Zaarly creates ‘liquid job market’ for go-getters

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Liz Langer, a neuroscience Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois, has become the nation's No. 1 'fulfiller' of requested tasks and services posted on web start-up Zaarly. She bikes everywhere to fulfill people's requests. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times

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Updated: November 18, 2011 12:22AM

Liz Langer, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience, earned $900 this summer by fulfilling requests ranging from the mundane — picking up lunch for a busy office worker — to the unusual — hand-sewing a snake as a going-away present for a Web-startup employee.

“I almost didn’t want to give up the snake,” said Langer, a 27-year-old Pilsen resident, as she recounted how she leveraged her experience making sock monkeys for her nieces and nephews to create the python. She spent two hours designing it, stuffing it with beans, distinguishing the tail with rubber-band stuffing and topping it off with button eyes.

Langer’s busy schedule earned her the spot as the nation’s top “fulfiller” on Zaarly, one of several new Web-based startups that create a network of people willing to pay for tasks, goods and services, and those willing to fulfill them.

She turned to Zaarly to make money because of a summer hiatus in her pay as a teaching assistant. She liked the variety, the chance to bike downtown and the easy payment via credit card. She’s even set up her Twitter handle as ZaarlyLiz.

“It is really nice and satisfying to know that you’ve helped people out,” said Langer, a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

She was touched by a suburban Woodstock man’s request for simple things such as a coffee roaster, an iPhone charger and a PSP charger. After e-mailing, she learned that the man had suffered a stroke at a young age and has neurological problems as a result.

“We exchanged more than 20 e-mails. We still keep in touch,” Langer said. “You can feel good that not only have you earned a few extra dollars, but that you’ve helped someone.”

Other Chicago postings include $50 for someone to clean a boat and $20 for securing a reservation at West Loop restaurant Girl & the Goat.

Zaarly differentiates itself from other task-oriented sites, such as Ask Sunday, Agent Anything, Fancy Hands and TaskRabbit, by focusing on services, goods, tickets and experiences. Tasks account for about 5 percent of its business.

The sites are similar in that they enable people to network online, via e-mail and/or on the phone to make their lives more efficient. Most charge a flat monthly rate to fulfill a certain number of requests. Zaarly takes a portion of a 10 percent transaction fee that’s charged when people pay for completed transactions with mobile-phone payments. Zaarly takes no fee for transactions paid for in cash or outside of the app’s built-in payment processor.

Zaarly, whose name is meant to evoke a Turkish bazaar, won the distinction of raising $1 million in startup money from an investor group that included actor Ashton Kutcher, after the company won a Startup Weekend contest in Los Angeles in late February. The company counts more than $3 million worth of transactions in its first three months.

In such tough economic times, Zaarly co-founder Eric Koester is heartened that the company enables people to “find money all around you” by fulfilling tasks or finding new ways to use your assets such as mowing someone’s lawn or renting out a room in your house.

“It is creating a new, more liquid job market,” said Koester, a 34-year-old attorney who left his job to team with entrepreneur Bo Fishback and award-winning coder Ian Hunter to start the company. Fishback is CEO and Hunter is chief technology officer.

Koester, the chief operating officer, said he believes Zaarly reflects today’s freelance economy, in which 10 percent of employees work as independent contractors.

“That number is growing,” Koester said. “We call it the side-hustle. It’s a powerful, growing force, and people are starting to understand that they can make way more money by working for five companies than by working for one.”

Zaarly requires everyone involved to provide a mobile phone number, which is kept confidential and shared only with the owner’s permission.

This fall, the site will roll out new features that will let users write reviews of their experiences and of other members of the online community.

Experts say such social commerce creates a market efficiency that didn’t exist prior to the Internet’s ubiquity.

“This gives people the ability to understand exactly what others’ needs are, and to respond in a very direct way,” said Elliott Baretz, vice president of business solutions at Oak Brook-based technology consulting firm SWC.