Time to Thrive: Equitable Work Access

Income inequality

City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

We are seeking to address income inequality from two distinct but complimentary angles. Growing income inequality in LA affects those just entering the workforce to those hoping to retire an exit the workforce. We seek to provide access to earning supplemental income at a fair wage leveraging Angelenos’ education and experience. While anyone over 18 can be an Assistant and earn money we are focussing more on the approx 50% of underemployed Gen Z and over 60 Angelenos. Nearly 50% of 55-66 year olds have no retirement savings and over 50% carry credit card debt. We seek to provide an opportunity to use their time and experience to earn. On the other side of the coin, we are addressing a omnipresent struggle of solopreneurs, small business owners, and working parents to add more hours to the day. There is never enough time to get everything done but only a few can afford to hire a personal assistant. We offer a time multiplying solution by making personal assistants available on-demand.

We have successfully developed our first version of the app and have a modest user group of friends, family, colleagues, and key early adopters (50 and growing). This grant will enable the next phase which is the full Los Angeles market launch. We have three primary areas of our project key to a successful LA launch that the grant will support:
People: We have a strong board of advisors but require more hands on deck to do our full market launch. We’ll hire a versatile project manager (candidate already identified) to handle multiple key initiatives such as executing our social media plan, supplementing customer support, and boots on the ground marketing events such as career fairs. We’ll also engage a local freelance bookkeeper to free up the founders’ time to focus on recruitment and product improvements.
Tech: We will move our app development from an offshore team to a local technical lead with a strong focus on using GenAI to use our product/tech budget wisely. We’ll work with the organization Kode with Klossy to find Los Angeles candidates in their alumni.
Marketing: We will use a portion of the grant money for targeted marketing focussed on user acquisition. Notably, we will use funds to enable Assistant recruitment at local job fairs, with organizations through which we can reach the 60+ demographic, and with Veteran organizations. The funds will also support Client recruitment via professional groups, working parent networks, and targeted local podcast sponsorships.

Time is power. Some of us have time to spare, others have none. Either one limits our ability to hit our potential. With this grant we will transform time management for LA, allowing those who have time to spare to earn income to realize their personal or professional goals and allowing those who have no time to spare to get more done with the help of Assistants, enabling the mom who has started a business to bring that vision to life and to allow a recent retiree to pay down that nagging credit card debt while staying active and using their experience to help others. Our vision from the start has been to help our community use the power of their time.
During the grant period Wait4me will put that power in the palm of the hands of everyday Angelenos (literally). Personal Assistants will no longer be a luxury reserved for CEOs and the ultra wealthy. Los Angeles is the trailblazer and will serve as our playbook for further expansion into other US metropolitan areas in future years.