LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Creating community through technology.
That is the goal of an Australia company that has just launched in Las Vegas.
It's called Airtasker. It's a community-based platform that connects people that have tasks that need to be done to people who are looking for that work.
Tim Fung, the founder and CEO of Airtasker, told me he first got the idea for the company about 13 years ago.
"I was moving homes and I asked a friend of mine to come and help me move. He's got a truck that he uses for deliveries for his frozen chicken nuggets business," Fung explained. "That just got us thinking. Why do we ask our family and friends to do all these kinds of jobs when there's so many people out there who would want to be earning a living doing these jobs? So we set out to solve that problem."
I asked Fung what makes his platform different from other sites like Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.
"What Airtasker has done is create a reputation system so you have ratings and reviews just like you do on Airbnb or Etsy or any of these kinds of sites," Fung explained. "You've also got a secure escrow payment system. So when you book someone to do your job, you don't pay them. You put [the money] into Airtasker's secure payment system and only when the job is done and both sides have said I'm happy that the job is done, then the money gets released to the tasker and I think that's a really important way to build trust in these relationships."
Airtasker began in Australia and Fung says it has grown to the point where he feels positive about the platform now expanding to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Austin.
"In Australia, Airtasker is the number one local services marketplace. We've had millions of customers across Australia and each year, our taskers are putting about $200 million into their pocket," Fung said. "The reason why we think it will work in the United States, and certainly Las Vegas, is it's all about the local community. It's locals that are posting jobs that they need done in the local area and other local people are able to help out with those jobs."
When it comes to the types of tasks that people can check out, Fung said the sky is the limit.
"Whether it's the person who says I want you to help name my second child or the person who says I need a mime artist for my kid's birthday party or the person who says I need you to stage my house so I'll have good feng shui and get rid of the bad vibes from my house, all of these ideas came from our customers," Fung said. "It's our job to inspire them and let them know how they can use Airtasker."
One way they hope to inspire possible customers is through a new partnership with the Formula 1 Racing Bulls team. Through the partnership, they will spotlight different members of the team like the pit crew and engineers.
"For many years, I was always like I don't think we can do a Formula 1 sponsorship because Airtasker is about local folks doing an honest day's work in their local community. We're not about the glitz and glamour of Monte Carlo and Ferrari and billionaires," Fung said. "But about 1,000 people work for a Formula 1 team and I'm genuinely passionate about each and every one of these people's jobs. It's so interesting. One of the most interesting things is just understanding what your job is. And then, number two, how did you get this job?"
Fung said he was surprised to learn this idea wasn't one that has come up often in the Racing Bulls' garage.
"Hanging out with the CEO of Racing Bulls, he was like no one has ever asked about this. I was like really? Because to me, it's genuinely exciting," Fund told me.
And as for the best job that he's seen in a garage so far.....
"My personal favorite is there is an aerodynamics engineer in the team. At qualifying at the Melbourne Grand Prix, she's literally got a bucket of fluorescent paint and surgical gloves on and she's painting this small area on the back of the car. As the car rushes out of the garage for qualifying, she's taking photos of it with a high-def camera," Fung said. "What I found out later is what she's doing is seeing where the air moves over the car and the only way you can do that, even in this modern day with all of the computers and stuff, is to put paint on the car and watch where the air actually moves and take photos of how the paint moved."
As the job market continues to evolve, more and more jobs are being automated or computerized. However, Fung says he thinks the human touch will always be essential.
"You can probably identify a certain kind of job. Okay. Great. We can build a robot that can go do that job. Cool. You want to automate it. That's fine. But I think there will always be things that require a little bit of that human creativity or that human flexibility or that human dexterity," Fung said. "Airtasker is trying to bring some old school back to the world, which is the guy up your street or the girl up your street can help you out."
And for Fung, those relationships and seeing customers connect in creative ways is what makes his job so rewarding.
"It never gets old to watch, whether it's a company or an individual. Watching them being able to use our platform to do cool stuff is what really gets me out of bed. That's exactly why we designed the platform."