INTERVIEW WITH LABORME FOUNDERS
LABORME, LABOR YOU
If you have read about my review of the LaborMe App , then you would have known this idea was born and breed in Singapore. Curious to find out who are the creators of this handyman app which encourages peer-to-peer method of connecting to people who needs help in completing tasks or to complete tasks for others?I was privileged to have a short interview with the Founders Vincent Cheong and Vincent Ong.
These 2 buddies shared how the LaborMe journey came about.
Vincent Cheong on the extreme left and Vincent Ong is on the right.
Qns:How long have
you been toying with this idea of a startup?
Ans: Starting LaborMe is not something that I planned for but when the idea struck , my co founders and I were so
excited about it - we acted on it quickly. It was not just the idea of your “neighbour” helping you
with errands that excited us. LaborMe would lower the barrier to participate in the sharing
economy and extend it to almost everyone. This presents new and exciting opportunities as we
transit into a “gig- economy”.
Qns: You were academically trained in electrical engineering and computer science, how much
has this helped you when it comes to setting up LaborMe?
Ans: Prior to my F&B business, I was in the IT industry for 10 years. The training and
experience in technology is definitely useful but running a startup is much more than that. As we
developed the idea further, the challenges we faced were mostly in the non technical aspect. An
example is how can we “foster” trust between two seemingly unrelated individuals, the user and
the tasker, through the LaborMe application.
After many discussions, we decided to embark on
a multi prong process:
● Peer reviews to help users relate their experience with the tasker
● Multi level verification. This starts from the simple verification of just mobile phone number to requiring individual to come to our office for a short briefing and screening.
● Skills endorsement. We will awards badges to deserving individual when they consistently display a high standard of service in a particular category of task
● Conscientious in educating our users/ taskers and imposing restrictions on those that fail to abide the an acceptable level of responsibility and responsiveness
● Multi level verification. This starts from the simple verification of just mobile phone number to requiring individual to come to our office for a short briefing and screening.
● Skills endorsement. We will awards badges to deserving individual when they consistently display a high standard of service in a particular category of task
● Conscientious in educating our users/ taskers and imposing restrictions on those that fail to abide the an acceptable level of responsibility and responsiveness
Qns: How long did it take to develop the app from testing till its official launch ?
Ans: The development of the entire application is done locally and in-house, from the first day
when I sat down to write the first line of code to the day we officially launched the app took a
good 10 months. Besides the development efforts, we went through 2 rounds of closed testing
and 1 round of open testing to not only test the application but more importantly gather
feedbacks that we have incorporated into the application.
Qns: I am pretty excited about the porting over of food items from Johor Bahru such as with
Uncle Tetsu Cheesecake. Is there a possibility the JB food options will be expanding? And if
yes, how do you ensure that the food stays fresh and remains in a good state upon delivery
from across the causeway.
Ans: Yes! We are definitely looking to expand our JB shopping to include daily essentials like
shampoos and cleaning supplies, baby essentials like milk powders and diapers and even
contact lenses that would help our users save up to 60% off regular retail prices here in
Singapore.
Our ethos at LaborMe is that we only serve up and offer what is attractive and acceptable to
ourselves. As with items that we offer to purchase on people’s behalf, my team and I have tried
both the items and the delivery process that ensure that this is something that we are confident
that is both attractive to our users and is we much achievable by our taskers.
Currently, our
users are required to preorder 1 day in advance for Uncle Tetsu and our Taskers will purchase
them the next day and deliver directly to our users. This is to ensure that the food is fresh.
Immediate purchase. Immediate delivery.
Qns: Any interesting stories to share from the users or taskers since LaborMe started out?
Ans: We have seen some pretty interesting tasks created and have helped our users:
● Sent flowers and gifts to their secret admirers
● Surprised a friend who was working at the other side of Singapore
● Helped a user sent his maid to the airport
● Helped a retail outlet count the number of human traffic at his store
● Helped a user collect her glasses from her house and deliver them to her office.
Qns: Tell us something we don’t already know about LaborMe.
Ans: Essentially, we are on-demand Personal Assistants to our users who can literally
outsource to us anything under the sun! Sort of like Amex’s exclusive Centurion Card if you will.
There is an Everything Else category that would allow you to create a task for any help that you
need. Some task examples that we have received: Assembling IKEA Furniture, businesses
seeking find part time help and many more!
Qns: What’s coming up next for LaborMe?
Ans: We are always looking to expand our product offering to provide more services that would help
our users more. We are moving into house cleaning where we have received quite a few
requests and we intend to do this with local Singaporeans and are currently in talks with an
NGO to help single mums who require flexible work arrangements and we are doing this as part
of our LaborMe gives back movement.
Tasks Made Easy
Inspiring stories we have there. I hope this article has brought you some motivation and ideas too if you are toying round the idea of building your own startup.
LaborMe definitely looks set to further their expansion locally, where there is definitely demand for another "helping hand" always. Now you know who to call next when you need a helping hand.
The 'Taskers' will be right there 24/7!
https://www.facebook.com/LaborMeApp/
http://www.labormeapp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/LaborMeApp/
http://www.labormeapp.com/
1 comments
hi, thanks for your article about start-up in Singapore! You may want to learn more about mobile app development Singapore for your reference in the future :)
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