Today we’d like to introduce you to Collin Pham.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m from Newton, MA and Local (the name of our company), in its first form, actually began back in 2012 when I was in high school there. Me and two friends wanted to earn some money over our sophomore summer so we, like a lot of kids before us, put up fliers offering to do odd jobs for an affordable price — think lawn mowing, moving, baby sitting. What started as this really small idea though, started to grow into something bigger. By my senior year, my two co-founders had left and I was using about twenty of my friends to complete a huge amount of weekly jobs. It was a crazy time, especially because I was so young. I didn’t really understand what was happening, I just sort of knew there were all these people who kept calling, day in and day out and that I needed to fulfill their requests. When I left for Northwestern I sold the business to some kids that were a few years younger than me, but it’s been five years since 2012 and I still get phone calls from clients.
Local, in its current form, incorporated a few months back with the aim to scale the core services we offered in high school without losing our values and brand mission. That is, we want to bring this value we found so many people loved to more communities, without losing what is core to our genesis. We’re currently operating in Evanston and seeing great traction. This summer we are going through an accelerator program offered by Northwestern.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has by no means been a smooth one, but that’s what makes it fun! We started operating a few months back and one of the first issues we ran into was that of many two sided marketplaces: having an equal supply of labor and homeowners. We’ve been working hard to ensure we aren’t recruiting too many students to work, and aren’t marketing too hard as to not be able to fulfill home owner requests.
We also went through a few competitions to raise some initial seed money and those months of pitch practice and finally pitching were very stressful.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Local Technologies – what should we know?
At its core, Local connects students interested in earning money with community members interested in getting tasks done. Because we are a two-sided market, we are really tackling and solving two problems that sort of parlay together to create this beautiful problem-solution fit.
On the labor side, we realized that students are always looking to make some extra money for textbooks, food, tuition, or whatever else it may be. The options for students to earn money, however, are broken for two reasons. One, there are not many jobs that can accommodate a student’s schedule — even part time jobs require workers to weekly block out 4-6 hour sections of their day, which is a big ask when you have class, clubs, etc constantly. Two, most student jobs pay an inhumane rate, as in under $10/h. With Local, students are able to work on their schedule for however long they need, plus we pay $16+/h. We’re students ourselves so we really understood how to create a better solution for earning cash because we encounter this problem daily.
On the homeowner side, we learned from our high school experience that the home services industry is broken for a few reasons. The first and most blaringly obvious flaw to us was with customer service. Usually when a general laborer comes into a home, they ask what needs to be done, do it, and then leave. They’re often late, don’t have a positive attitude, and are not at all interested in forming a professional relationship. Students, especially the ones we put through our vetting process, are the opposite of this — they love to interact with clients, have huge amounts of energy and are overall excited to be working and meeting new members of the community. And in fact, the personality type and work ethic of our students is something we’re really proud of and have been working hard to maintain. Secondly, the process to actually find a home service provider is fragmented. Let’s say you want to find a yard worker, a mover and a handyman. You will have to make multiple phone calls, deal with multiple scheduling processes, and then have to worry about a stranger coming into your home that you’ve never met. We’re a one stop shop for trusted and vetted general laborers. The process to actually obtain a student is always the same and simple, and when you hire one, you know they have the Local brand behind them. Thirdly, is price. Because we’ve analyzed this market extensively, identified and optimized the inefficiencies, and then streamlined the process we’re able to come under average costs by 30-40%.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I’ve always embraced learning, and I don’t mean the act of learning, but the actual mindset that comes with being a learner. I’ve asked advice of a lot of people older than me and younger than me, and I always approach it with the truth that they have something valuable to teach me. I’ve gained a lot from these conversations by being so opening to listening.
Often times, however, when I stop and look around, I feel like I’m surrounded by people that don’t want to learn. Maybe it’s pride, or ego, or who they think they need to be, but something about a lot of people I’ve met prevents them from being learners in the pure sense of the word. That’s not to discredit that mindset, but rather to say that I feel like I have an advantage because I am so open to learning from others, no matter who they are.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://local-technologies.com
- Phone: 617.888.9241
- Email: inquire@local-technologies.com
- Instagram: @local.technologies
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localstudentlabor/
- Twitter: @_LocalTech
Image Credit:
Caraline Pham and Sydnye Doctor
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