Picture this — it’s snowing at 2 a.m. on a Friday night and you’re at Side Bar, ready to venture home. You take out your phone to call a taxi for a ride to avoid having your legs go numb from walking, while wishing you wouldn’t have worn a dress. But the taxis won’t answer; they’re all busy. So you click on an app called “Moonlighting” and send out a message saying, “Looking for an immediate ride home,” and you determine how much you’re willing to pay. Within seconds a sober friend sees your cry for help and they’re on their way. You helped your friend make some money and you got home safely. This is what life is like when you use the free Moonlighting app, now available for iPhone and Andriod.
And it doesn’t have to stop there. Yes, you can use the app to pay your friends to help with daily tasks or larger projects, but you can also get paid too! Are you great at playing the piano and will teach lessons for $30/week? Post it and get paid. Need some extra cash for wine night, so you propose that you can tutor anyone in Italian for $10/hour? Cha-ching! Are willing to babysit for folks in the area for $40? Those kids will love you, and you’ll love the money in your pocket.
Moonlighting, a term that refers to having a second job or a job on the side, can help people, especially students, make some extra cash or help get things done.
Moonlighting was created by CEO and Miami graduate, Jeff Tennery, who earned a business degree from the Farmer School of Business in marketing. “The business school at Miami is fantastic, and I am so proud to say I am an alum. The tools and skills I developed as an undergrad have served me well and have given me the foundation to build a successful 25 year career in the mobile technology industry,” he says.
The two other co-founders are payment experts Roy Slater and Ritesh Johar, had previously worked for Capital One Financial.The idea for the app came to Tennery and he began building the enterprise platform in August 2013. He wanted to create a way for people to make extra money on the side, for people from all professions, and he wanted it to be as accessible to as many people as possible. He says, “Once I started sharing the idea with others, a revolutionary like response started to unfold. So many people need assistance and solutions to make money. Moonlighting has become a movement now for thousands and soon millions of people to make money on their terms, taking advantage of the mobile technology we have built.”
After a year of “Moonlighting” themselves from their day jobs, spending nights and weekends building the app, it officially launched this year on October 15. “It’s catching fire. We have “Moonlighters” signed up in 47 states now and growing rapidly each day,” Tennery says.
The founders took to a huge risk to achieve success. Tennery, a father of five children, with one in college, left his job as the Senior Vice President, Business Development & Global Monetization for the mobile advertising company Millenial Media in August of 2014. He says it was daunting at first, but after really diving into it he felt liberated. Tennery described the creation process as, “exhilaration meets frustration.”
“Like mad scientists, you hit the lab to create the perfect beast,” he says. His co-founders, both veterans of the development process, created a unique platform. Moonlighting is the first on-demand marketplace that lets you hire or be hired straight from your cell phone at anytime, anywhere.
“Our marketplace has been called a 20/20 version of Craigslist but without the creepiness, like Uber with the quickness and Paypal Payment’s functionality. Our team didn’t just build an app, they built a solution that will change the way people live, work and play,” Tennery says.
A quick run-down on how it exactly works:
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Download the app and create an opportunity by clicking “Get Stuff Done”.Search for opportunities around your area or around the world for you to complete. The minimum payment amount for an opportunity is $10.
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Choose “Make Money Now” and fill out the short opportunity page with the title, summary, location and price of the deed you’re offering and then click “Add to Moonlighting.”
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Once someone agrees to complete an opportunity that you’ve posted, click on “Who’s Moonlighting: Me” and select the opportunity. Click on “Contact” and you can contact that person based off the contact preferences they’ve chosen (text, call or email).
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If you find an opportunity that you’d like to complete (which you can also search for in the search bar), and you’ve made contact with the person seeking help, complete the task and click on “Complete”. The Moonlighter who created the opportunity will be notified and instructed to confirm completion, and payment will follow.
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Payments will be deposited into the account you’ve specified under “Banks and Cards” (similar to the Venmo app), and funds will be available in 1-3 business days, depending on your bank. You’ll receive notifications for updates to the payment process. Keep in mind, Moonlighting charges a small processing fee of either 99 cents or 2.2 percent of the opportunity amount, whichever is greater, to both sides of a transaction.
You might ask, “Well, how do I know if I can trust the people I hire?” Moonlighting suggests that you use your best judgement, but highly recommends connecting the app through Facebook so you can post and receive notifications from your social circle. It’s a way friends or friends of friends can help each other. You can like, comment and even share opportunities on social media. If you don’t have a Facebook, you can still use the app — you’ll only be able to receive and post opportunities based on geographic location, though.
Currently the app is working to market itself through social media, digital outlets, possible celebrity endorsements in the future and also with a few current brand ambassadors (called Pioneers) scattered around the country on college campuses. Tennery’s niece, senior Kayleigh Yoder, works to spread the word on Miami’s campus by promoting the app, encouraging downloads, spreading the word on how to post opportunities and passing out stickers and T-shirts.
“We would love for everyone to come Moonlighting with us!” Yoder says. “I think it could be popular [on Miami’s campus] for sober drivers on nights when it’s too cold to walk uptown, rides to the airport, personal tutors, selling textbooks at the end of the semester, hiring someone to watch/walk your dog, hiring someone to clean your house/do your dishes and just about anything else you can think of!”
Yoder has used Moonlighting to try and find someone to clean her house (after party cleanup anyone?) and has also posted on the app looking for a babysitting job.
And of course, Tennery uses Moonlighting frequently. Some of the things he has used it for so far include finding and paying for a caterer and two bartenders for the company’s launch party, an SAT tutor for his son, a professional car detailer to rescue the inside of his wife’s suburban from a flurry of French fries and goldfish and found and bought handmade survival bracelets from a 14-year-old budding entrepreneur.
The response the Moonlighting team has received nationally has been their fuel. Tennery even heard from an old friend that needed help taking caring of an elderly parent. She reached out through Moonlighting for help, seeking an at- home caretaker for when she couldn’t be there. After hearing this, he knew it was working and he could see he was helping people.
“[It’s] so inspirational to see the legions of people raising their hands to join our revolution and redefine the way we make a living,” Tennery says. “So many people need assistance and solutions to make money. Moonlighting has become a movement now for thousands and soon millions of people to make money on their terms, taking advantage of the mobile technology we have built.”
Become a part of the Moonlighting movement today by downloading the app, getting stuff done and getting paid. Wouldn’t it be nice to have more money to buy endless amounts of Chipotle or have more time in your day to do what you want? Too bad we can’t Moonlight for someone to take our organic chemistry final!