EAST LANSING, Mich. — With the first snow of the season officially here, it's time to bring out the shovels or start looking around for people to help shovel your driveway and sidewalk.
UniServices, a service app founded by Michigan State students Adam Green and Hemkesh Agarwal, is prepping early this year to help.
"Uniservices is a gig service app kind of like Uber, but for odd jobs, specifically for college students, around the MSU community," Green said.
UniServices launched a year ago connecting students at Michigan State to people in the community who needed jobs done like shoveling snow while benefiting students who need a way to make money.
"There's not a lot of good part time jobs that pay a lot of money. Whereas now working in the community for these local clients and small businesses, they're willing to support students with high wages upwards of $25, $26 an hour on average, because they get it you know, students are poor generally, and they want to support us," Green said.
This year, they're working on expanding to 15 college campuses across the state. To make that easier, they decided they needed to make an app.
"Clients can just go there, hit the category fill in basic details, and then just post in job and then students side is different, they see a map, and they can see different kinds of jobs there," Agarwal said. "Just select the job they like, hit apply and they're done. Then they get connected, all the payments are done through the app, and everything is now streamlined into one service."
The app provides a same-day cash out option for students after they complete a job along with general liability insurance, so if something breaks, UniServices can help.
"The app allows the students to connect personally with each client that they work for," Green said. "So they can chat with them, you know, coordinate any details about the job and then go right to the job and get paid the same day."
The app will also make it easier for students to choose their job compared to the method they used last year.
"Last year, we did about 1,300 jobs in total manually by connecting students using emails and boards, but now with the app, everything can be done automatically," Agarwal said.
This year, they're also partnering with the cities of Lansing and East Lansing to give back to kids who dream of going to college.
"This year, we're going to be partnering with a couple different local organizations to give back money for each job that we complete, on campus or around this area," Green said. "So every time you hire a student, you're not just getting help, you're not just helping the student get some flexible cash, you're also helping us provide for the community in certain different ways."
The app has not officially launched yet, but will be up soon. You can sign up ahead of the launch on UniService's website.
So far, over 500 people and students have signed up.
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