Free up More Time for Fun by Finding Reputable Household Help Faster

Just before Christmas I attended a Keretsu meeting to watch a friend of mine present his start-up to get funding. During a break, several of us women (in a congenial, male-dominated room) gathered around one remarkable woman who, along with her husband, had self-funded a business to enable parents to sign up their kids of soccer and other school teams faster – online.

The lively woman in charge of business development for their firm, Zortal, Carol Zimmerman and I wound up meeting later to compare notes on start-ups and on living in Marin. We even car pooled together to a holiday party in the East Bay, getting lost several times along the way but having a good time getting to know each other.

This is the good part of our new Normal world, meeting women doing remarkable businesses online. That's how I heard of Real Girls Media and this cool community they started.

Another woman I met that day is Jenna Raby, co-founder of an eight-month old start up LaborFair. I have become a fan of this social enterprise because it inherently affords a triple “do good.” So let me explain, as the service might also interest those of you who also live in the S.F. Bay area. Like the micro-financing organization that's been in the news a lot recently, LaborFair is a person-to-person (P2P) system. LF offers the first online job referral community.

Here's how it works, in brief:

Because LaborFair.com provides worker profiles, photos, references and reviews, consumers can find the right, reliable person they need faster than on other sites, such as Craig’s List. Further, once you find a likely candidate to hire, you can click to contact someone directly by email or mobile phone.

Good workers can get more jobs and build their reputation through the online reviews they receive from people like you. They can stop papering neighborhoods with promo flyers or going through agencies that take a chunk of their pay. Thus, with LaborFair, those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder can work their way up to a better way of life.

Think of LaborFair as an eBay for household services with fair trade built into the business.

Back to the “triple good” bottom line: