On Demand is broken, here is how we’re fixing it (Part 1)
There’s something wrong with the way we find and discover services intended to make our life easier.
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I worked in San Francisco for a few months and had accumulated a good amount of stuff at my temporary place. When time came to move back home, I had a huge box I needed to get back. I had no car, I was using public transportation, and I was miles away from any post office.
I had no idea how I was going to do it. Taking it with me on BART and Amtrak was not an option. I was about ready to just sell it on Craigslist.
So I asked my friends if they knew of a cheap and easy way that I could get my package back home, and they told me about Shyp. They will come to you, box your stuff up, and ship it to your destination. It was great, and I loved it.
The problem was I had to learn about this great service by asking around. If you Google “package pickup in SF,” you might find Shyp somewhere among the list of possibly-relevant (really mostly irrelevant) results. A lot of these services are things that we don’t intuitively know exist. There’s a service that will come to your house and give you a massage, but few people will spontaneously consider searching for “on-demand massage service.”
It’s hard to find services you don’t know exist.
This was in San Francisco, the Mecca of on-demand and innovative technology, a place where most would imagine you can press a button to get anything. When I got back home to Santa Barbara, I thought surely we didn’t have any on-demand services — but on close examination I found there were actually quite a few. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, and you think an on-demand service exists for it, chances are you won’t find out about it.
So we made a solution.
We’re trying to solve two problems, one for the consumer and one for the on-demand services. For consumers, it’s cumbersome to discover what on-demand services exist and actually operate in their area. For on-demand services — especially new ones — it’s difficult to find potential customers.
WeDo Now is an on-demand service curator. We categorize and show you services that actually operate in your area. There have been countless times where I see a service advertised, only to find out once I go through their sign up process it isn’t available in my area.
Think of WeDo Now like the App Store for on-demand. The number of new on-demand services is growing dramatically, and until now there was no one place where you could find or discover them.
From companies that will fill up your gas tank while you’re at work, deliver food, walk your dog, or even provide a massage at your home. WeDo Now connects you with all of them, making it easy to discover services to help you get more done.
Can you imagine trying to find apps without the App Store?
One of the reasons these haven’t been just one search away is that it is pretty time-consuming curating services available in your area. There is no universal API (yet) that search engines can plug into to be able to pull up who can deliver you food, fix your kitchen sink, clean your house, pick up your laundry, or otherwise help you out with your everyday needs.
We think it’s crazy this kind of curation doesn’t exist.
We have spent a lot of time finding on-demand services and the locations in which they operate. We’ve added over 200 services just in the US, and we’re adding more every week.
This is the first version of WeDo Now, and we’re excited to hear your thoughts. WeDo Now is a product integrated into WeDo, a simple to-do list app that you can use for everything in your life. We will be integrating with more and more on-demand services to make using and finding them a great experience.
Our mission for WeDo is to be the hub for all you do.
WeDo Now is in our WeDo app for iOS only right now, which you can download here. We also have an Android, Mac and Web app.
Feedback is a huge part of what makes WeDo such a great task manager. When using any of our products, you can go to settings and send us direct feedback (with your mood). You can also email us at hello@wedo.com. We love hearing your thoughts!
Have a productive day,
Spencer & The WeDo Team
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Are you an on demand service that helps people get more done and not on our list? Apply here.
