Two computer science graduates from St. Edward’s University in Austin dreamed of starting a tech company. Now, after two years of research, their creation is starting to take flight in the form of an on-demand for part-time work.
Launched in Dec. 2015, WorkBee is a free app for iOS and Android that enables people to get things done immediately by leveraging those in the community that have the time and skills to help.
“We’re trying to disrupt the on-demand labor industry,” co-founder Josh Padilla said. “We strongly believe it’s no longer an industry where you go to work 9-to-5. There are a lot of people out there that have a lot of skills that can be utilized in the now and at that moment, and we’re just trying to provide the capability through our platform.”
The app functions similarly to Uber. People in Austin can login, create a job, and drop a pin for the work on a map. Others view and accept the real-time work opportunities in their community that need completion that moment.Job creators simply create a title and description, as well as categorize the job.
About 500 people signed up for WorkBee within months of the 2015 launch, and those users have completed nearly 200 jobs on the app, according to co-founder Eric Angeles.
Angeles said the idea for WorkBee resulted from surveying the job industry. He thought that sites such as Monster, LinkedIn, and Indeed didn't appropriately serve America’s modern labor force. And he might be on to something — more than 53 million Americans make income from jobs that are not 9-to-5, according to an Oct. 2015 Monthly Labor Review by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We wanted to enable anybody with the required skills to go out there and be able to basically offer their services, not necessarily having to go through a strenuous interview process,” Padilla said. “We’re making the barrier to entry very low.”
For example, if someone posts a job on WorkBee that calls for immediate plumbing work, they aren’t relying on a limited pool of professional plumbers. Rather, anyone in the community who has the knowledge to get the job done and is available at that very moment can help.
Angeles said a second version of the app is set to release at the end of the month. People will be able to add badges to their profiles for certain skills. The update will also introduce a review system and an in-app chat feature, which will eliminate the need for people to divulge phone numbers.
The second version of WorkBee will also include a cashless transaction feature. The job creator and the worker will negotiate the rate for each job, and WorkBee will take a percentage of the transaction.
With a new revenue model set to impact the bootstrapped startup in coming weeks, Angeles and Padilla are focused on expanding their reach in Austin.
“Our strategy is hyper focused on Austin and growing an organic user base here,” Angeles said. “Our long-term goal would be to expand to other cities that have a similar ecosystem to Austin — such as Portland — and essentially start deploying street teams in those cities to grow our user base.”
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