Shaking Things Up

Until recently, the local buying and selling market was dominated by one behemoth: Craigslist.  But San Francisco start-up, Zaarly, is shaking things up a bit.  This Craigslist meets Location Based Service (LBS)+ actionable activity web tool is already live in over 200 cities.

Zaarly helps you match up a peer-to-peer purchase and sales opportunity with people in your local area.  Posts to any of your social media-enabled devices read something like: “Deliver 10lbs of ice to LaunchRock office…for $18.”  Maybe someone will do it, maybe not.

$1 Million in 30 Days

For Zaarly, things started off with a bang. Launched on May 18, 2011, the company topped $1 million in listings in the first 30 days. The top performing cities and aggregate sales are all tracked live on their leaderboard.  Later that year, Zaarly raised $14.1 million in Series A funding and added Hewlett-Packard CEO and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to its board of directors.  And just recently, Zaarly was listed on FastCompany’s 2012 list of most innovative web companies.

Ideal for SMBs

Small to medium businesses (SMBs) can use this web social media tool to get new customers without having to really do anything.  Sometimes, if the transaction is cash-based, they even pay no transaction fees.  A win-win for supplier and consumer.  And sometimes it’s just a whole lot of fun.  These are some of my all time favorite Zaarly gigs:

• $300 for Dwarf entertainers. Must be under 4 and a half feet tall. Required for Tim Burton themed 5 year old’s party (approximately 3 hours work). Must be local. Must be entertaining. Juggling and/or skill at spinning plates a major bonus. All little people encouraged to apply. Costumes provided.
• $75 for Need to fish keys from sewer. I ended up dropping my keys down a sewer in Bucktown. Doesn’t look like too much muck, but I cannot see them. I hear if you have a fishing pole or maybe a pole with a magnet, they are easy to fish out. Help!
• $40 for Someone in Gumby costume. I need someone dressed up in a Gumby costume to make an appearance at an office in River North for 15-20 minutes on Wednesday morning around 9:30am