M4JAM off to flying start

Money for Jam (M4JAM), a local microjobbing site, has put tens of thousands of Rands in the pockets of microjobbers in the first five days since its launch last Monday.

M4JAM, co-founder and ‚ÄòChief Jammer’ Andre Hugo says the response to the revolutionary new platform has exceeded the M4JAM team’s expectations. “The adoption, quality of jobs and jobbers and engagement have been amazing. It’s been 100 times more positive than we could ever have hoped for,” he says.

M4JAM is a digitally enabled microjobbing platform hosted on WeChat, which allows companies to allocate simple microjobs to thousands of jobbers, who earn up to R30 a time carrying out small tasks using their smartphones. The jobs might include geotagging a business, carrying out a mystery shopper visit or answering a poll. Jobbers are paid via MTN Mobile Money and can collect their cash at Pick n Pay or Boxer stores. At launch last week, M4JAM had 100,000 microjobs available for registered jobbers to snap up. Within two minutes of its 08:00 switch-on, the first jobs were being bagged. Within the first hour, 206 jobs had been completed, and in the first 24 hours, 7,404 jobs were completed.

Smartphone owners of all ages, all across the country, rushed to sign up for an opportunity to earn ‚Äòeasy money’ using just their phones, with the oldest jobber registered so far aged 77. Jobbers turned to social media to share their excitement, posting comments like: “@ M4JAM thank you guys. You just made my day. Just cashed in at Pick n Pay no hassles. R106.Cash” (Gugu) and “This is evolution. This will change how businesses interact with customers” (Thomas).

At the peak of registration last week, 20 jobbers were signing up every minute, challenging even M4JAM’s advanced systems. Hugo says: “There were few unplanned systems and process challenges that we had to deal with as a result of the flood of registrations and queries, and we apologise for these. The turning point, however, was when our jobbers started posting comments to fellow jobbers helping resolve queries.

With a number of major enterprises already aboard M4JAM at launch, others waited to assess the response before adding their microjobs to the platform. With the overwhelmingly positive response in week one, thousands of new jobs are set to be made available in week two. Hugo says: “Approximately 20,000 new jobs types in a number of batches will hit M4JAM this week, with the promise of yet more by the end of the week, so get those thumbs ready and start grabbing.

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