Kutoto, a collaborative consumption platform, has just released an iPhone app that will connect people with small tasks with Canadians willing to do those small tasks. The Montreal-based firm offers pre-approved individuals that are ready to work for a price and the according to the company it is “Canada’s first personalized assistance platform and marketplace.” For now the startup is dealing with only the Toronto and Montreal areas to give busy individuals a chance to outsource chores. Anton Yushin, cofounder of Kutoto, states that, “Errands, house hold chores, personal training and anything in between, be it walk my dog or fix my plumbing problem, any problem you have can be outsourced to your community through our mobile product.” He adds that Kutoto is “Siri, but for real life.”
The idea for the site came to Yushin and cofounder Julien Cassis at McGill University. They were doing their thesis for a computer engineering degree. For their thesis project the developed a platform that would outsource tasks that a computer could not do easily. At the time their was not commercial potential for their work. Yushin explains that, “We saw there was this huge void of not solving computer problems so much, but solving literally day-to-day problems. Solving and outsourcing a problem like that became a clear and apparent way for us to commercialize a similar idea that we built at school, except now at a much more people-to-people level.”
Getting started in 2012 the company received $350,000 in funding of October of the same year. Currently the site has 2,500 users who have downloaded the app but the team is aiming for 100,000 people by the end of 2013.
Max Rogan, partner at McCarthy Tétrault law firm, stated that, “I think you need to have a certain amount of scale and that’s why it’s important to be the first mover. Its unlikely that there’s going to be ten of these companies in Toronto and Montreal, so getting a lot of people signed up early is important.”
Yushin adds that, “Building a startup is difficult let alone building a marketplace startup, so the most important thing for us is trust, reliability and security. In our model every single provider that we bring on board is actually a verified provider.”
After a task is competed, the job provider can rate the service provider leaving feedback that others can use to review people performance which factors into a Trust Rating. There is also a in-app payments system so that both the provider and client can make and receive payments.
Source: TechVibes
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