Company: TaskHer
Website: https://taskher.co.uk
About Anna & TaskHer
TaskHer is the only online tradeswomen booking platform that is purpose-driven, empowers homeowners to make conscious choices and that gets the job done. They are passionate about showcasing the 35,000+ women in trades in the UK, and doing their bit to tackle the issue of gender inequality in the trades.
The trades industry has a bit of a bad rep when it comes to its huge gender disparity. That’s one of the main reasons they founded TaskHer – to shake up the industry and champion the work of great tradeswomen, who do things differently.
TaskHer is totally free for tradeswomen to use and supplies them with confirmed bookings and a fair hourly rate of pay. They are able to accept or reject jobs, fill gaps in their diary and build their independent businesses with clients who want to buy with purpose and support women in trade.
They are equally as passionate about making the process of booking tradeswomen the best experience possible. They want to combat the outdated directory models which rely on customers doing all of the legwork, creating friction and a wholly unenjoyable experience. Their booking platform has been developed to make their customer’s journey as seamless as possible, allowing them to book and pay for over 200+ jobs completely online, communicate with their tradeswomen with ease and get the job done.
TaskHer was co-founded by Anna and co-founder Paul. Her background is in marketing and Paul’s in start-ups. TaskHer was established in February 2021 after she unsuccessfully tried to find a female kitchen fitter.
She was really shocked at the total lack of representation of women in trades after digging deeper into the stats, all of which are incredibly disappointing. Girls are socially conditioned from birth that a career in the trades is not viable and tend to be guided down a path towards more traditional female vocations like care work or cosmetology.
Anna didn’t have any experience in the trades world, but was confident the mix of her and Paul’s skills and experience could help bring women in trade into the spotlight using a marketplace. They began reaching out to tradeswomen, sending out surveys, booking in interviews on Zoom and digging deeper into their individual experiences. This led to them appointing a panel of three experienced tradeswomen as their trades advisors, who helped them flesh out and develop TaskHer as a solution to their problems.
TaskHer has been built and developed to its current MVP with initial investment from Bethnal Green Ventures and The Resolution Foundation. They are currently raising a pre-seed round, which will be used for their 18 month growth plan which includes expanding to other UK cities outside of London, increasing the lists of trades they offer for online booking and plans are already underway to partner with existing trades academies to establish female lead training courses, giving both school leavers and women who are training a supportive environment to train in.
