This is a First Look: It's the first time any news outlet or blog has covered this startup. You can read more First Looks here.
Have you dreamt of learning the piano since you were yea big? Been wanting to share your affinity for dance when you aren't at your day job? A new startup operating out of Boston and New York, called Prüf, connects professionals with certain skills and the people who want to learn them.
Brothers Jeremy and Arie Hefter started Prüf alongside Sonia Brown. And all of its co-founders noticed that in today's ever-growing sharing economy, they still had nowhere to swap skills with people near them. Arie cites his experience struggling to find someone who could teach him saxophone on the side (which never came to fruition), while Jeremy didn't know how he could share his knack for cooking with culinary neophytes.
Ensuring no one has to go through similar experience, Prüf is bringing the skilled and the skill-seekers together to benefit both parties.
According to the Hefter duo, folks with creative skills usually spread the word about their service by plastering coffee shops with flyers or posting an ad on Craigslist. There’s also the brick and mortar option, which oftens leaves them paying dues and negotiating time commitments.
At the same time, people looking to develop new passions have an equally as hard a time pinning down where to pick up the skills they want. They usually resort to, you guessed it, looking at coffee shop flyers, responding to potentially sketchy ads on Craigslist and paying inflated prices at brick and mortar locales.
Prüf is looking to bring these two parties - the skilled and the wannabe skilled - together in a single, digital service. “It enables and empowers both sides of the equation,” Arie said.
With the "shout out" function in the iOS app and website, people will be able to post what they want to learn or teach, and their messages are automatically pushed to relevant users who may be able to help. Prüf also offers searching capabilities, so they can peruse other people's profiles and portfolios in the hopes of finding what they're looking for, including services like wedding photographers.
People looking to teach their skills to others are able to set their own hourly prices. So the only cost users can expect to cover is for whatever in-person lessons they take.
Posting and searching through Prüf's service is free, though - and there's a reason for that. Arie explained, “Existing apps can take as much as a 40-percent cut. We don’t have a commission model. That way, artists don’t have to offer their services at a higher price to make up the difference and inflate the cost for the people paying.”
Jeremy added, “When we actually incorporate a bidding model, we’re not charging bidding fees either. Eventually, we’re going to add premium functions, similar to LinkedIn, for revenue. Right now, our priority is getting artists to showcase their portfolios and have people grow their skill sets.”
So why is Prüf specifically working with the creative types? “Traditionally, there’s this association that artists have to be struggling,” Jeremy told us. “But why does that have to be the relationship? We want to help artists grow their businesses, teach others and have more customers. We want to let them financially sustain themselves so they don’t have to go work in a restaurant nine to five.”
The co-founders don't think the average person is getting enough art in their lifetimes. Arie, who said he's worked data heavy jobs since graduating college with a degree in film, said his liberal arts education has helped him approach problems in a different manner. But with a growing significance placed on STEM skills, children and fully grown adults may not be benefiting from these underemphasized faculties.
“Schools are unfortunately defunding their arts programs, so there has to be something that fills the void and gives people an avenue to still learn these skills,” Arie told us.
Prüf launched its beta this past week. Its app is free on the App Store, and the co-founders said they’re primarily focusing on bringing on artists and creative professionals before driving users looking for their expertise.
The startup has been bootstrapping so far and doesn’t plan on seeking funding until it can provide value to users on both the supply and demand side of their app.
Images via Prüf.
