Last week we introduced you to Money for Jam (M4JAM), a “microjobbing” platform that allows smartphone owners to complete small jobs like market research or taking pictures of certain products in stores in exchange for small payments of up to R30 per job. In its first week the service has paid out tens of thousands of rand to South African users.
M4JAM co-founder Andre Hugo says the response to the platform has exceeded even the M4JAM team’s expectations. “The adoption, quality of jobs and jobbers and engagement have been amazing. It’s been 100 times more positive than we could ever have hoped for,” he says.
In addition to market research, jobs on offer via M4JAM include requests to geotag local businesses, completing mystery shopper visits or answering polls or other market research surveys. Users who complete jobs are paid via mobile operator MTN’s Mobile Money service and can collect their cash at Pick n Pay or Boxer stores, nationwide.
When the service launched last week it had 100 000 microjobs on offer. Within the first hour 206 jobs were completed, and within the first 24 hours more than 7 400 jobs were completed.
M4JAM says its seen sign-ups from a wide range of demographics, including a 77-year-old user. At the peak of registration last week, 20 jobbers were signing up each minute, which put strain on M4JAM’s systems.
“There were few unplanned systems and process challenges that we had to deal with as a result of the flood of registrations and queries, and we apologise for these,” Hugo says. “The turning point, however, was when our jobbers started posting comments to fellow jobbers helping resolve queries.”
According to Hugo, some large businesses that expressed interest in the service wanted to wait and see what sort of response M4JAM received before adding their own jobs to the platform. Thanks to the enormous response in the service’s first week he says thousands of new jobs will be added this week.
“Approximately 20 000 new jobs types in a number of batches will hit M4JAM this week, with the promise of yet more by the end of the week,” Hugo says.
Interested users can sign up for M4JAM by adding M4JAM as a contact on WeChat.
