How many times in the past month have you wished there were two of you? How about in the past two weeks? Yesterday? With a career, family, and home to manage, there just never seems to be enough hours in the day or enough of you to go around. You don’t necessarily need a full-time assistant, nanny, or housekeeper, but it certainly would be nice to have someone “on call” when you could use an extra hand. Enter TaskRabbit.
Place Your Bid
Launched in 2008, TaskRabbit allows users, or “senders”, to post a task, such as assembling furniture, pet sitting, or going to the grocery store, to an online bulletin board. Runners then bid on the task by typing in the minimum amount they would accept for completing the chore. Rather than selecting runner based on their bid alone, senders can browse runner ratings and reviews from previous jobs. Using a level system, TaskRabbit ranks the top runners on a leaderboard. As runners earn points, they progress to the next level and climb higher in the rankings. Senders pay by credit card and the runner’s earnings are deposited into a TaskRabbit account. TaskRabbit takes a 12 to 30 percent cut of each transaction depending on the value of the job.
Runner’s World
Currently, TaskRabbit operates in nine U.S. cities including Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle, among others. In all, there are over 5,000 background-checked runners completing tasks for neighbors and others in their community across these areas. On average, it takes two days for a posted task to be completed and over 95 percent of posted tasks receive a bid from at least one runner. TaskRabbit claims its workforce is mostly comprised of students, unemployed workers, retirees, and stay-at-home parents and says some runners have made as much as $5,000 per month.
Want to become a TaskRabbit or need an extra set of hands around the house? Visit TaskRabbit’s website today!
As a working Mom, wife, and homeowner, I would LOVE an extra set of hands around the house.