Airtasker and alternatives

flamin'trek

flamin'trek

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I’ve had enough of my current job and want a change. Fortunately I have a fair bit of leave owing and we are financially comfortable so I can do this without finding a new job first. Thoughts moved to airtasker or similar to provide some income while I work out where to next.

I’m a capable handyman and have a ute, tools, garden equipment etc so could probably do a reasonably wide range of simple tasks.

Has anyone else gone along this road and can provide any feedback about working via airtasker or similar? I’m not sure wether I’d be up against people who don’t value their time well and don’t charge an appropriate fee, because they haven’t figured out their hourly rate, or are just low balling to buy a reputation. Anyone had bad (or good) experiences with airtasker? I’d like to get a feel for some of the risks associated before I sign up. I see the airtasker cut is 22% which I guess would go a fair way to paying private insurance and doing the books etc.

Ideally I’d be looking for a few hundred a week in supplementary cash.

Thanks in advance.
 
Dales Cannon

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
Not me but there is a guy who does the land maintenance next door and I have gotten to know him pretty well. To compete you will be giving your time away, he charges bugger all and to be honest there are times when I would happily pay him to do my place because it was too hot etc.

This guy does good work and has full order books but his hourly rate must be $10 an hour or so.

Similarly the guy who does my biocycle system. $60 per service. He is here for minium 30 mins. I know he does five or six in the area on that day but still spends aboutv4 hours in the car. He supplies consumables which arent all that expensive but by the time you take an hourly rate and running costs out of $360 for the day there isnt anything left. Even 10 per day doesnt stack up.

If you want to poodle it buy a coffee van. Find an industrial area that doesnt have such a service and sell them decent coffee. Be on time and reliable. Phone orders etc. Still not huge money but better than these others.

Of course there is hire a hubby. If you have the equipment... and a good battery supplier and a partner with very liberal views...
 
Calvin27

Calvin27

Eats Squid
I rekon you're better off going uber compared to airtasker. That says a lot lol.

I rekon you would be better off just focusing on one task - Mowing lawns or something like that. Just blast out some flyers (print them at your current job lol) in the local area.
 
Dales Cannon

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
To charge more you need to offer stuff others dont. Better service, faster, painting dick and balls on the front lawns with weed killer and so on.
 
flamin'trek

flamin'trek

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Calvin27 said:
I rekon you're better off going uber compared to airtasker. That says a lot lol.

I rekon you would be better off just focusing on one task - Mowing lawns or something like that. Just blast out some flyers (print them at your current job lol) in the local area.
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Uber could work, but I’d need to buy a newer car.
Best get my graphic design skills going so I can run the printer hot :)
 
Tubbsy

Tubbsy

Packin' a small bird
Staff member
There's a guy here who collects and disposes of your green waste; $50 for half a trailer up to $100 for a full load. He has quite a tall box trailer.

Free for him to dump it at the tip, so he spends about 20-30 minutes loading the trailer and another 30~40 dropping it off. Getting around Canberra is pretty quick though.

I'm guessing he'd do $400-$800 worth a day in Spring.

It is obviously seasonal so it's not a career of itself.
 
Flow-Rider

Flow-Rider

Burner
Find a part time or casual job somewhere like at a transport distribution centre, turn up to work and pissoff home with not a worry in the world. Liability insurance is a killer in small business these days and then the long term travel expenses of running around in your own vehicle.
 
flamin'trek

flamin'trek

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Flow-Rider said:
Find a part time or casual job somewhere like at a transport distribution centre, turn up to work and pissoff home with not a worry in the world. Liability insurance is a killer in small business these days and then the long term travel expenses of running around in your own vehicle.
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Local job like that is part of the plan, but keeping options open. The draw of airtasker etc is it would be easy to work around kid's school times.
 
Calvin27

Calvin27

Eats Squid
How about full time gumtree bike flipper?

Wasn't there someone here that build a bike from purely donated parts?
 
Flow-Rider

Flow-Rider

Burner
flamin'trek said:
Local job like that is part of the plan, but keeping options open. The draw of airtasker etc is it would be easy to work around kid's school times.
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A lot of those jobs can be school friendly, a friend of mine had their own business and needed a few extra dollars so he took on a part time job at Ipec Toll unloading small parcels by hand on a Thursday night. It was a good hourly rate too.
 
flamin'trek

flamin'trek

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Calvin27 said:
How about full time gumtree bike flipper?

Wasn't there someone here that build a bike from purely donated parts?
Click to expand...
Been doing that part time for a while (but not with donated parts). Will continue.

Also been playing with pallets. Anyone want a seesaw, kicker ramp or manual machine built?
 
caad9

caad9

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I don't have specific examples using Airtasker, but my opinion is people are inherently lazy.
If you can focus on things they don't want to do, you should be sweet.

They will never pay a lot for something they could do themselves
 
Flow-Rider

Flow-Rider

Burner
caad9 said:
I don't have specific examples using Airtasker, but my opinion is people are inherently lazy.
If you can focus on things they don't want to do, you should be sweet.

They will never pay a lot for something they could do themselves
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Haha! you'll be surprised, I used to run a mobile mechanic business on the side of my workshop one. People will try all types of stuff to not pay you, the best one I got repeatably was " I can't pay you until the hubby comes home, he's got all the money" You end up making about 5 trips to their house because they're never home. People want cheap jobs done and then try to pay by cheque and their account has no money in it. You end up wasting more time chasing money up than what the job was ever worth.
 
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