Nextdoor — the neighborhood-based social networking platform with a billion-dollar valuation — is the latest company to get into the on-demand game.
Via Flickr: thinktk
For the past week and a half or so, the neighborhood networking app Nextdoor has been quietly testing an on-demand function not unlike TaskRabbit or Google Home Services, BuzzFeed news has learned.
Nextdoor is, fundamentally, a place for neighbors to talk to each other. And what do neighbors talk about? Among other things, they ask each other for recommendations — does anyone know a good piano teacher? a reliable landscaper? a flexible babysitter?
Realizing this behavior was already happening on the platform, Nextdoor co-founder Sarah Leary said in a prior conversation that it only made sense to help users execute what she called a "casual labor" exchange.
"We did not invent this," Leary told BuzzFeed News. "This is how people are using Nextdoor."
Nextdoor is currently testing Nextdoor Now, as the new product is called, in San Francisco and Austin, and has plans to roll the feature out gradually in new cities in 2016. Residents in those areas can choose from a list of different types of services their neighbors have already signed up to provide, including yard work, pet sitting, baby sitting, tech help, tutoring and other odd jobs.
