There seems to be an app for everything these days, but recently a gap was identified by an enterprising group of Methow Valley women.
It all began when one of the women was lamenting that while numerous dating apps exist, allowing aspiring romantic singles to mark preferences in myriad categories, no such app exists for people who don’t want to date, but just want to meet someone with a complementary skillset.
Fueled by the certainty of their collective creative genius, this group of friends determined that an app that matches not romantic partners but home and life improvement partners would change for the better the lives of anyone who didn’t marry or move in with a person who knows how to do the stuff they don’t.
To these women, it seemed almost irrelevant that they lack the computer programming skills to bring this idea from concept to reality (a fact that was reinforced when one of the women later told her teen daughter about the idea. The daughter listened patiently, and then gently reminded her mother, “Mom, you guys don’t know how to make an app.”). They briefly acknowledged that minor roadblock, and then, undaunted, forged ahead.
Here’s how it works. (Well, here’s how it will work, once someone who is not these women engineers it.) Let’s say you’re a fabulous cook. Or you know how to graft fruit trees. Or you’re just a whiz at scheduling dentist appointments, paying bills and organizing file drawers. But there’s a piece of trim on your bathroom door that is loose and your efforts to hot glue gun it back in position have not yielded satisfactory results. Or your weedwhacker needs to have more string loaded into it. Where do you turn? You simply log into CanDo.com (GotSkills.com? SkillTrade.com?) and update your profile with the things you’re good at and the projects you need help with.
Voila! A menu of available home and life improvement partners presents itself to you. When you find people who seem to meet your requirements, you swipe left (or is it right?) to check their availability. If they don’t seem quite right for this job, you swipe the other direction.
The hookup comes next and boy, is it mutually agreeable. Your home and life improvement partner deals with that broken piece of tile on the backsplash. Meanwhile, you cook a meal that the partner will take home to their house, to serve at a dinner party they’re hosting for friends. No emotional strings, no angst — just the satisfaction of getting your projects done.
Who’s in?
