South African online task community startup Taskbox is offering busy professionals the convenience of errand hirelings, while supplying freelancers basic task jobs.
Taskbox assists the ticking off of to-do lists through posting chores, which are open to responses from willing helpers with payment as a reward.
Speaking to HumanIPO, Greg Kempe, founder of Taskbox, said: “The idea behind Taskbox is… a marketing place for your free time. So when you don’t have free time, you [can] buy somebody else’s free time.”
The Taskbox community also rate and review jobs according to performance, through which an online reputation can be established for task accomplishments.
“The guys who are really good at what they do can differentiate themselves… – that should be rewarded,” Kempe said.
Looking to expand its services in the city bowl of Cape Town, Taskbox currently targets students to perform errands for extra income as they have more free time on hands.
The two-month-old community has members from a variety of industries, including developers, photographers and cooking housewives.
Available online through a mobile friendly website, the sign-up service is network-based with confidential job details through email notifications.
Payment through transfers or credit cards occur once the task has been completed.
Although the professional sector is targeted at this stage, Kempe aims to also develop an app accessible on feature phones, which can help the lower income class in South Africa to access the platform for job opportunities.
“There is a whole segment of the population that are below that on feature phones and they have a bit more free time, but they lack the ability to come online,” the former software engineer at Amazon said.
Monetising through a 20 per cent fee per task, the platform offers the chore creator to put any price on its errand.
Kempe noticed the gap in the market through personal experience of not having time to accomplish tasks due to a busy schedule.
“It certainly addresses a need and one of the great things I like about it, is I can use this website myself to address my needs,” he said.
Currently awaiting the delivery of his business cards and anticipating the organising of a romantic dinner through Taskbox, he fully engages with the task-orientated community himself.
Although aware of similar solutions in Australia and United States, local competitors only go as far as freelance personal assistant services. Noting the model’s success abroad, Kempe has decided to dedicate his time to launching the service in South Africa.
Future planned expansions include Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban.
