PICK A TASK, ANY TASK

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

It was a tough sell, convincing his parents, admits Parth Patel. After all, he had dropped out of a degree course in computer science to work full-time in software development already.

Now he was talking about chucking that up to pursue entrepreneurship. And it wasn’t even for what they thought of as an actual business, all he had at the time was an app and the big dream.

He had created software that would increase efficiency at employment agencies but discovered that they weren’t too keen to pay for something they didn’t think they needed. He thought perhaps he could do it himself, connect those looking to get jobs done with those who could do the jobs.

“So there I was, making good money and suddenly I was saying, ‘Hey, I want to quit’. They weren’t too happy!”

Patel, 25, went ahead anyway, investing nearly $10,000 of his savings.

“I was pretty much all in!” he says. “But I would say the bigger investment was the faith I put into my venture, the risk I was willing to take.”

While it took him a few months to convince his parents, he is grateful that they supported him financially in the initial stages when there was no money coming in.

“I think what turned it around for them was the hard work I put in,” says Patel. “I was pulling 18-hour days, doing programming and handling the business side as well. They could see how committed I was, this wasn’t a passing thing.”

The initial platform, called iHired, was born in his bedroom in his parents’ Scarborough home in 2017 – with Patel moving out his bed to make room for two desks, one for himself and the other for co-founder Vivek Patel.

Keeping overhead costs down is one of the biggest challenges start-ups and small businesses face, says Patel. With this platform, instead of hiring someone full time when they don’t need that, they can have students bidding for the tasks posted.

This evolved into Tazwiz in 2018 with the assistance of Seneca College’s Helix incubator program.

Again, it was just an idea on a piece of paper, when Patel met their business mentor Donovan Dill.

“He is an amazing teacher and taught us so many things about business,” says Patel. “Helix also introduced us to the right people, playing a key role in our growth.”

Tazwiz –  a catchy play on task and whiz – is a platform to connect entrepreneurs with students with the skills to get task-based jobs done. Everything from site design and technical needs, developing an app,  to administrative work, accounting, marketing and sales. The concept is simple: Create a task, get an offer, connect with the tasker, finalize the details, get the task done. It all takes place on the Tazwiz platform and payment is only made when everyone is satisfied with the job.

They have expanded their platform by joining with the Ontario Long Term Care Association to build Link to LTC, a hybrid platform specifically designed to connect students in the medical field with long-term care facilities that need assistance. More than 1500 people have registered as well as 250 long-term care facilities. Other provinces are now interested in having Tazwiz build the same platform for them.

After winning a number of startup competitions, Patel and his team knew they were on to something. In 2019, they secured pre-seed investment and moved out of his bedroom to their first office in Oshawa, a  400 sq. ft place. With the team expanding from two to four to include CTO Orlandson and CSO Kirtan Patel, and then to 10, they moved again to a 1100-square foot space in Scarborough. They are now a team of 21, including 10 overseas.

With a mobile app developed and a successful soft launch, they received their closed seed round from a Houston-based investor. There’s an interesting story behind how this played out. They were to pitch the idea over Skype. Then, says Patel, they had “this crazy idea”. 

They drove for 22 hours straight and at the appointed hour, were there to present the idea in person.

“It was a fun way to show how dedicated we are, how seriously we took it. It worked!”

Then they went and donated half of what they’d received.

Patel explains the thinking behind this.

“We were blessed to receive 500k in funding just before the pandemic hit. So, we decided to pay it forward by giving half of it to other entrepreneurs, start-ups and SMEs who were trying to survive during this unprecedented time in our economy.”

They launched TazwizCare Aid in early May to help boost Toronto’s economy during the COVID-19 crisis, giving the self-employed jobs and businesses the money to pay for the work. It helped businesses as well as students and professionals on the Tazwiz platform looking for work  – students picked up paid opportunities posted by companies that received this aid to pay for them.

“My guru says in the joy of others lies our own and I’m  a heavy believer of that concept,” says Patel. “The government was doing a great job of helping businesses, but we felt that not all were getting the help they needed. This was our way of helping them get back on track, or to pivot online, if needed. It gave them a small but much-needed boost.”

Over 300 businesses were helped and ten others received $1000 each in cash, creating over 400 paid opportunities for students.

Patel describes it as a win-win scenario with an influx of local jobs for students and professionals who use their skills for the growth of local business.

They also have a high number of international students looking for paid assignments who have signed up.

As to what the investor might have had to say about their funds being diverted to others, Patel says it helped them grow the Tazwiz brand, too.

“Our biggest objective is to gain as much market share as possible, to onboard as many users as we can. We explained to our investors that this would help us get more people to sign on, create a greater awareness of what we stand for. One of the hardest things to do as a new enterprise is to build credibility, to build trust. This helped us do that. The minister of colleges and universities endorsed our campaign, it opened up opportunities for us, as well. We gained a lot as we created lasting partnerships. We could have chosen to pay Facebook thousands for an ad, but I believe if someone has a good experience with you and shares that with others, your growth is organic.”

Pre-pandemic, they were growing 600 per cent month over month. Then their plans went out the widow, says Patel, and they had to pivot to reposition.

“Our business model was connecting people in person. Obviously, because of COVID-19, there was less of that happening. Last  March, we saw a drastic drop in the number of users. So we went back to the drawing board to figure things out.`

At the time of the interview, they were seeing a growth of 125 per cent month over month. “So not bad!” is how he sees it. “Things are looking up again, and we have great things planned for the coming months.”

During the COVID-19 restrictions, they also launched FoodWiz, connecting local stores with people looking to have groceries delivered to them. They signed up Indian, Pakistani, Guyanese, Afghan and stores catering to other ethnicities, also a dairy distributor interested in direct deliveries. It was very popular, but has been put on temporary hold as there is a lot of red tape and regulations connected to food deliveries, says Patel. They are looking to launch it in cities like Kingston soon. 

What sets them apart from others who may offer similar services, he says, is the fact that while others focus mainly on handyman type of jobs, their focus is on white-collar jobs for which they onboard talented students through their partnerships with universities.

Even those who also offer white collar jobs often use international talent, leading to time gaps in communication.

Tazwiz matches a Canadian tasker with a Canadian company, and a US tasker to a company in the US.

Patel came to Canada with his parents from Gujarat and the family settled in Scarborough. When he walked into his first day of school in Canada – in grade two – he didn’t speak English.

“The first few months were very hard as I didn’t even know how to ask to be excused to go to the washroom. Fortunately, there were a few other kids in my class who spoke Gujarati who could translate for me.”

They had come in winter and he still remembers the first time he saw snow. “They sent us out at lunch time to get fresh air and though I had a jacket, it wasn’t warm enough. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that cold in my life! Luckily, a teacher saw my plight and brought me inside to warm up. Over time, I picked up the language, got warm clothes and even began to enjoy winter!”

He tells newcomers and those wishing to embark on the journey of entrepreneurship that it is not easy. “In fact, it can be extremely hard, especially in the initial stages. Before we got our first angel investor, I had pitched the idea to over 20 others. It was like having some guy tell you your baby was ugly. But I don’t blame them. Basically, it’s like asking someone to believe in you before you have anything concrete to show them. It’s a gamble. But our attitude is not to be disheartened, we don’t take no for an answer, we find a way. I also learnt along the way that as an entrepreneur, if you have just the idea, don’t pitch the company, pitch the person you are.

“There will be many a time when it will look like it’s not going to work. Even your friends might say you are wasting your time. So do this only if you’re willing to give it your 100 per cent. Anything less is not enough because creating a company demands a lot from a person, it sucks in money, time, effort, but is ultimately so very rewarding.”

He obviously got the formula right. They currently have 14,000 users, 80 per cent of whom are in Canada, and are expanding in the US and India and have launched Jobwiz, their version of a job board for companies looking to hire students on a full-time or part-time basis.

They are focusing on expanding the company, and launching a few more products. Plans include creating a whole ecosystem with anything and everything that students might need to launch a career.

“At the same time, we are committed to helping entrepreneurs and start-ups reducing head costs forge ahead.”

• Grant’s is proud to present this series about people who are making a difference in the community. Represented by PMA Canada (www.pmacanada.com).