Job Done

Joblist co-founder Brittany Earl sacrificed her law career for a shot at entrepreneurship, and together with co-founder Taylor Abernethy-Newman she’s loving the whole experience. Today the platform is getting jobs off ‘to-do’ lists nationwide.

There is nothing quite as powerful as the pull of a great business idea.

Brittany Earl had done the hard yards at uni and launched herself into a perfectly respectable career in law. There she was beavering away in a top Auckland law firm, preparing wills, planning estates and charging out on six-minute intervals – as lawyers do – when, after just three years, she suddenly decided to chuck it all in and launch an online marketplace called Joblist. 

It’s a platform that lets Kiwis earn some extra money, and allows people to list any type of job or task that they neither have the time, skills or inclination to do themselves.

So exactly what caused this drastic change in direction?

It all comes down to two little words – ‘life admin’.

“Increasingly I found that I was working on the six-minute interval clock, then spending my free time in the weekends running errands and dealing with life admin.”

Brittany thought if she was struggling to find time to clean the oven, buy birthday presents, do the ironing and wash the car, then how on earth is everybody else coping?

She also saw her colleagues working part-time and still struggling to meet obligations outside work too.

“Most had houses, cars, gardens, kids, a dog, and maybe even a guinea pig. I just didn’t know how they managed to find time to go to the post office!”

Over a cuppa and gingernuts, Brittany hatched the idea for Joblist – a platform where ordinary Kiwis list chores to be done, with a fixed price, and for enterprising workers to earn more money.

“Just imagine if you could pull out your phone, click on your to-do list, and allow somebody with free time, or in need of extra cash, to do those jobs.”

Brittany hooked up with Taylor Abernethy-Newman, then owner of a software development agency, to build the web app – “which I quickly realised needed the same level of functionality as TradeMe,” she recalls. 

‘Web app’ means Joblist can be used on a PC, any smartphone or any tablet.

Taylor and Brittany were originally introduced to each other by Gerard Molloy, who is also a lawyer and the third partner in Joblist. 

Taylor describes himself as the conscientious ‘techie-type’, while Brittany’s the “happy, optimistic type whose favourite expression is ‘let’s go!’.”

Funding for the business came in three stages: self-funding, friends and family, and then pre-Series A round funding from investors. 

Brittany and Taylor quickly realised how expensive and time-consuming it can be kick-starting such a business. While both were no strangers to hard work (Brittany spent her childhood milking cows and feeding calves, and Taylor was a young surf lifesaver at Piha) – it wasn’t easy working out of a “freezing cold” office in the Auckland suburb of Kingsland, where they had to “hug hot water bottles every day”. 

A far cry from the plush offices of a law firm.

Joblist cost around $500k to get off the ground, and after launching in April 2018, two years after they first met, Taylor, now 27, and Brittany, 28, reckon that the business now owes them a lot more.

Obviously scale is the answer. While initially there was no shortage of workers for the site, the challenge was getting people to list their jobs. Taylor admits to posting some jobs himself to encourage take-up (“pick and deliver a bag of feijoas” is one that comes to mind!). And Brittany once stepped up to mow a lawn for a listed job that needed doing.

“I was so nervous because I didn’t want to get a bad review. I had to get Taylor to come and help me!” she laughs.

Some serious marketing, particularly on social media and radio, was needed to create awareness, but they’re hoping those days are behind them and awareness will snowball as word gets around and people rediscover that personal connection that many social media sites lack.

As of mid-November, when NZBusiness caught up with Brittany and Taylor, they had more than 6300 registered users, and 700 jobs completed on the site. They also have a list of loyal and trusted workers on tap for those jobs that others are reluctant to tackle – perhaps because the price is too low.

Taylor and Brittany spend a lot of time communicating with listers – if too much time goes by before a worker is found, they send tips to speed things up. They’re always prepared to step in to ensure that there’s a satisfactory outcome, and have even been known to send out ‘thank you’ letters in hand-addressed envelopes.

Not surprisingly, Brittany’s legal background has been highly beneficial.

“It’s given me an attention to detail and an understanding of how things should be structured in the business,” she explains. “It has also improved my writing and grammar skills exponentially.

“Whether it’s [company] structuring, the terms on our website, working with developers and their agreements, arranging insurance, or applying for a trade mark – my legal experience has definitely come in handy. 

“If I hadn’t been a lawyer I would have struggled,” she admits.

Future objectives

Today, with the hard yards mostly behind them, Brittany says the objective is all about building scale, and to achieve that not only requires constant communication with customers, to gain their feedback, but also ultimately setting up in overseas jurisdictions. While Australia already has its ‘first mover’ in Airtasker, they do plan to launch in the Canadian city of Vancouver, which has many similarities with the market here.

Joblist has its own high-calibre advisory board, largely due to the efforts of Gerard Molloy. His valuable business knowledge and connections through the start-up community has resulted in some carefully timed shoulder-tapping – and so Taylor and Brittany can rest assured they’re getting the very best advice and guidance.

In terms of expectations, both founders are under no illusion on how much work is involved to build Joblist into a household name. They admit they don’t anticipate turning a profit until Q4 in the second year. Brittany admits to being “forever optimistic and slightly impatient”, but knows that scale comes before profit.

“We started out somewhat naively, but once we got past that, the challenge is continuing to have faith that everything will always work out.” 

Looking back to see how far they’ve come, they both happily agree that it’s all been worth it, and they’ve been right to follow their intuition.     

Joblist can be found at https://joblist.co.nz