Jig: What Do You Need?

There are entrepreneurs we love to work with. Joshua Schachter is on that list. When he told us last year he was starting a new company, Tasty Labs, we said "we're in." It wasn't exactly clear what Joshua wanted to build, but we knew it was in the general area of a marketplace for things people need.

Joshua put together a killer team and they started coding stuff up. A product emerged. We've been using it in alpha and beta for a while. It's evolved. And sometime in the past few days, Joshua took the covers off. It is called Jig and it is indeed a marketplace for things people need.

Go take a look. Tell us what you need. Get help with those needs. Pretty simple.

I've got a need posted on Jig. Maybe you can help me with it.

Or maybe you've got a need. Post it and maybe you'll get that need resolved.

That's Jig. I like it. I hope you do too.

#VC & Technology#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. leigh

    oh that’s funny i just got their email and signed up.  was thinking they need more users who aren’t jerking around with the system.  look forward to seeing y’all there 🙂

    1. fredwilson

      the users who are jerking around will eventually leave. that’s one of the issues with totally open social systems.

      1. Aaron Klein

        that’s a problem many startups would love to have 😉

      2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        UNLESS 4CHAN NOTICE JIG FIRST.

  2. JimHirshfield

    Reminiscent of Quora and a few other services (I forget their names) where you post how much you’ll pay for others to run your errands. I like the simplicity of Jig, and the focus on *needs*. That contributes to a stronger call-to-action (as compared to just a question).

  3. awaldstein

    Interesting…I have some fears that this will evolve into an actionable Quora though. Maybe that is a good thing.What would be interesting and useful is if they embraced the ‘hyper local/neighborhood” segment. For example, I live in the LES and need a dog walker. Or in Chelsea and my laptop just crashed and I need a geek on the block to rebuild the hard drive. Or a handyman. The needs that sit below classified ads  and old school yellow pages and tear offs from the coffee shop.Realize I’m pivoting their train but I think that what I see could easily do what I think the market could use.

    1. William Mougayar

      Arnold, I agree with you. Check out Tradyo on your iPhone as an App. it’s a killer hyper-local commerce App. Close to what you described. They’ll show you things available in your “Tradius”. I’m not sure if they have Services, but they have products. Services would be another product.

      1. awaldstein

        Will do.I think this is an untapped and substantial viral network yet to be.Every month I need something I can’t easily find.

    2. Donna Brewington White

      Do you not like Quora?

      1. awaldstein

        Actually, no…it just doesn’t pull me in.Have seen it used by some of my clients successfully for customer service but as a contextual filter for information for me personally, I’m not a fan. 

      2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        QUORA ONLY SUCCESS BECAUSE ACCIDENTALLY BECOME PLACE TO TALK TO STARTUP PEOPLE, BE NOTICED BY STARTUP PEOPLE.ONCE STARTUP PEOPLE LEAVE, OR REST OF WORLD ARRIVE, IT BECOME LESS POPULAR YAHOO ANSWERS WITH SLIGHTLY BETTER UX.

        1. JamesHRH

          Too true. And, in life, knowing what question to ask is likely more important than getting an answer!

        2. Donna Brewington White

          Once I thought about this realized how true this is.  In my case as well.  Do these realizations just jump out at you?Did you see Fred’s comment above about pairing up with @twitter-5017:disqus ?  

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            GRIMLOCK KNOW THING OR TWO.AND YES.

    3. fredwilson

      joshua is very pragmatic and fairly nimble

      1. awaldstein

        Great traits both.Interesting that your investment thesis in ‘networks of engaged users’ maps pretty well to my belief that community is the kickoff point if not intertwined with both marketing and commerce. 

    4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      QUORA ALREADY ADDING LOCATIONS. JIG CAN COPY THEM.PROBLEM WITH LOCATIONS = NEED CRITICAL MASS. ASK QUESTION IN LOCATION WITH ONLY 2 OTHER USERS NOT VERY USEFUL.

      1. joshua schachter

        We’re not trying to do Q&A. But yes, it’s very easy to build lots of neighborhoods into a product and immediately create a million tumbleweed towns.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          ME THINK KEY IS NOT ONLY TIE TO LOCATION.LOTS OF PEOPLE NOT IN LOCATION RIGHT NOW KNOW THINGS ABOUT IT.

    5. Red

      Check out taskrabbit for this. I’m not connected but curious roses if taskrabbit type models will earn sufficient revenue

  4. William Mougayar

    Congratulations…Another large network in waiting for its engaged users.It looks good at first sight, but won’t this degenerate as a forum for all things? If the “need” is the nugget, that’s a pretty general bucket of content, and I’ve already seen things like need for restaurant, to a laptop, to an adapter, etc.. C’mon people…for some needs, go and search Google. If Jig evolves as a “real needs” marketplace, then that will be great. I’m sure they can refine the criteria a bit, or they’ll have to curate the hell out of the pedly needs. 

    1. JimHirshfield

      Speaking of Google, try searching for “jig”.  No surprise, no listing for jig.com. It’s great to have a 3 letter domain name (I wonder what that cost!!?). It will be a nice experiment in SEO to see how/when “jig.com” appears on the first SERP.

      1. Matt A. Myers

        It’ll easily be #1.

        1. Jared McKiernan

          yeah, doesn’t look like it’s a particularly difficult SERP.

  5. testtest

    The problem solvers aren’t going to be able to find categories of problems to solve, as it’s all one stream.However, I assume you’ve got that covered. The different categories are going to be put on right, yes.

    1. JimHirshfield

      Tags? Tags anyone?

      1. testtest

        They seem to work well on Tumblr.Being able to follow tags aids discovery.

  6. Alan Mendelevich

    Mmm… Twitter meets Stack Exchange? 🙂

    1. Matt A. Myers

       What’s what I was thinking too, with Etsy design sensibility.

  7. Robert Thuston

    I worry that it is too broad.  Joel Spolsky (Stack Exchange) talks about the importance of “behaviors”.  The behaviors with Stack Overflow (for programmers) are people ask questions when they come up throughout the day, and answer them at night.  It’s a strong behavior that programs people to come back each day.I worry that Jig may not trigger my slightly neurotic impulse that I get with AVC, or users get with Stack Exchange.

    1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      STACK OVERFLOW HARNESS BASIC HUMAN BEHAVIOR.HUMANS LIKE RECOGNITION BY PEERS. PROGRAMMERS ANSWER PROGRAMMING QUESTIONS SO OTHER PROGRAMMERS VOTE THEM UP.HUMANS NOT CARE ABOUT HELP RANDOM STRANGERS WITH RANDOM REQUESTS.

      1. Marya Stark

        It does seem counter intuitive that random people are willing to serve random strangers, but I just posted a very specific question on Jig about Burning Man costumes and received a thoughtful response within a couple minutes. It’s not dissimilar to people giving directions to lost tourists.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          SEEK NOVELTY IS BASE HUMAN BEHAVIOR. JIG NEED WAY TO KEEP HUMANS HELPING STRANGERS AFTER THAT WEAR OFF.

    2. joshua schachter

      I agree. We need to have categories to narrow the spread.

  8. kirklove

    Jig is cool. Even the name itself.

    1. awaldstein

      Love the name as well.

      1. David Semeria

        I like the name, too.Fred, will Joshua tell us how much jig.com cost?I’d be very interested in the answer. Thanks.

        1. Matt A. Myers

           Everything’s for sale, and could have even included small portion of equity.Brand is the very most important thing.

        2. fredwilson

          That’s joshua’s call not mine

        3. joshua schachter

          $85k.

          1. David Semeria

            That information is extremely useeful to me – thanks very much Joshua

          2. David Semeria

            Thank you Joshua that information is very useful to me.

          3. Matt A. Myers

            Any equity exchanged with that?

          4. awaldstein

            Love the name Joshua.Do you have any resources or found any  guidelines that helped you through the process of choosing a name?Everyone struggles with this. It appears individually, Anyone writing on this that is worth finding?

      2. ShanaC

        Actually, I hate the name, it reminds me of Disney and cheesy dance festivals…but there you go, I have my own sense of taste…

    2. fredwilson

      Great name. Joshua obsessed about that for quite a while. In the end he nailed it

      1. Laurent Boncenne

        Jig could also mean “Joshua is Good”.just sayin’ =)

  9. EmilSt

    Great service! I wonder what will be their monetization strategy?

  10. Fred H.

    Waded through the first few entries. They’re going to need RAPID RESPONSE folks to handle the pre-teen, nasta-mouth idjits. Awful turnoff.

  11. vankula

    Needs a ‘flag this user/comment’ feature immediately to get rid of the nasty posts – check out Janko.

    1. fredwilson

      yup

    2. joshua schachter

      Definitely.

  12. Reykjavik

    Am I alone in having a limited amount of time to be able to divide amidst 100 different sites that service different part of my life? Sometimes the frictional loss of using many tools is not offset by the goodness. I’m also not interested on depending on something that won’t be there tomorrow. Perhaps that’s why strategic acquisitions are so important — let the youngsters who have less going on in their lives figure out what’s useful, a bigger company buys the tool and rolls it into a portfolio that the rest of us busy people can more easily access.

    1. ShanaC

      No, you aren’t.  We’re all short on time and attention.The question is beyond network effect, what causes one service to pick up and another not to…(Ps, I love your puffin)

      1. JamesHRH

        Can it be that the web is no longer amazing, but kind of clunky?

    2. Ciaran

      Absolutely. I like to call it the tyranny of attention. Not sure it’ll catch on, but essentially you’ve summarised my thoughts exactly

  13. Shawn Cohen

    This line is interesting to me: “Joshua put together a killer team and they started coding stuff up. A product emerged.”Did you decide to fund Joshua without having an alpha to look at because you had funded him in the past and there was trust built up already? Or is that something you would consider doing for a first-time engagement as well?Just curious about the psychology behind the decision.

    1. fredwilson

      yupwe will do that with entrepreneurs we’ve worked with in the past

  14. andyswan

    I love it.  The wave of “social marketplaces” is just beginning….

    1. awaldstein

      Yup, it’s the era of community and marketplaces are a natural biz model. Some recent thoughts on this @  http://awe.sm/5RvYu

      1. Matt A. Myers

        You’re a poet with your writing; It constantly reminds me of the moment that I was momentarily shocked and speechless at how well you worded a sentence, in the moment, while we had our hour long phone call. :)Everyone should read what you write, and if they don’t they are losing out on an  amazing storyteller that is jam-packs with insight and deep human understanding.I highly look forward to meeting. 🙂

        1. awaldstein

          All I can say is thank you Matt!I am looking forward to meeting as well. When you have your dates, please share in advance to insure that I”m in town.

  15. RichardF

    Jig badly needs categories/filters/tags.Also isn’t it a bit like Craigslist with comments.

    1. Francesca Krihely

      And an astoundingly better/friendlier interface. 

      1. joshua schachter

        What, specifically, don’t you like?

        1. Charlie C

          I think she meant that your interface is much better, which it is. it’s great. 

          1. Francesca Krihely

            Yes. Charlie is right Joshua. I definitely prefer your interface to that of Craig’s. 

    2. ShanaC

      Is craigslist with comments a bad thing

      1. RichardF

        no Shana – just an observation.  Not sure I’m seeing anything particularly unique about it, that’s all

    3. joshua schachter

      I agree. Remember that I invented tagging originally.I believe we will be able to do automatic classification.

      1. RichardF

        Yep delicious is still the single most useful app I use as I surf the net. Wish you’d bought it back from Yahoo.Automatic classification would be great.  As would methods of pushing to me the things/people that I am interesting in helping.

  16. sigmaalgebra

    Testing:  Three comments, one to this thread and two to earlier threads, don’t show.  Apparently some ofther users are also unable to post.

    1. awaldstein

      Affecting me as well.

      1. Donna Brewington White

        yeah, I received a notice that you replied but didn’t see an actual comment for an hour or more — then I got two!

    2. Dave Pinsen

      Same here. Doesn’t appear in Disqus profile either. 

  17. baba12

    I looked at Jig, cool and all but I don’t see what is unique here.As an investment goes, USV invested in this for the team & thats about it.If am looking for some answers on say f stops on a Canon DSLR  camera I would probably check out a site that is focused on that topic.There are plenty of Q&A lists for specific niches and have their own communities. If anything I see the fluffers fluffing up something like this and hyping to make it be something including USV since they have an investment in it.I maybe out on a limb and probably am not seeing what problem is being solved but it must be something worth it for USV to invest.Congrats and good luck…

    1. ShanaC

      I was afraid to be this negative, but it seems sort of true….I want to know why I am there…

      1. baba12

        You may like me have been there purely because Mr.Wilson let it be known and I wanted to take a look at it but I am not the typical user for the Jig service.I am not likely to use it again besides today unless of course things change and there is something that makes it of value to me.

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      JIG NEED TO BE MORE USEFUL THAN GOOGLE SEARCH.SO FAR IT LESS USEFUL, SLOWER.THAT NOT GOOD.

      1. joshua schachter

        We’re not building search. Or a search competitor.

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          YOU BUILDING SEARCH FOR ANSWER OR NEED.MUST BE BETTER THAN USE GOOGLE TO FIND ANSWER OR MEET NEED.

          1. Charlie C

            not correct, grimmers

    3. joshua schachter

      It’s not a Q&A site. It won’t work for that, and we’re not building that.If you needed to borrow a Canon lens from a friend, though, it should help with that.

  18. ShanaC

    One thing I find awkward/ interesting is why are you pulling my friendships so quickly?  What if I don’t want to talk to you there….@Tereza:disqus where are you, I think you would have some really good insight.

    1. Donna Brewington White

      What do you mean “pulling my friendships”?

      1. ShanaC

        my contacts from twitter and facebook….

  19. Esayas Gebremedhin

    It reminds me of yahoo answers. I like the randomness in it. 

  20. leigh

    In case the jig pple come by – would love you to integrate with Disqus – really buggin’ me that I can’t reply to pple on the threads (both for other pple’s needs as well as the one’s i’ve posted.)  Thanking is fine, but sometimes you actually want to reply to that person.  🙂  

    1. andyidsinga

      Funny you say that … i think a couple engineers could rebuild jig in a weekend using disqus! and maybe a mongodb for some tagging and search 🙂

    2. joshua schachter

      We don’t want to have just have comments – we want to make it better for actually answering needs. That means stuff like forwarding, etc.

  21. RacerRick

    It reminds me of a modern version of Craigslist.

  22. maxniederhofer

    I know this is anathema to the whole “acquire users and traffic” crowd, but it’s so refreshing that there isn’t a single “Connect with Facebook” & “Sign in with Twitter” on the whole site. Plain, functional email invite system. Plain email sign up. Yay!

    1. David Tran

      There is a Connect with Facbeook button, but it’s refreshing that it comes later in the form of an unintrusive alert suggesting I connect my Facebook account to follow my friends’ needs. Refreshing change from all those sites with < 3 words on the front page and a “Connect Facebook” button.

  23. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    HOW WELL THIS WORK FOR HUMANS THAT NOT FAMOUS?ME BET NOT AS WELL AS FOR FRED.THIS FAIL GRIMLOCK STARTUP TEST. NOT MATCH BASIC HUMAN BEHAVIOR THAT ALREADY EXIST. NOT LOOK LIKE SUCCESS.

    1. falicon

      I agree…and I like the GRIMLOCK startup test…it’s a good one.

    2. Matt A. Myers

      I think it’ll depend on response rates and quality.

    3. joshua schachter

      We’re actually quite aware of the problem. We’re working very hard to avoid the “rich get richer” dynamics. One of the things we are trying is having routing and ranking replace the standard activity feed. That means we’re going to try to get unmet needs in front of people who are most likely to answer them. This means using contexts like neighborhood, relationships, topics, etc.We have a LOT of work to do. The first product you launch is never right. But I think we’re only a few left turns away from something good.Any interest in a job? I thought your comments were pretty insightful.

      1. fredwilson

        GRIMLOCK and @Joshu would be a great pairing

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Oh my that’s scary!  In a good way.

        2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          GRIMLOCK ALREADY WORK AT AWESOME PLACE, BUSY CHANGING WORLD IN BIGGER WAY THAN MOST STARTUPS DREAM OF.BUT ME NOT RULE IT OUT.

          1. Charlie C

            white house?

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            NOW YOU JUST SELLING GRIMLOCK SHORT.

          3. fredwilson

            i sure hope so

      2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        ME NOT SURE YOU CAN AFFORD GRIMLOCK. BUT ME WILLING TO LISTEN TO OFFER. ‘<ME SUGGEST STEAL FROM KLOUT, GIVE USERS “INFLUENTIAL ON X” RANKINGS.IF CONTROLLED TO PREVENT GAMING, THAT GIVE POWERFUL MOTIVATION TO PARTICIPATE, MAKE SYSTEM MORE USEFUL AT SAME TIME.ME GIVE THAT ADVICE FOR FREE. BECAUSE ME NOT NEED BADGE. ‘<

      3. SF

        As far as routing goes – stackoverflow and similar have down a great job in finding/building user base to answer questions that are very niche. As they are (I think) another USV portfolio company, perhaps you guys can share ideas.In fact, partnering with them to source/integrate relevant topics could be great. I know there are many and more answers on “how to host a php e-commerce site” there than they ever will be on jig – as there should be. If the value you have is in routing and audience building then let them focus on deep answers and partner to bring awesome in-depth results to your users…Without reading all the comments – I think the “follow” is the key innovation and sticking point for the service. I may not know an answer to some question, but if I am interested in the answer getting value would keep me thinking of this service for future questions.Overall, would love to see the Venn diagram of jig, quora, and stackexchange 🙂

  24. andyidsinga

    I didnt really get it 🙁 I think i was expecting much more from tasty labs based on the hype several months ago and the wickedly intriguing web page.

  25. mrshawnyeager

    I posted and will see what answers I get back.  The quality of those answers and how well they fit the need will determine whether or not I come back over time.  It’s a good idea at scale, but I hope it’s seeded well with enough folk to make it relevant in the short term. Otherwise my fruitless search continues.  And just in case anyone cares to know…I am looking for an environment to teach an 8 year old to code and honestly, most of what I see out there is REALLY BAD.   Please help if you can.  Otherwise I’ll be forced to start another company 🙂  

    1. Alex Kennedy

      codecademy.com might be a good place to start 🙂

      1. fredwilson

        codeacademy is great

        1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          YES. BUT MAKE SURE SPELL IT “CODECADEMY.COM”, NOT WAY YOU THINK IT SHOULD BE SPELLED.

          1. fredwilson

            thanks GRIMLOCK!

          2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            ME, GRIMLOCK, HAVE FRED’S BACK.

    2. Edwin Khodabakchian

      Have you looked at Scratch http://scratch.mit.edu/ Coding visually little games is a great way to expose kids to programming concepts. My 8 year old daughter likes it.

  26. Dave Pinsen

    Charlie’s comment got flagged, and mine got deleted. Wonder his was. 

    1. Donna Brewington White

      I’ve been flagged once and deleted twice this week.  At first I thought I was being more provocative in my comments — about time don’t you think?  Now I think there is just some sort of mistake.One of the deletes was in response to YOU!  On the 50 for 50 post.  Said you are one person that I can disagree with and like/appreciate at the same time and then walk away wondering if I really disagree after all.  Wasn’t necessarily disagreeing with the particular comment BTW — at least not completely.

      1. Dave Pinsen

        I saw that comment of yours via e-mail, and meant to thank you for it. 

  27. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

    Hope NYC is save … i have roamed in those streets at 3 am.and i love that city … anything you want to look is always up….

  28. Ciaran

    I’d be fascinated to understand what sort of revenue model this has

  29. Luke Chamberlin

    Community sites have personalities and attract users based on their unique personality.Quora and StackExchange are popular because they attract software developers and people involved with startups. If you look at their founders you understand why. The founder’s personality is injected into the DNA of the company.Look at Craigslist, Wikipedia, Tumblr, Etsy or Instagram and then read their founders’ personal blogs/writings/life stories. You will see where these sites’ personalities come from. You also get a sense of the kind of person who uses these sites.When I look at Jig I do not get a sense of who will use this site. I don’t see any personality. The team may be nimble but I do not think you can pivot communities the same way you can pivot products.

  30. VerecundAmaranth

    Jig seems like an interesting concept. One request, at the time I visited, seemed appropriate for the “random mumblings” category. That’s when it occurred to me – general categories may help bring together people with particular needs and particular solutions more quickly, without the need to sift through many requests one likely knows can’t fill anyway, especially once the user base grows. Seems interesting though.

  31. J3janney

    I gave it a try, didn’t like it…I tried to post a city recommendation and it was edited into an obscene comment.  

  32. Eric Leebow

    Interesting concept. Different look and feel from others in the “needs” space.

  33. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

    It’s a great idea. A friend of mine started working on a similar project before it was out what “Tasty Labs” did, and it had a lot of potential. (He’s moved on to something else now.) Love to see how it’ll turn out.

  34. Malcolm Bastien

    Hah! So it’s like when you ask a question out on Twitter.. as it’s own service. Well good luck to them.

  35. Andrew Bradford

    Wish I could post answers without needing to create yet another account.  Why can’t I post anon or at least log in using Google / Facebook / etc?I think creating new accounts for small services that aren’t all encompassing (aka blog commenting, Jig, fantasy football, etc) is a waste.  I see it as then the service also gets a benefit, they don’t store my personal info / password, they just rely on an outside party for user identification.  Disqus lets me do this, I like that.

  36. Kerry Yi

    From user perspective it has that quick, compact, highly focused usability factor similar to the appeal of Twitter.  The problem is how can this website offer a scalable business? Other than selling ad impressions on the borders, what are other ways that Jigg can make money without looking like it sold its soul to corporate advertising and thereby leaving that not so genuine, corporate sponsored feel to it.

  37. ABJennings

    Nice service.  This is similar to our startup, AskForIt ( http://www.askforit.com/ ).We have some users. We’re working on getting more 🙂 and improving engagement.

  38. Donna Brewington White

    Tried to “like” your comment on jig about disqus.  No like button. 🙂

  39. fredwilson

    strange. i will try to figure out what happened

  40. Donna Brewington White

    I’m thinking a glitch.  I’ve had a post flagged and two deleted this week — and I’m like the AVC Pollyanna.Fred’s typically not into censoring.  But now that he’s 50, who knows? ;-)BTW, where is @fredwilson:disqus anyway. Isn’t it past noon there?

  41. fredwilson

    i’ve been spending the morning “battening down the hatches”we’ve got a hurricane headed our wayi hope to be able to write this afternoonnot sure why your and other comments got flagged by disqusi’m looking into it

  42. fredwilson

    we came back to the city because we’ll lose power out east

  43. ShanaC

    I evacuated to manhattan, stay safe…

  44. Donna Brewington White

    I had a feeling that’s what you might be doing, so I went over to Twitter to check in on the situation.@Tereza:disqus ‘s Twitter feed has been a reliable source for hurricane updates – I think she’s going to stare Irene down.Stay safe!(BTW – this is the second time I’ve made this comment – disappeared the first time.)

  45. ShanaC

    I evacuated…I don’t blame her for wanting to help…

  46. fredwilson

    wowsomehting’s up with disqus