kaZING: FAQs

kaZING: Labor, resources, and materials ON DEMAND

Helping home-dwellers and small businesses by delivering  Labor, Resources, and Materials when and where they need them, at a price they can afford. 

Since I announced my new role a week ago I've gotten so much encouragement. All greatly appreciated. I've also gotten a lot of questions about kaZING so I wanted to try an answer as many as I can here.

Q: Why kaZING? 

A: kaZING is a revolutionary new deep tech AI platform at the intersection of blockchain technology and the highly fragmented US home services market. The potential of blockchain technology and inefficiencies in the home services industry offer an opportunity for kaZING to deliver a home services platform that the market can trust.  It's a perfect match: the validated safety of blockchain technology and one of the most dynamic, growing industries—home services.

Q: Who is kaZING? 

A: kaZING provides on-demand labor, resources & materials for those who need help.  Our core differentiation is in our ability to provide a fully curated, contextual experience for end users, service and equipment providers through a super simple but robust platform. Our technology connects people looking for help, with labor, resources, and materials they need.

Q: How do you do this?

A: We are a deep tech AI platform, on-demand marketplace including logistics for small jobs aggregating human resources, materials, and equipment. kaZING has filed three patent applications to protect ideas that allow for real-time tracking of tools and resources via RFID/tracking chips that communicate with smart devices and greatly improve efficiency in service requests and peer-to-peer delivery methods. Additional IP in Blockchain, AI, ML/DL, and P2P are in development. 

Q: What are you doing with Blockchain?

A: kaZING is using blockchain technology to enable automation, which increases efficiency, transparency, and trust while reducing costs. A secure platform built with trust management is a winning component. The powerhouse combination of blockchain technology and smart contracts means fairness can be objectively crowdsourced, thanks to decentralized arbitration. More on this later...

Q: When and Where are you doing this?

A: kaZING is now creating an ecosystem of accountability in which both customers and providers benefit from transparent, automated, and secure home services transactions with verified providers and a fair, crowdsourced resolution to their problems. kaZING has successfully piloted the platform for 18 months and is ready to launch in Austin, Texas in 2019.

Q: Who are you competing & co-opetiting with?

A: The market is highly fragmented across tens of thousands of small, local, and regional companies competing for customers. They primarily serve local or regional markets with very few large, national players. Given the need to physically send service providers to each home, centralization and consolidation by larger competitors is difficult. Most market participants face competition from other small, local companies, not large regional and national competitors. Many of the larger companies in this space can provide labor, equipment, and supplies but it comes at a heavy price. Often outside the budget and needs of most Homedwellers and Small Businesses.  

Enterprises like Thumbtack, TaskRabbit, Handy and a handful of others have instantiated the market viability but there is no clear leader for what is still a relatively untapped market.

Q: What problem(s) are you solving?

A: Businesses and individuals need help all the time, and independent contractors need help connecting with customers to monetize their skills. Often, these types of jobs are simply too small for the larger suppliers to engage. We are filling the gap between a teenager mowing a lawn and a contractor pulling a construction permit. Still, many of these small jobs not only require labor, but also resources, materials, supplies. Individuals and small businesses need access, not ownership, to everything it takes to complete their projects. They need a simple and effective way to bring everything together according to their time preference, their location, and within their budget. Additionally, business and individuals are looking for reliable and trustworthy providers with accurate and current ratings and reviews for referenceability.  

• Homedwellers and Small Businesses need help, often unforeseen and last minute, and they expect that products and services be delivered "on demand.” They are seeking a simple, fast and affordable way to get things done that they simply cannot do themselves. 
• Service Providers want jobs that monetize their skills with the least amount of friction, hassle, or delays. 
• Individual and Retail Rental Companies have equipment and tools available and ready to be used and monetized.

Q: What's the solution?

A: kaZING’s platform matches Homedwellers and Small Businesses with Service Providers (Labor), equipment (Rentals), and materials (Supplies Storefront). It includes mutual reviews, ensuring accountability and trust, cashless payments, transparency, accountability, and security. Most important, it is the one place to get what is needed to complete jobs.

• Homeowners and Small Businesses use kaZING to get things done quickly and efficiently. They often find it hard to foresee certain challenges, such as a much-needed equipment repair, requiring they get someone to come fix it that day. Or they have a planned project, such as moving and removing a heavy piece of furniture but don’t cannot afford to hiring a moving company to do it.  Using kaZING they can get access to the labor, equipment, and materials they need to do any job. 
• Service Providers use kaZING to choose what types of jobs they do, the rate they will receive, their schedule, and can view ratings and reviews of clients before signing up for a job.
• Individual and Retail Rental Companies use kaZING to list their available inventory by location so that anyone with the app can rent what they need, when they need it.  

Q: How are you making money?

A: kaZING has a proven pilot of 15,000 combined end customer and provider users serving as a basis for MVP and near-term roadmap enhancement to drive monetization in the following areas:

• Transactions (materials, equipment rentals, labor)
• Subscriptions (service and rental providers)
• Profile validation (e.g., verification and background checks)
• Advertising for providers (equipment, services, other)
• With future revenue gen opportunity in unique data that can be marketed (advertising) and sold (insights) as well as drive future market/industry focus areas where a user can “kaZING Anything"

As I get more great questions, I'll continue to add them here...