College students and recent grads are always looking for ways to earn a little extra cash (no surprise there). Then there are those among us who have enough money but too little time—perhaps we're too busy to walk the dog or water the plants on some days, for instance. Meeting both needs at once is the simple premise behind GladlyDo, a new local startup that pairs students with Bostonians who need odd jobs fulfilled.
The service, currently in a testing phase, was spawned from the personal experience of founder Woody Klemmer. A Needham native, Klemmer was facing a financial dilemma related to playing for a travel lacrosse team, when his father asked him, "How do you plan on paying for all of this?" After some fruitless part-time job searching, his father encouraged him to start knocking on neighbors' doors and offer to lend a helping hand in whatever way they needed. That’s basically what Klemmer did—though he mostly ended up using email to get in touch with potential clients. Thus, the first iteration of his startup was born: WAK jobs, named after Woody and his business partner, Kyle. And over six consecutive summers, the service was a success for its founders; between 2006 and 2013 the WAK Jobs team grew to 16 employees working for more than 1,000 clients, profits increased ten-fold.
Expanding on an idea
Following a short sales stint at New York City startup SinglePlatform, which was acquired by Waltham-based Constant Contact for $100 million, Klemmer decided to come back to Boston and officially launch the odd jobs service. He started by recruiting fellow Needham native Liam Cunningham, who'd worked in community outreach at Cradles to Crayons and Good Sports in Quincy, for the role of chief operating officer. And by spring of 2014, Klemmer had assembled a team and a website for his venture, with the same mission as WAK Jobs: to help you get more done in your day. And with that, GladlyDo was born.
"GladlyDo’ers" offer help with just about anything you need, Klemmer said. The jobs are broken down into some basic categories: babysitting, moving, clean outs, yard work, events, driving, pet care, vacation and pickup/delivery. But that doesn’t mean if your chore is outside those spectrums it can’t be done—you can also make a general request if it’s something else. GladlyDo sets its own rates for each task, which depend on the time and effort required. And similar to Uber and other on-demand service startups, a user can rate the doer after they complete the service.
Currently, GladlyDo has about 75 "doers," and Klemmer said the company is hoping to bring that number up to 100 by the end of this month.
"You’re not getting somebody random off the Internet...you’re hiring a friend’s kid who lives down the street."
GladlyDo hopes to differentiate from Craigslist by offering a vetting process, which includes a character reference, background check and an in-person interview. It also differs from TaskRabbit or Handy by drawing its labor force from "hard-working students from your community," as the GladlyDo website says.
"You’re not getting somebody random off the Internet...you’re hiring a friend’s kid who lives down the street," Klemmer said.
Looking ahead
Now, the startup is planning to expand the doers’ profiles, because some customers felt it was important to know more information about the doers—such as what schools they go to, what they’re studying or what their hobbies are, Klemmer said.
He is also considering ways to raise funding for the startup, and may expand the service to the Cape, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket by the summer. GladlyDo is also aiming to implement a testimonials page and referral service for the site.
Lastly, Klemmer may ask doers commit to doing some amount of community service based on how many hours they get paid for, as well. The potential, he said, is to have "an army of people doing a lot of good."
