As someone who closely follows the social media startup space, I had to tell AdrianChilders.com readers about Zaarly, a new company that just launched this Wednesday, 18 May. They are disrupting the whole notion of how people do business with each other and empowering both buys and sellers by making it easier to find each other.
Zaarly co-Founder and CEO, Bo Fishback describes his startup as the wanted section on Craigslist, except much better because it’s hyper-local and it’s in real time. Zaarly works in the exact opposite way we typically think of how business is done. Instead of sellers coming up with a price they think their product or service is worth, buyers list what they want on Zaarly and how much they are willing to pay for it. Anyone who has the product or can fulfill the service the buyer is looking for will simply respond to him/her letting them know they can fulfill the order.
Zaarly is a particularly cool company because of the team involved and how quick they have gone from idea to product. They won a contest at LA Startup weekend and just a few short weeks later secured $1 million in funding from a whole host of investors, including actor Ashton Kutcher.
Since Zaarly is so new, it’s still not clear what the most popular requests will be on Zaarly. It can be anything from people looking for help with work, someone to run an errand or even finding someone with tickets or reservations to a popular event. Zaarly is launching in the biggest cities around the country first. There is particularly a lot of focus in New York City and what better time to launch then the week before TechCrunch Disrupt and BlogWorld to get the buzz going.
If your looking for something to buy and can’t seem to find it anywhere, post it on Zaarly and if the price is right, I’ll bet someone will be willing to give you what you need. I will be keeping an eye on Zaarly myself from time to time to see if there are any orders that I may be able to fulfill as well and make some quick cash on the side. I suspect that several of the 50 million tourists that visit New York every year can certainly turn to Zaarly for help from people who live in the city.
Speaking of startups and the social media space I’ll be reporting from TechCrunch Disrupt, (hashtag #TCdisrupt) and BlogWorld (hashtag #BWENY) all next week. You can follow me on twitter at @adrianchilders to get updates about all the hot new companies, blogs and presentations. Lastly, I want to give a huge thanks to Dave and the entire BlogWorld team for hooking it up with a BlogWorld pass during the twitter chat the other day. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone publishing content on all the new media platforms.