Babajob Date:   Friday , May 07, 2010 On one hand, finding a good driver, plumber or a carpenter can be a difficult task for anyone of us because not enough information is available out there to find the right person doing these jobs. On the other hand, a maid or a driver may find it difficult to land in a job as there is no platform for them to stand out in the crowd. Seeing such a scenario in India, former Microsoft executive Sean Blagsvedt founded Babajob in late 2007. Today, over 75,000 job seekers and 30,000 employers have registered in Babajob. Using the site, employers can browse job seeker profiles based on salary, location, languages, employment background, skills and references. Similarly, job seekers can know about multiple job opportunities based on their preferences of location, salary, job category, etc. They can also use the mobile phone service by sending a simple SMS. After the SMS is sent, their profile will be created on the site by the Babajob team and the job seekers will start getting regular job alerts on their cellphones. OFFICES: Bangalore FOUNDED: 2007 KEY PERSON: Sean Blagsvedt, Founder & CEO Prior to founding Babajob, he spent eight years at Microsoft in Redmond, before moving to Bangalore in 2004 as the third founding member of the Microsoft Research India. Clientele: Over 75,000 people looking to be employed in informal jobs and over 30,000 employers including some using the premium services like Ma Foi and Kaati Zone INVESTORS: Initially the company was self funded and shortly it will close the first round of VC funding. Competitors: Labournet, Greenmango WEBSITE: www.babajob.com What it offers: Through its web and mobile-based service, Babajob aims to connect employers and bottom-of-the-pyramid informal sector workers like maids, cooks, drivers, etc. with the goal of creating a scalable, replicable and profitable solution to combat poverty. It aims to do this by creating greater market efficiency in the informal sector through voice and web features such as SMS, UssD, automated voice systems, and operator manned call centers, enabling employers and job seekers to find each other. Business model: Apart from offering free services to employers and job seekers, the company also provides premium service with additional benefits for employers. For the mobile service it offers to the job seekers the company operates on a revenue sharing model with telecom operators like Airtel, Reliance and Idea, where the job seekers pay the operators for the service. What is Unique?: According to Blagsvedt, Babajob has an advantage over its competitors as it makes use of the mobile technology also by sending out job alerts as well as creating profiles using the messages from job seekers. He says, as far as job profiles are concerned Labournet mainly targets the construction workers and Greenmango mainly focuses on short term jobs and not full time employment, thus Babajob has an advantage over them. Initial Challenges: For the first 5000 customers, the Babajob team went to different areas in Bangalore with registration forms and digital cameras and registered job seekers on the spot. “We then switched to getting customers primarily through mobile sign-ups, which allowed us to register the next 70,000 job seekers and do so all over India,” says the CEO. Future Roadmap: The company has been able to scale the number of employers with its current model, adding 20,000 employers in the last year. “As we grow, we will invest more to scale internationally, improving tools for both employers and job seekers to connect to each other and new,” says Blagsvedt. Some of the new services that Babajob plans to launch are automated voice access for illiterates and job seeker verification, where employers can pay a fee to verify that a job seeker does not have a criminal record, their references are accurate and their addresses are valid.