This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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The gig economy offers the chance for lots of people to make, well, not that much money, and no benefits. Working in a system you have no control over, and that can change its rules any time, however the companies see fit. But how do you really feel, Chris? I mean, I listen to Silence of School because I want your real opinions. All right, truth be told, I know we have a lot of listeners who are doing things like DoorDash or Instacart, or in this case, TaskRabbit.
And it's not like these are terrible things to do, especially if you're between jobs or something. My objection is the huge gap, the tremendous gap really, between the promise some of these companies make and the reality. Oftentimes people end up driving for Uber and Lyft and then realizing that they're making just about minimum wage, okay? So on the plus side, you can set your own schedule, which is always a benefit that's put forward. On the plus side, you can also get some experience.
And with some of the platforms like TaskRabbit in particular, anywhere where clients need repeat services, you may be able to work the system a bit to your advantage. You just need to be careful to not get in trouble with those companies or platforms. That brings me to today's question. A listener is earning extra money by doing handyman chores through TaskRabbit and wants to strike out on his own. Can he encourage his clients to contact him outside of the app?
You may have experienced this yourself, either on the provider side or the client side. So let's talk about it. How to use TaskRabbit to build a client base. And that'll actually apply to more than just TaskRabbit, but that's the example of today. So that question is coming up in just 30 seconds.
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Hi Chris, this is Kyle from Kent, Washington. And I've been following the show for a couple of years now. I've been making extra money doing handyman chores using TaskRabbit. Several of my new clients have asked me to return for repeat jobs, which is great. I also appreciate that TaskRabbit takes a lower percentage for themselves in these repeat jobs.
Still, they take a lot of commission and at least one person gave me their number and asked that I call them directly, thus going around the system. Is that ethical? Related, how can I use the leads that TaskRabbit brings me to build an active client base on my own? In the long term, I like to keep working through their platform, but not exclusively so. Thanks for your help, Chris.
- Awesome, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for the question as well. As I said, I do often hear from listeners who are experimenting with these gig economy kind of platforms. So let's talk about it. Can you use the leads that TaskRabbit brings you to build an active client base of your own?
And let's say this is not just TaskRabbit, it could be something else. Well, the best answer is yes and no. Technically, the rule is you're supposed to keep all communication, all jobs, all payment through the platform. So that's because the platform wants to get paid, right? This is their business.
If they were strictly a lead generation source or freelancers and you found clients and then you went off on your own with them, well, they wouldn't last very long. So it is in their best interest to keep things through the app and the app, to be fair, also provides protections for both buyers and sellers or clients or service providers, whatever the case may be. Now that said, pretty much every time that I have hired a TaskRabbit to do some kind of handy work or anything that might be a regular service or something that I might need help for again in the future, they pretty much always give me their card and say, you know, feel free to reach out if you need anything else. Maybe they can give me a lower price. They might mention that.
They might just say it's better for them. So it doesn't seem like there's a lot of enforcement about this. Generally, if I trust the person, I'm happy to go to them directly in the future because that way they'll be paid more. Of course, you know, as I said, if I do that, I won't have the protections provided by the service, which is why trust is so important. Now this practice, like how much enforcement or not there is really varies a lot from platform to platform.
So it's not universal. There's another service I like Snapper, which is kind of like photography, the Uber of photography they call themselves. And I found a number of photographers through Snapper. It's a great service. I also know that they are much more strict in policing their freelancers to make sure they don't go off app.
There are some pretty major penalties for anybody who does that, including being banned for life. So most photographers that I've talked to who are using Snapper, they pretty much always want to remain in the network, even though they make less money. I guess it's one of those things where we could say, what's that phrase? Caveat import, buyer beware. There's also caveat venditor, seller beware.
In this case, we could say caveat rabbit. Let the rabbit beware. Listeners, if you've got a question of your own, just hop over to sodusleschool.com/questions. I'd love to know what you're up to, what you're working on, what challenges you're facing and what's going well. All updates are welcome.
Be sure you're subscribed as well. You can do that wherever you get your podcasts and do continue to listen, I'll be here every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is "Sidusle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
