Nellwyn Thomas is the Director of Product Operations over at myJambi, a service I had the pleasure of learning about while I was wandering the Demopit at TC50. I liked the idea so much (she told me about using the product to throw a party with clowns), I invited her to tell you the story of this interesting company.

At its core, myJambi is a place to buy and sell services, but we’re also far more than a simple e-commerce marketplace. We at myJambi strongly believe that we all have many skills, and that we need an easy and efficient way to trumpet all those talents using our network of friends and family.

Take me, for example: I’m a product manager for myJambi, but I’m also an Excel whiz and a Brooklyn tour guide. With myJambi I have one site where I can promote all my skills and get paid for what I love to do. I can also find help for what I need to get done. Right now, I’m looking for a cooking instructor and an apartment cleaner on the site. I’ve started to build a reputation as a trustworthy, well-reviewed provider, and in turn, I’m connecting to other providers who will meet my needs, all within my community.

My favorite purchase so far was a gift for my brother, who is engaged to be married. In need of that oh-so-perfect wedding present, I turned to myJambi. I found an illustrator, reviewed and recommended by my colleague David; he had hired her to make hand-drawn cards out of photos of his hometown as a gift for his parents. Based on his glowing review and her online portfolio, I hired that same illustrator and she made me a gorgeous pen-and-ink map of Block Island, where my brother and my soon-to-be sister-in-law will be married next week.

Since we launched this spring, myJambi team members have hired, among others, a mover, a cartoonist (who delivered a personalized five-panel storyboard), a yoga instructor, a knitter (who made an adorable hat), a personal trainer, a data entry pro (to transcribe business cards), a handyman (to assemble Ikea furniture), and a house cleaner (a few of us need that).

We even threw a whole party using only myJambi providers. We hired a designer to create the invitation, a delivery pro to purchase and deliver paper goods and cupcakes, two Food Gurus to select cheeses, and two Music Gurus to provide the musical entertainment. The party was a success, and, even better, the planning was a breeze. It’s nice to get things done easily and efficiently without resorting to anonymous service postings.

It’s also gratifying to see this idea behind myJambi, that we all wear many hats in life, resonate with providers. One user, in particular, a lawyer in San Francisco, is a great example. She makes jewelry, loves food, and is pretty amazing at organizing a closet. She uses myJambi to find work on the weekends, not just for the money, but because she loves to step outside her nine-to-five job.

What’s been most personally rewarding for me about the site is discovering all my friends’ talents. A good friend of mine posted a personal stylist offer on the site (and made $300 helping someone
shop); another is offering tours of NYC museums. Even David, one of the co-founders, surprised me: He was hired out at TechCrunch50 to make a Starbucks run for another start-up.

In short, myJambi enables service buyers to find providers they can trust by tapping into their networks to find the babysitters, tutors, and dog walkers that their friends use and recommend. And, at the same time, myJambi is empowering service providers and giving them a home to build a real online reputation where they can not only post content (portfolios, references, etc.) but also accumulate reviews written by the people with whom they’ve worked.

What They’ve Learned

It’s a little crazy to think about offering advice when we’re still constantly seeking it ourselves, and maybe that’s the thing I’ll say here: I hope that we at myJambi never forget to look for, listen to,
and help out our web 2.0 peers. I am so grateful to work on such a talented team, and we’ve been lucky to stumble across individuals and companies who are so generous with the time and their minds. I’ve been amazed by the NYC web start-up community, and traveling to TechCrunch50 this September proved how welcoming the larger community is as well. The start-up community serves as a terrific (and terrifying, at times) sounding board for not only the product, but the fund-raising, marketing, and recruiting strategies as well.

The listening part is something that I struggled with at first, and that I’m working to do better now and in the future. It’s easy, for me at least, to let my hearing be muffled by my own conclusions and
judgments. It’s harder to listen carefully and objectively to all the advice, criticisms, and suggestions that swirl around the office and the community. It’s difficult, but the rewards have been enormous. If
you do listen, and you can sift through all the chatter — on blogs, in coffee shops and over email — you find support and, in the end, a better product.

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