Backstory: In the early stages of my life I did carpentry work on the side for extra money. I used these skills to flip a house, complete major renovations on my own homes and help out friends with projects.

Just last week, three of my friends have been asking for help with various projects. I try to help as much as possible but life's pretty busy lately and I'm not able to help everyone. I asked each of them if any contractors or laborers I've used in the past are available, everyone is booked for at least a month. One friend even tried to hire some workers outside of Home Depot, they all wanted over $30/hr to dig a hole (he's building an egress window in a ground level basement).

The Idea: An on-demand provider for skilled and unskilled laborers.

Deep Dive: A marketplace for laborers to input their skills and rates for different job types. Someone may be a carpenter but are also willing to do some landscape work. Different labor categories would have different rates. Workers would be able to toggle on their availability and have a set schedule.

To keep this idea from turning into another job board, instead of allowing people to post jobs, they would simply search by worker type, rate and category. Once they find someone who is available and fits their desired skill level and rate, they are able to contact them and coordinate the job.

Learning from upwork's drive to the bottom and seemingly unprofessional job descriptions, making the job details secondary may give this idea something new that stands out.  

Validation: I've struggled to find a helping hand when doing carpentry work and recently three of my friends have all needed a helping hand.

Monetization: You could charge job seekers a fee to contact a worker. You could also sell targeted ads to home depot and lowes, these are ideal customers.

‍