Quickly-growing HipHire to launch app for part-timers
January 31, 2017 | Meghan LeVota
A startup facilitating part-time job placement is finding traction.
Brian Kearns
Launched in 2015, HipHire digitally matches people looking for and offering part-time gigs. HipHire founder Brian Kearns wanted there to be a solution that was “a step up from CraigsList” that the public could rely on to find quality jobs.
Kearns said that over 1,000 job matches have been made and that the firm’s user rate has grown 176 percent in the last six months.
“We’ve learned an awful lot through the web application,” Kearns said. “We know that we’re ready to put this solution in the hands of more customers.”
To that end, Kearns said that the company is planning to launch an Android app that will help the company access more people.
Kearns said that he was inspired to launch the platform after the Great Recession. After the economic downturn, Kearns said the majority of new jobs that created were part-time. Kearns wanted to take advantage of this opportunity, while keeping the job seeker in mind first.
“We have a proven business model that was built here by Kansas Citians,” Kearns said. “Now, we need to raise money and throw gasoline on this fire.”
The app will initially only be available for Android users within Kansas City. Kearns plans to use this launch as a beta to help HipHire be more precise moving forward with its iOS launch later in 2017.
2017 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
‘The people demand mustard’: This stained glass artist dipped into corn dogs (and hungry shoppers ate it up)
Startland News’ Startup Road Trip series explores innovative and uncommon ideas finding success in rural America and Midwestern startup hubs outside the Kansas City metro. LAWRENCE — Selling holiday shoppers on stained glass corn dogs was unexpectedly easy, said Darleen Schillaci; adding mustard and keeping up with buyers’ appetite, however, proved the meatiest challenge. The…
Skip shopping and shipping: Your guide to last-minute, KC-made gifts you can still get in stores
Forget naughty and nice: one Kansas City-pieced business has a puzzling present for each person on Santa’s “weird and mellow” list. Locals can still find them on KC-area store shelves — while they last. Birdie — a sister company to Stefanie and Tim Ekeren’s popular Kansas City Puzzle Company — packs each eye-catching box with…
One issue cuts across all political lines: How it could be the antidote to a divided America
Entrepreneurship is a way to unify the United States at a time with great political division, said Victor Hwang. “It’s an issue that cuts across party lines,” explained the founder and CEO of Right to Start. “And it’s something Americans really care about.” Hwang, previously an executive at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, recently published…
Small biz makers worry Trump tariffs could be ‘recipe for recession’; Economists, farmers share concerns about trade war
An enthusiastic smile spreads across Katie Mabry Van Dieren’s face as three small groups of new customers flow into her Brookside Plaza shop — a space filled as high as the Shop Local KC owner can reach with colorful, off-beat, and functional goods and gifts from Kansas City makers. “We smelled something wonderful from outside…