and father of four, having a few adventures along the way, like visiting every MLB stadium in seven weeks and surviving a rattlesnake bite!”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Forbes shared:
“The idea for MustardHub came straight out of necessity. When I was running my own companies during the pandemic, we were struggling with turnover and engagement. We looked at the tools on the market, and every engagement platform was built for enterprises, had long contracts, per-seat pricing, bloated features, and rollout times measured in months. For small and mid-sized businesses, that model simply didn’t work.”
“I saw a clear opportunity to flip that model. Instead of complexity and cost, we built a freemium, self-serve platform that eliminates those barriers entirely. What began as an internal solution quickly became something other businesses wanted too: a way to engage teams and reduce turnover without the headaches of enterprise software.”
“And now the vision has grown. Beyond engagement, we’re building benefits portability so earned perks follow employees across jobs. We have multi-tenant structures that support everything from partner white labels and franchise networks to the gig workforce. MustardHub is also bringing powerful AI-driven predictive workforce insights that put big-company tools in the hands of everyday business owners, helping to eliminate surprises and run businesses better.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Forbes explained:
“MustardHub brings together a set of tools that help businesses keep their employees engaged regularly while also giving leaders deeper visibility into culture and retention.”
“On the intelligence side, our predictive insights turn recognition activity, participation, and reward usage into early warnings about attrition risk, burnout, and morale. That kind of visibility used to be reserved for enterprise platforms. Now we’ve made it accessible to small and mid-sized businesses.”
“The platform is designed to be flexible. Companies can start free with no contracts or per-user fees, then upgrade as they grow to unlock additional customization features, more advanced analytics, and AI-predictive insights. It’s built to plug directly into existing HR or SaaS tools, so partners can embed MustardHub’s technology into their own platforms and deliver immediate value.”
“MustardHub offers powerful engagement features for modern, distributed teams. Network-level structuring allows users to see how people and locations are connected across complex organizational structures, and multi-workplace access lets a single user work across multiple employers or franchise units with one login.”
“Beyond that, MustardHub includes all the everyday engagement tools one might expect: flexible hubs for discussion spaces and communication, peer-to-peer recognition and giving, an integrated rewards marketplace, automated celebrations for birthdays, work anniversaries, and other milestones, achievement tracking, and standardized recognition templates. That mix makes it easy for a 20-person shop or a multi-location franchise to keep teams motivated and spot problems before they turn into turnover.”
“In short, our platform is simple enough to launch in minutes, but powerful enough to scale across complex organizations like franchise systems or portfolio companies.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Forbes acknowledged:
“One challenge has been introducing the idea of portable benefits. For many business owners, it’s completely new territory. They’re used to traditional models where perks and rewards end the day someone leaves. So it’s less about changing habits and more about making the value clear. We do that by showing how portability helps with real pain points like retention, recruiting, and compliance, and by grounding the concept in tangible stories from sectors with distributed teams like franchising, healthcare, or early childhood education.”
“Another challenge is perception. Too often, culture tools are dismissed as “nice-to-have perks” instead of being seen for what they are: a way to cut the hard costs of attrition and build stronger, more stable teams. Framing MustardHub around retention and business outcomes has been critical to changing that mindset.”
“And then there’s the long sales cycle with larger partners. Internal alignment between product and revenue teams can stretch conversations for a year or more. To overcome that, we’ve started engaging multiple stakeholders earlier, and in the meantime, piloting MustardHub with smaller teams or individual locations. That way, prospects see real results while the larger organization works through the process.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Forbes noted:
“When we first built MustardHub, it was a simple internal tool focused on recognition and keeping people connected across teams. Since then, it’s evolved into a full platform with predictive insights, portable benefits, and network-level analytics.”
“Moving from just capturing engagement to actually analyzing it has been a big leap. Our predictive intelligence includes confidence scoring to help organizations make smarter, data-driven decisions about retention and benefits. That layer has turned MustardHub from a culture app into a decision-making tool.”
“Multi-account access has been part of MustardHub from the beginning, but it’s become even more critical as adoption grows. It allows a single user to participate in multiple workspaces at once. This is valuable for employees who split time across different locations or employers, and equally important for owners and operators who manage numerous units and need multi-level visibility.”
“And finally, we’ve integrated with insurance agency partners and other traditional benefits providers inside our marketplace. That delivers on the promise of real portability, allowing workers to maintain their own individual accounts and carry recognition, perks, and even certain benefits with them if they move from one job to another.”
“So what began as a lightweight engagement app has grown into a flexible, AI-driven system that not only connects teams but also helps leaders predict challenges and plan for the future.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Forbes cited:
“One milestone I’m proud of is that we bootstrapped development instead of relying on venture capital early on. That gave us the freedom to focus entirely on customer needs and building the product the right way, without outside pressure dictating direction.”
“Another key milestone was our pivot to a freemium model, which reinforced our commitment to small businesses by removing cost and contract barriers while still giving them access to meaningful engagement tools.”
“We also validated the need for benefits portability and built the infrastructure to support it, allowing workers to maintain their accounts and carry recognition, perks, and even certain benefits with them as they move between jobs.”
“On the technology side, we’ve built what I believe is the only multi-level, multi-tenant engagement solution that can be fully embedded and white-labeled. That architecture has been a breakthrough. It means MustardHub can flex from a 20-person team to a franchise system, or even plug seamlessly into another platform that can then deliver this application to its own customers.”
“From there, we’ve invested heavily in building AI-driven predictive insights aligned with small business needs and goals. That capability takes MustardHub beyond engagement and gives owners the foresight to anticipate turnover risk, morale shifts, and cultural health before they become costly problems.”
“And with our first wave of customers, we’ve seen zero churn. It’s proof that the combination of freemium accessibility, portability, and predictive insights is hitting the mark.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Forbes about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“One of the clearest ways to show our impact is through employee retention. Replacing just one $15/hour employee can cost a company between $3,500 and $5,000. That means if MustardHub helps an employer retain even a single team member, it offsets the entire cost of our premium tier and then some. We’ve seen early customers recognize this ROI quickly, with engagement and retention improvements that make the platform a clear value driver.”
“Take Primrose, where we piloted MustardHub across three schools. At one location, turnover for outside opportunities dropped to zero. Another cut turnover in half. And a third went from 12% attrition down to none. Across those sites, that translated into savings of $85,000 to $130,000 a year in avoided replacement costs.”
“We saw a similar story with Forcast Holdings, a portfolio of education companies with historically high turnover. After rolling out MustardHub, they reduced attrition by over 30% in the first year — roughly another $80,000 in savings.”
“So when we talk about ROI, it’s not theoretical. Across just these businesses, MustardHub helped employers retain dozens of employees and save between $165,000 and $210,000 annually. For small and mid-sized businesses, that’s game-changing.”
Funding
When asking Forbes about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We’ve taken a very intentional approach to funding. MustardHub has been self-funded with only a small amount of pre-seed investment, which gave us flexibility while preserving independence.”
“Along the way, we’ve turned down VC opportunities where the expectations weren’t aligned. Many investors pushed us to chase large enterprise clients, but that would have fundamentally changed our business model and pulled us away from our core mission of serving small and mid-sized businesses. Our philosophy is simple: capital without alignment is a liability, not an accelerant.”
“We’d rather grow sustainably with customers who see real value than pursue vanity metrics that look good on paper but don’t help the businesses we exist to serve.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Forbes affirmed:
“What differentiates MustardHub is that we built it around accessibility and flexibility, not lock-in. Unlike most platforms, which charge platform fees and per-user costs and require long-term contracts, our freemium model removes those barriers so small businesses can launch in minutes and see real value before ever upgrading.”
“Another key differentiator is our modular, partner-ready infrastructure. MustardHub was designed to be embedded and white-labeled inside other platforms, so an HR or SaaS provider can deliver engagement, portability, and predictive insights directly to their own customers. That’s something traditional engagement tools just weren’t built to do.”
“We also built portability into the core from day one, so recognition, perks, and even certain benefits don’t vanish when someone changes jobs or moves across locations.”
“Our predictive intelligence surfaces early warnings about attrition risk, burnout, and cultural health, giving small business owners the kind of foresight that used to be reserved for enterprise HR departments.”
“And while many VC-backed competitors are being pushed upstream toward enterprise clients, we’ve stayed focused on small and mid-sized businesses. That commitment shapes everything, from our pricing model to our product roadmap, and keeps us aligned with the companies that need this the most.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Forbes emphasized:
“Our goal is to make predictive workforce intelligence and portable benefits as accessible to small businesses as payroll or scheduling software is today. We see a future where business owners don’t have to be surprised by turnover or blindsided by culture issues — they’ll have early visibility and actionable insights baked right into the tools they already use.”
“On the product side, we’re expanding our predictive models beyond engagement signals into broader risk modeling frameworks, helping leaders weigh the real costs of attrition against investments in retention and make data-backed decisions. We’re also deepening the benefits marketplace so portability becomes a standard expectation, not a novel feature.”
“We’re building out partnerships with HR and SaaS providers so MustardHub can be embedded directly into the systems businesses already rely on. That’s a key growth engine for us, and it supports our mission of scaling impact without forcing small businesses into expensive enterprise contracts.”
“MustardHub is committed to growing sustainably. That means scaling our customer base while adhering to our philosophy of accessibility, transparency, and social impact. It’s about building a company that’s not just profitable but also net positive for the people and communities it serves.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Forbes concluded:
“One area we’re especially focused on is the ethical use of AI in employee engagement. As we roll out predictive intelligence, we’re prioritizing transparency, employee consent, and bias mitigation. Features like confidence scoring are built in, so business owners not only see insights but also understand the certainty behind them. We believe AI should enhance decision-making, not replace it, and it must be applied responsibly when people’s livelihoods are involved.”
“We’re also watching a broader shift in how organizations approach technology, from ‘build vs. buy’ to ‘assemble and embed.’ More companies are realizing it’s faster and more effective to embed proven solutions than to build everything themselves. MustardHub’s modular, partner-ready infrastructure is designed for exactly that, making it easy for HR and SaaS providers to deliver engagement, portability, and predictive insights directly to their customers.”
“At a higher level, our mission is tied to the changing workforce. More people now work across multiple employers, gigs, or locations, and traditional benefits models just don’t keep up. We want recognition, perks, and even certain benefits to be portable, so people have consistency no matter where their career takes them. That vision is what drives us, alongside a commitment to social impact: We’ve pledged a share of our profits to causes that strengthen communities, because building better workplaces should go hand in hand with building a better world.”
