Zaarly is a proximity based, real-time buyer powered market. Buyers make an offer for an immediate need and sellers cash in on an infinite marketplace for items and services they never knew were for sale. Two sided markets like this are extremely difficult to build. You have to work both supply side and demand side. What happens when you have too many people wanting to do this tasks and jobs and not enough orders? Here is a link to an interview with one of the founders Erick Koester.

Here is another sample to give you a better Idea of what Zaarly does and how it could help you. It is the video explanation on their site.

Zaarly is a mobile-focused marketplace that provides plugged-in, on-the-go individuals the opportunity to buy and sell items via their smartphones.

It’s been described as an alternative to Craigslist, sometimes called a mobile-focused eBay. But really is simply a marketplace for your phone, tablet or computer that lets you connect with people who are selling the services you are looking for, or who are looking for the services you provide. Everything from finding a professional chef to prepare a home-cooked meal to connecting with someone looking to buy your old smartphone to meeting a mom with an gently used stroller — as well as some great advice — can be found on the site.

Zaarly, which was beta-tested in Austin, Tex., during South by Southwest last March, was introduced nationally in early May. Since then, the company says the service has attracted more than 100,000 users, with more than $6 million in transactions posted to the site. The site works by letting people post requests for an item or service, and then lets other people, businesses and companies bid to fulfill those needs. Once an agreement is met, Zaarly connects the two parties so they can complete the deal. People can either pay in cash, or through Zaarly’s payment system.

In October 2011, the company announced that it raised $14.1 million in financing from Kleiner Perkins and Sands Capital Ventures, among others. Previously, the company raised a seed round of $1 million from a notable list of investors, including Ashton Kutcher, Ron Conway, Paul Buchheit and Lightbank, among others,. The company says it will use the fresh money to invest in its operations and technical development, as well as to hire employees to zero in on connecting buyers and sellers in each specific market.

But Bo Fishback, the chief executive and founder of the company, said the most exciting piece of the news was that the company was  also gaining Meg Whitman, the chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and the former chief executive of eBay, as a board member. Mr. Fishback said Ms. Whitman’s expertise would come in handy as the company began building momentum in major cities, each which have their own particular quirks and demands. In Los Angeles, for example, the market for second-hand cars is denser than in New York, where Zaarly users are much more interested in hiring people to help them out with service and errand-oriented tasks.

“Until now, our main goal was to get it up and running,” he said. “Now, we have to figure out how to really nail a hyper local technology company.

SOURCE: NY TIMES