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eCommerce - Wednesday, June 20, 2007

HireAHelper Angel Funded For CraigsList of Odd Jobs

We recently hired a guy to clean out our yard who we found from his flyer that he posted in the neighborhood. It was a disaster. Ever 20 minutes, he would get back into his car to drink beer and smoke. So we like the idea of HireAHelper which serves as a middleman for odd jobs.

If you're a college student or otherwise an 18+ year olds looking for some beer money, you can sign up on HireAHelper and list the services you are willing to offer. For example - 1 Person Moving Help $20 / hr
of 2 Person Lawn Help $45/hr. Customers in your area would find you, pay HireAHelper by credit card, then you contacts your client and turn up to do the work. When you finish, your client hands you a payment code which you input into the site. HireAHelper direct deposit you the payment the money minus 15%.

One issue with the model is that so many odd jobs are done by immigrants, who often hang out of HomeDepot waiting to be picked up. HireAHelper will not be able to tap into this economy legally.

HireAHelper was founded in February 2006 in San Diego by Mike Glanz. On his blog he notes how he took 6 months off to do mission work in Uganda with his wife. Glanz bootstrapped the site but then took $150K in angel funding just before launch in May 2007.

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