Micro-employment
Choresforce is a People’s Labs initiative to provide a web and mobile-based platform formicro-employment. Today one in six people in the U.S. capable of work are underemployed. An innovative solution to assist the underemployed, many of whom are blue collar workers, is helping them find short temporary paid work, or micro-employment. The target employers are busy urbanites or working professionals willing to pay to get some workload such as household chores off their back. Choresforce fills in the gap to connect these groups.
Choresforce provides a source of verified job seekers willing to provide household and other micro-employment services. Customers, or working professionals, use the pay-forChoresforce web service to post what micro-assistance they are seeking. All relevant job seekers are informed of the opportunity right away via SMS to their cell phones, and they can use the same medium to respond. The connection between the two parties is thus established quickly, and both get a chance to evaluate or rate each other after the micro-employment service and financial transactions are performed, providing for a self-sustaining credibility and quality control mechanism.
We envision communities where people are connected across classes to support each others’ needs. Choresforce’s mission is to be the most effective link between those seeking assistance in chores and temporary work seekers. With a very high unemployment rate, increasing working time for professionals, and the rise in usage of the web for finding jobs and services, we are poised today to have a significant social impact.
Choresforceis a for-profit social enterprise that provides a web and mobile-based platform for micro-employment.
Today one in six people in the U.S. capable of work are underemployed. An innovative solution to assist the underemployed, many of whom are blue collar workers, is helping them find short temporary paid work, or micro-employment. The target employers are busyurbanitesor working professionals willing to pay to get some workload such as household chores off their back.Choresforcefills in the gap to connect these groups.
Choresforceprovides a source of verified job seekers willing to provide household and other micro-employment services. Customers, or working professionals, use the pay-forChoresforceweb service to post what micro-assistance they are seeking. All relevant job seekers are informed of the opportunity right away via SMS to their cell phones, and they can use the same medium to respond. The connection between the two parties is thus established quickly, and both get a chance to evaluate or rate each other after the micro-employment service and financial transactions are performed, providing for a self-sustaining credibility and quality control mechanism.
Choresforcewill be launched in Pittsburgh mid-2010, and is expected to break even within 18 months of launch. The market in Pittsburgh is sized to be 35,000 customers at the least. With a team of three with graduate education in Computer Science, Innovation Management and Human-Computer Interaction, we are in a position to bring this to market and fruition. Apart from using all our personal funds for basic sustenance, we are seeking an investment of $30,000 for technology infrastructure, background check charges for job seekers, and marketing for launch.
We envision communities where people are connected across classes to support each others’ needs.Choresforce’smission is to be the most effective link between those seeking assistance in chores and temporary work seekers. With a very high unemployment rate, increasing working time for professionals, and the rise in usage of the web for finding jobs and services, we are poised today to have asig
View the slides from a presentation on Choresforce and micro-employment at a social venture fair in December 2009.
Peeople’s Labs is currently assembling a team to develop Choresforce in the US and in India. Contact us if you are interested.