Hello! Thank you so much for your kind offer. I am trying to solve a problem I am experiencing at work (in the restaurant industry). Essentially I need a simple solution that 1. allows for stakeholders (in our case managers/chefs) to place a request for a service such as a broken cabinet or a broken fridge 2. I would then like that service request to get pushed out to a pool of vendors that we've vetted to be able to perform x niche service via a simple Trello like system. There are obviously other logistics such as paying the vendor after etc and on-going booking management but I can't seem to understand why such a product doesn't exist. I've seen things like ShareTribe and Launch27 but nothing that is as simple as this. I almost envision an intake form sheet --> pumped into Trello --> alert pool of people if a card hits within a certain list --> allow the person interested to claim and complete the job --> payment issued.
Many of the options out there overcomplicate this. Think Handy.com but much less intense.
I've seen plenty of couriers with their families inside riding around with them delivering food. Sometimes just a guy and the younger son? who hops out, picks up the food, and the dad drives off to deliver the item. It makes me sad.
Oh, one other interesting thing I've heard happens regularly. Couriers have multiple cellular devices. The second account usually get batched orders from the same restaurant they are already at which leads to a host of problems for the customer and restaurant. This leads to the order that was ready first to just sit and die in the courier bag while they work to maximize their earnings. Couriers sometimes leave before the second-order is ready and return well AFTER it's been ready to retrieve it because they are out and about delivering other orders.
This reminds me of a post I submitted a few weeks ago on HN.
A friend of mine works for a restaurant group in NYC and they like many they have had to respond by offering delivery to folks in order to keep some revenue flowing. He and I were chatting and he mentioned that lately, a large majority of high value ($500+) orders were fraudulent with the fraudster ordering things that can be resold such as high-value wine, liquor, etc that isn't necessarily perishable. He says that the scams work like this:
1. The order comes in via Caviar usually with a ridiculous amount of booze. It is usually a courier delivery but he says looking back, some have been picked up by 'customers'.
2. There are some instances where the order gets canceled either by the scammer within the 2 min grace period post ordering of from the actual customer who had their account phished/received some sort of alert/and stopped the transaction.
I am intrigued by this because there is obviously someone on the receiving end that's ending up with a boatload of high-end booze and then offloading it somehow while Caviar eats the dispute later on and still pays the restaurant out.
Literally, thousands of dollars a week of fraudulent booze orders are being fulfilled to people fraudsters using phished accounts with valid cc's. The consumer eventually realizes the charge, disputes it, and gets their money back leaving Caviar with the bill.
Many of the options out there overcomplicate this. Think Handy.com but much less intense.