Sep 26, 2011
TaskRabbit Offers Real-Time, Real World Virtual Assistants
TaskRabbit. Now this is a novel idea. It’s an online venue for virtual assistants and then some. After all, not all tasks are virtual.
TaskRabbit bills itself as a way to get you in touch with friendly, reliable people who can help you get just about anything you need done, and put some free time back in your life.
Here’s how it works:
1. Post a task. It doesn’t cost you anything, and you can post just about everything. For example, right now TaskRabbit users have posted tasks like: Interview transcription need, PDF to Excel data migration, online research, editing a blog post, party assistance, pick up pre-paid dry cleaning, and door person for party. Although many of the posts are for virtual office type work, TaskRabbit brings the virtual assistant into the real world for real world tasks.
2. TaskRabbits make offers. After you post your tasks, people, also known as TaskRabbits, make offers. All TaskRabbits have undergone background checks. And they are all bidding against each other so you can choose the lowest price if you’d like.
3. Pay when task is done. You can pay TaskRabbit online. No cold hard cash changes hands. TaskRabbit says most tasks are completed for $20 to $30. Of course, TaskRabbit takes its cut and they pass on the rest to the virtual assistant.
Although there are a lot of personal tasks on the list, there’s a special area called TaskRabbit for Business that specializes in all the office stuff, like filing documents, cleaning the office dishes, helping organize office supplies or a storage closet, or providing customer feedback. You can rent an executive assistant for half a day, for example, or get someone to stuff envelopes. The possibilities are virtually endless.
The only downside is TaskRabbit isn’t in too many places yet. So you can outsource a lot of tasks, but only if you live in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago and Orange County. TaskRabbit promised to add Portland and Seattle soon, and the concept seems to be growing.
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