Saturday, February 19, 2011

Agent Anything? Only in New York can you hire a random college student to do your bidding!

AGENT ANYTHING! This is awesome - I can hire a college student at any given hour to run my errands or do "whatever" it is that I want - yes, ANYerrand, ANYtime, and ANYwhere. This is better than Netflix and Fresh Direct, but is it better than asking your minions at work to do your bidding for free? Well, at least we know Agent Anything will be guilt free (assuming you are a decent human being). So how much are you willing to pay someone to do your bidding?

Urban Daddy recently tested out a few agents and their results were hilarious. You have to go to their site and read it. If you're lazy, here is a quick summary.
  • Mission: Stand-in line at Shack Shack to order burgers and concretes and have them delivered ; Cost: $15, 11:32 a.m. - Burgers were still warm and Concretes were not melted.
  • Mission: Personal Masseuse. Cost: Initial bid was at $60 and was negotiated down to $45 (not sure if negotiating is normal or not since you're supposed to name your own price -- but apparently so)
  • Mission: Blind Date Escape; Cost: $24.99 - person came in scrubs!
After taking a look at Agent Anything's Website, they claim their agents can do ANYerrand, at ANYtime, and at ANYwhere. Need someone to hand out fliers for your new business? or someone to walk your dog? or someone to help you paint your room? or how about stand in line at Ippudo or Clinton Street Baking Company to grab you a seat? Sound tempting? Well, it can be easy -- visit the Agent Anything website and POST your mission!

When posting your mission, you have the opportunity to say how much you are willing to pay an Agent to do it. And if someone selects the mission, your credit card won't be charged until after you say the mission is accomplished (or after 48 hours if you don't respond). Not a bad deal. This is like a mixture of eBay and Craigslist combined -- its the new future of legit/legal personalized customer service!

If you don't have a mission to post, but want to "run" a mission and be a 007 agent for the day, then you can elect to do that too! Oh wait, sorry, this is only available to students! Very clever Mr. Agent Anything business developer because it will keep costs low for your clients. :D But, also a good way to encourage the youth group to work in a time when employment is low (and the agent anything website even provides a usatoday article talking about low youth employment rates! touching, very touching) So, if you're a student, check the existing Agent Mission postings to see if anything is suitable for you!

As of today, Agent Anything is offering a free agent to pick up Ben & Jerry's ice cream for you (so long as you pick up the ice cream bill). Why? Because they were inspired recently by Jerry Greenfield who gave an "incredible, hilarious, and inspiring talk to small business owners" that they started loving Ben & Jerry's for their strong values and their commitment to giving back to the community. So this is Agent Anything's way of giving back and showing their support of the Ben & Jerry's values!

As an aside, the background story to Ben & Jerry's is quite amazing -- if you get a chance, there is a one hour Biography show on the development of Ben & Jerry's that is inspiring to anyone who wants to start a business from scratch and with little to no money.

By the looks of it, Agent Anything has had a little over 900 clients (I am sure most of these are friends that signed up, but haven't had any mission postings yet since most have 0 pending missions, 0 running missions and 0 accomplished missions) and over 1,200 agents willing to do your bidding (and it seems that most of these agents are new too!)... With that said, this is a new and ramping up business -- and I have to admit, very creative. I wish the founders much success as it is a mutually beneficial tool for the community at a reasonable price (yes, your price!)!

Good luck!

p.s. Agent Anything is currently available in New York and New Jersey, only.

p.s.2 For some reason, I think I've heard of a similar company like this that started a year ago -- however, after a google search, I am unable to find them. So, I just hope Agent Anything builds up their SEO to capitalize on their catchy "agent anything" name and quality service.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is the worst service ever. The website is usper cumbersome although they say they will not charge you until you accept the mission they go ahead and charge you once you place the mission.

this is a great a idea with a horrible execution

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