One cold winter evening in 2008 Bask Leah (Leah Busque) found that her Labrador over food, but in this weather to go out into the street she did not like: "Me and my husband had an idea how it would be great if you can was to visit the site and set the price you're willing to pay for his job. It is possible that some of the people living nearby, would gladly have complied with this nasty job. " Leah was so keen on the idea that a few months away from its core operations, and opened his own company called RunMyErrand.
With money derived from business incubators, in September 2008 the site was launched on errands, and after a few months it has been reported about three contractors who carried out hundreds of assignments. The project is now renamed as TaskRabbit, has more than 2,000 users in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and other cities of America. They perform more than 3 million jobs in a variety of month.
"Take care of our compost pit": a post published a few weeks ago a young mother 27-year-old Rachel Christenson (Rachel Christenson) from San Francisco on the site TaskRabbit. Neither the Rachel nor her husband did not want to rake yourself constantly filled by compost pit. So she decided to look for her wanting to do all the nasty "dirty work" on the Internet. After 11:00 Christenson found a contractor. 45-year-old research scientist Douglas Ivey (Douglas Ivey) has received for his work on cleaning the tank with $ 31cherez compost site.
A new generation of web sites and applications for smart phones allow people to put all unpleasant chore on the shoulders of the time "personal assistants". These workers undertake a wide range of duties - from small orders to perform a truly extreme jobs. For example, the authors of one of the ads, which was recently posted on errands TaskRabbit, looking for someone who can play their friend who is an employee of the department for work with clients. "Today is his birthday, and we need a volunteer who will call the client in their office several times an hour for four hours. The purpose of calls - as long as possible to keep the birthday on the phone "- read the ad.
Thousands of people who do not have a permanent job or work part-time, made the execution of such an unpleasant work as a one-time tasks in a steady source of income, or second jobs to existing work. During the execution of jokes often come from my mother sitting at home with children, pensioners and students. People are choosing specialties with working second jobs appropriate to their experience and qualifications.
In April of this year's 24-year-old Eric Dumen (Erika Dumaine) saw online errands TaskRabbit ad with an urgent request to buy and bring shoes to the specified address. Dumen bought and brought the shoes to the customer and received for his services $ 17. August evening on Friday, 21-year-old student at Aura Montano (Aura Montano) stood on the Brooklyn Bridge with a sign "I love Annie Lewis." So she was able to attract the attention of the client's wife, who was returning to the road from work, and hand her a bouquet of flowers on his behalf. For his work, Aura received $ 19.
Many investors have already noticed the benefits and prospects for development of such projects. Shopping online playground TaskRabbit, which is owned by the corporation Zaarly, provides mediation services to search for contractors and selling goods. The company, which is based in San Francisco, recently received its development of $ 14.1 million from venture capital company - investor Google Inc. «Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers».
Actor Ashton Kutcher (Ashton Kutcher) and fashion designer Marc Echo (Marc Ecko) also evaluated the benefits of an unusual Internet project. In October of fans joined Zaarly Meg Whitman (Meg Whitman), who heads the Corporation Hewlett-Packard.
Zaarly project was launched several months ago. Now with the help of more than 1,000 customers a week are finding their contractors. The average cost of a one-time fee for the performance of the work is about $ 50. According to the president and co-founder of 33-year Fishbeka Bo (Bo Fishback), about half of all transactions entered into through the site, associated with the sale of various goods, and the rest - with the provision of various services. The latter include, for example, a request to buy a suit in the style of Michael Jackson for the dog.
However, sometimes the work can be much more unpleasant. For example, actor John Barks (John Burks), who runs the Chicago-based studio, accidentally dropped a bunch of rain during their keys in the sewer pipe. As stated in its announcement, the lucky ones who will carry out this nasty job and find all the lost keys, including house key, office and Mercedes Barks, will get a bonus of more than $ 100. Barks introduced in the Google search "loss of keys in the sewers" to find out what methods of extracting the keys used by other unfortunates. He even tried to get a bundle with rod and magnet, but all attempts failed.
After that, he advised a friend posted on the website Zaarly announcement, to which immediately responded to the 27-year-old graduate of the University - one of the most active participants in the project. Fifteen minutes later, the keys have been returned to its owner, for which the whole operation cost $ 80. "Frankly, I do not think that someone can help me", - the Barks.
Mark Green, who founded the multibillion-dollar fashion company named in his honor, has published a task to create a cake for his birthday his seven sons in a tin-known drink Barq's Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer with a recognizable logo. His son got a cake, and Mark, in his words, "became a hero in the eyes of a child."
Ashton Kutcher, too, has repeatedly appealed for help to the site TaskRabbit errands for services delivery on a cup of hot coffee to find a teacher of Hebrew. Moreover, each request for work, which he published through the site (as stressed by Ashton himself, anonymously), was carried out very quickly. "Companies like Zaarly, unemployment could use an entirely surprising and effective manner," - says Kutcher.
Leah Buske says that today the average response to the task of coming in ten minutes after placing the latter. Previously, this period was half an hour.
56-year-old resident of San Francisco Alan Grinhem (Alanna Greenham) was without money and without work. She failed to send their resume to jobs, while in April, did not see the job on the TaskRabbit. Applicants wishing to perform a particular task should be tested in three stages. Filling out an online questionnaire, having a video interview and test security, Grinhem joined the list of "contractors» TaskRabbit. It performs various jobs through the site every day, getting at least $ 25 per hour. She performed more than 250 jobs, while its income exceeded $ 1500 per month. Recently Grinhem carried on his motorcycle with a sidecar small cargo from San Francisco to San Bruno (California) and has received for his work $ 100.
Participation in online errands TaskRabbit does not involve a separate payment for the posted job. Average cost of service fees of 15% of the promised compensation to be paid by the user who placed the ad.
Amazon Mechanical Turk service enables people to work remotely as temporary employees. According to the vice-president of Amazon Mechanical Turk Chiarelli Sharon (Sharon Chiarella), companies such as Microsoft and LinkedIn, are placed on the design of the application associated with the management or sorting content.
About a year ago, a teacher from California, Chris Berry (Chris Berry) became an active member of the site of small orders in order to feed his wife and four children. 39-year-old Berry has earned more than $ 10,000, doing a nasty job with compensation of 10 cents each. According to him, he sometimes performed over 1000 orders per day, starting with writing tips for the game of golf and ending counseling young parents. "And I'm not going to dwell on this - said Berry - I could play games on Facebook, or spend time on other crap, but from such an" unpleasant "work, I get a lot more fun."
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