After being struck by lightning, the wiring in my house went haywire. In desperate need for an electrician, I searched Google and that it is when the search engine threw up StarDoer. I downloaded the app and posted my requirement. In a few minutes I got a call from Dileep Mohan and Isha Nair.
While Dileep, an electrical engineer, wanted to earn an extra buck by taking up the job, Isha, who works with an interior design studio, said: “We have electricians, carpenters, painters...in our team. Accepting such odd jobs is a great way to supply work to our employees. We recently took up a carpentry job at Vellayani.”
Launched three months ago, StarDoer was conceptualised by Sujeeth Nair, partner of a contracting company.
Sujeeth Nair
“I have to settle bills at the end of the week as part of my job. One Saturday, I wished I had a person who would undertake the job for me as I was stuck elsewhere.” And that got him thinking.
Jobs aplenty
“There are a lot of jobs in the market. Sometimes it’s a job the employer can do himself but is unable to because of lack of time, resource... If that person is willing to hand it over to another person, that creates employment for the latter, often giving him or her an additional income or a way to expand his/her business,” says Sujeeth, who worked with his friend Binooplal, a techie, on the idea of StarDoer.
Although there are numerous employment sites, very few, according to Sujeeth, offers local jobs, especially for skilled workers. “We have had people looking for a chef who would cook during the weekends, someone seeking a t-shirt designer, another on the look out for a female actor to star in his web series and someone else looking for a person to man a petrol pump. In fact, my wife, Dhanasree, wanted a person to pick up lunch from our residence and deliver it to her office. When she posted her requirement, she found Indulekha, a techie, who delivers meals right on the dot.”
Indulekha
Indugeetha G, associate professor at Marion College of Architecture and Planning, who needed a Malayalam home tutor for her son found a PhD student to coach him through the app. When Tony Anthony, travelling from the city to Thrissur, needed to get a document signed by his sister, he calculated the cost of travel and added a little extra and posted the budget on the app. Arun Krishna, a data entry operator responded to his post. Arun , says that he took up the job as it involved travelling, something he enjoys, and “it offered an extra income.”
- StarDoer is not a service provider but a listing platform for localised everyday jobs. You can sign up and download StarDoer for free. You can post a maximum of five jobs and bid for two jobs for free a month. If you need to post or bid for more, you can upgrade your account to a privilege account or a star package for a fee. Only a verified subscriber can post or bid on the app. The site, which currently has 700-odd users, gets around three to five job postings a day.
According to Sujeeth, most of the ‘doers’ are between the ages of 18 and 30. “Besides earning extra income, we also have people who take up a job out of passion or as a way to hone their skills in that particular field,” he adds. Anu Joseph who runs a designing company finds a platform like StarDoer useful for small, upcoming companies such as his.
Anu Joseph
Sumesh Sukumaran, who runs a photo studio in Kovalam, says he was able to meet new clients through the app. “Those in and around the neighbourhood are our customers. When a biking group in Kovalam required a photographer to cover an event, I decided to apply for it. Thus I was able to connect with new customers.”
First launched as a web platform before it was made available as an android and ios application, Sujeeth says he plans to expand StarDoer and its services to other cities shortly.
