Azzida, which launched this month in the Richmond space, is an app-based jobs board for errands and odd jobs. What makes it distinctive is that posters set the charges. (Screenshot)
Two native entrepreneurs want to give well-liked on-demand jobs websites like TaskRabbit and Handy a run for his or her cash.
Lawrence Bunnell and Nathan Clarke are the founders behind Azzida, an app designed to facilitate paid duties similar to canine strolling or hedge trimming.
The app, which launched this month, permits customers with a to-do record to submit job descriptions and associated costs and images to the app. Job posts seem in a feed that may be considered by customers looking for jobs. Posts may also be shared on social media.
Azzida collects a 3.5 p.c transaction charge from the job poster and retains 15 p.c of the fee doled out to the contractor. Payment is dealt with by way of the app.
Azzida is initially centered on the Richmond space, although the platform is usable nationwide.
“Our advertising and marketing and engagement might be focused to the Richmond space for now,” Clarke mentioned in an e-mail. “We will not be constraining utilization. So, if it had been to organically develop to different areas, we might welcome that.”
Job posters are anticipated to largely be retirees, empty nesters and older adults, a section that’s on observe to extend as the massive Baby Boomer technology continues to age. And although the platform has been a number of years in the making, the co-founders say the pandemic has created a chance on the job-seeker facet on account of latest disruptions in the area’s employment.
The idea was impressed by Bunnell’s son’s experiences as a contractor and Bunnell’s personal expertise when he and his spouse purchased a house a number of years in the past.
When his son began work as a contractor, he discovered many individuals contacted him with jobs that had been too small to be worthwhile for his enterprise. Meanwhile, Bunnell discovered himself in want of assist to deal with the pile of odd jobs that got here with residence enchancment initiatives.
“We went onto websites like Facebook and Nextdoor,” he mentioned. “It was loads of scouring and bidding and problem.”
Bunnell and Clarke hope the Azzida idea will attraction to individuals who could already use Facebook or Craigslist to seek out handymen.
Azzida additionally tries to set itself other than extra established rivals like TaskRabbit and Handy by permitting job posters to set the charges for jobs.
TaskRabbit contractors set their very own charges. Handy units charges for its contractors, and hourly wages are as much as $22 for cleaners, as much as $45 for handymen and as much as $62 for garden care, based on its web site.
Bunnell mentioned that because the Azzida idea puts pricing in the hands of job posters, it’d discover a area of interest amidst the competitors.
“We consider that the explanation we haven’t seen rivals taking the Azzida strategy to permit job suppliers to call their very own price is that they’ve actually simply taken the outdated contractor mannequin of bidding and estimates and put it on-line,” Bunnell mentioned. “Competitors must fully flip their present fashions in order to supply a job provider-centric strategy and, thereby, threat alienating their complete workforce.”
Clarke is a software program engineer. Bunnell works as a knowledge analyst in the monetary sector. Bunnell has a background in actual property and e-commerce startups, and he was a co-founder of Richmond-based actual property companies firm Homebytes.com. Both Clarke and Bunnell work at Azzida, which is predicated in the Richmond space, on a part-time foundation.
The duo plans to make use of print and focused social media advertising and marketing in small areas of the metro area to get the phrase out in regards to the app, which is obtainable on Google Play and the App Store.
In different native startup information, high-end merchandising machine firm ELYA is increasing its native footprint. Naborforce has expanded into North Carolina.
