Chorelink's blog.

October 5, 2010

My Chores

I can think of several things that I (actually my wife) would like taken care of around our house that we wouldn’t ever hire a professional to do. Here are just a few:

Pick up and haul away my salvage pile in the woods.

Since we built our house, I have engaged in several projects, including retaining walls, patios, steps, a play set, stone walk ways, etc. I always seem to have left-over materials and I just toss them into my now large pile of scraps in the wooded lot next to our house. I don’t consider myself a hoarder, but I know that I may have a use for some of that stuff but it just sites there and accumulates. I think if it was all gone, Id never miss it…I know my wife wouldn’t. So, I’d love to have someone just come over with a pick up truck and take the whole bloody pile of lumber, stones, bricks, etc. and haul them away. I would gladly pay someone like $20 to do this so I can just forget about it.

Clean and organize my garage…and maybe my basement while you’re at it!

Each Fall and Spring, our Garage needs a good cleaning. I’m talking about taking everything out, sweeping, washing…washing the shelves…re-hanging all the bikes, rakes, etc. I HATE doing this and it sure would be nice to pay someone, say $20-40 to do it so I don’t have to think about it. The basement is a whole nother story.

Spread woodchips.

Every other spring I get about ten yard of woodchips delivered and spread them myself because I don’t want to pay someone else $25/hour to do it. Isnt there someone (and a buddy) who would spread the entire pile for like $40?

Clean my grilles and screen porch furniture.

Again..Fall and Spring are both times that my various bbq grilles need a good cleaning…and the inside of the screen porch and the furniture in it also…especially in the Spring. It takes me a full Saturday or Sunday that I could be spending with my kids.

Re-edge my lawn.

Every time I spread new woodchips/mulch, I have to re-edge my lawn. It sucks…and takes me another entire day. Enough said.

Heavy Lifting.

Sometimes I just can’t get enough people over to the house when I need them to help me move a 300lb picnic table…or try to self-deliver a 1200lb hot-tub.

Selling stuff.

Whether it’s a garage sale or Ebay, I hate spending time trying to get rid of stuff I don’t need and would gladly pay someone else who enjoys it more and is more capable than I.

I’m sure everyone can think of a few things they’d like to get taken care of but dread the thought of doing them…and there is no way you will pay a company to do something that a local college student would do for half the price.

October 5, 2010

A New Direction

So…chorelink.com was a popular place for West Michigan people to connect with each other for service needs…but the site and the market were just not “right”. There was too much confusion about the types of requests that should be posted on the site…who would respond…how parties would communicate, etc.

The model obviously worked, but I learned a lot of stuff over the past 15 moths or so about consumer behavior, demographics, marketing, developing, etc that allowed me to steer my ship in a different direction. Just as the Chorelink site really started seeing some significant traffic in West Michigan, it was beginning to also be a target for auto attacking trojan viruses and malware, which proved to be a serious problem. At this same time, I realized that there were essentially two different markets for local services.

One should be focused on specific service categories, filled by local companies (professionals) who would pay a monthly fee to receive an unlimited amount of specific professional service requests from within a certain geographic area. The intent is to simplify the procurement process for consumers who need to hire a professional…and to allow service companies more new opportunities that they would otherwise not have known about.

The other market consists of people who have special needs (odd-jobs, labor, favors, special situations) that do not require the services (and the costs) of professionals. They can be performed by anyone who has the time to do it…and who will do the “chores:” for the amount of money offered by the consumer. For example, I can move 3 yards of black dirt with a wheelbarrow at my house, but if there is someone who would come by and do it for, say, $40…it would be worth it for me to pay them. The value placed on different chores is ultimately decided by the consumers…and the “helper” will decide if he or she is interested in performing the particular request for the money offered.

So…I have been re-building a new venue in the form of a custom, from-scratch web application that will facilitate consumers with procuring professional services. DoneLocal.com will launch in beta form some time in October 2010.

The new Chorelink is being cleaned up, re-coded, re-designed, etc. and will allow people to name their price to have various “chores” performed.

Here is what it might look like. Very easy to navigate…post your project and your price and see if anyone will “bite”.

It is entirely free for consumers and will cost only $5 per year for anyone to receive and respond to any projects posted.

I am still working on the new communication side of things…might integrate a simple messaging system in the site so users/helpers have all their past and current project info/communication logs, etc. all in one place.

It gets a bit tricky figuring out how to make sure each post’s status can be automatically changed as soon as a helper agrees to the offer posted.

Sometimes, the easier a user’s experience is, the harder it is to implement everything into the site that facilitates it.

This is the first post on the new chorelink blog. I’ll try to get as much info as I can on here, related to the new site and how things differ from www.donelocal.com .

Here is how DoneLocal.com will look

June 1, 2010

Cement flat work needed in Zeeland, Mi

http://www.chorelink.com/product_info.php?products_id=853

I need an estimate on 2 different sections of cement/flat work

This chore was posted on Sunday 30 May, 2010.

This chore is located in Zeeland, MI.

Pick up and haul away my salvage pile in the woods.

Clean and organize my garage…and maybe my basement while you’re at it!

Spread woodchips.

Clean my grilles and screen porch furniture.

Re-edge my lawn.

Heavy Lifting.

Selling stuff.

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