Gonzaga grads’ web-based startup OddJobbers links college students to area residents needing stuff done

When Nick McLain was working for a company flipping houses during summer break from high school in Colorado, his brother was making more money picking up odd jobs on Nextdoor, a neighborhood social network.

That eventually sparked the Gonzaga University graduate’s idea for OddJobbers, a web-based startup that connects college students with residents needing work done, such as yard maintenance, pet sitting, moving furniture, snow shoveling, house painting and even music lessons.

“I heard about college kids mowing lawns and I was thinking, ‘Why would you stop there when students could do more than yard work?’ ” said McLain, the startup’s founder and CEO. “OddJobbers is a market place where students can have their own profiles and essentially run their own business.”

McLain founded the startup in April 2018 with fellow Gonzaga graduate Zach Duffy, the chief marketing officer for the company.

They placed flyers around campus and the South Hill, launched a Facebook page and went door-to-door sharing information about OddJobbers.

“A week later, we got our first job,” McLain said. “I was our first OddJobber for at least a month.”

OddJobbers has since grown to include more than 135 student workers on the platform, Duffy said.

“What’s really nice now is we’ve started to see word-of-mouth outpace some of the other channels we’ve been using,” he said.

Students sign up for OddJobbers as independent contractors – much like Uber – then create profiles listing their background and job skills.

“We don’t set schedules for them and there’s a lot of freedom for a student, which is huge,” Duffy said. “That’s our biggest draw, we don’t want students to have to miss out on whatever they have going on in college to have to work a normal part-time job.”

While it’s free for customers to sign up for OddJobbers, students workers must pay a commission fee ranging from 10% to 20%, depending upon the amount of money they have earned on the platform and if the job is for a recurring customer. First-time jobs typically charge more in commission rates.

Students earn an average wage of $14 per hour after commission fees, which remains above the state minimum wage of $12 per hour, Duffy said.

A majority of students on the OddJobbers platform are from Spokane Community Colleges as well as Gonzaga and Whitworth universities, but there’s a push to attract students from Eastern Washington University this summer, Duffy said.

“We are shooting for 2,000 to 3,000 students on the platform,” McLain said. “There’s really no reason for students not to sign up, unless they have no interest in earning money.”

McLain said he aims to add jobs on the platform related to fields students are studying in college, such as graphic design, website creation, marketing or assisting businesses with QuickBooks. He also would like to add tutoring services for local middle and high school students.

“I really want to give students a better way to make money in school and the ability to use skills from OddJobbers toward new employment,” McLain said.

McLain and Duffy received $50,000 in December from Mind to Market, a program by Avista that operates out of StartUp Spokane and provides early-stage funding for entrepreneurs.

McLain said they are planning to raise additional seed funding in the next six months to hire more employees and expand into new markets, such as Pullman, Boise, Missoula or Fort Collins, Colorado.

“We’re not set on a new location yet, but we are thinking Colorado, just because it’s very similar to Spokane, seasonally, and there’s just a lot of schools around there,” Duffy said.

The main goal for OddJobbers, however, will be to connect college students with their communities, Duffy said.

“OddJobbers helps them get out and meet some people in the community, and they can make great money doing it,” Duffy said.