The Zaarly Blog

Zaarly works with a talented team of professional photographers in each of our cities who help Storefront Owners craft beautiful listings, showcasing their products and services. Just like our Storefront Owners, these guys are hard working businesses. When they aren’t busy shooting for Zaarly, you can often find their handy work in amazing places…

Check out what Kansas City photographers (and talented Zaarly Photo Team members) Chris Mullins and Brooke Vandever have been up to! Pick up a copy of The Pitch and take a gander at Chris Mullins’ amazing cover shoot OR head on over to their website and peek at Brooke Vandever’s inside look at the West 18th street fashion show.

Every year the Kansas City Crossroads District kicks off the summer by hosting an outdoor fashion show using the heart of the art district, West 18th street, as its runway. The featured designers are incredible representations of the local creative community and the evening guarantees some great spectacle! Soak up more of the beautiful designs photographed by Mullins and Vandever at this year’s show, Gilded Summer, Saturday June 8th at dusk.

Don’t miss it! It’s free!

When I was in college, a good friend of mine painted a mural inside a little steak sandwich joint in exchange for unlimited free meals at the restaurant. Shortly after painting that mural, my friend moved and the owner allowed him to transfer his meal credit to someone else.

My excellent friend—my gracious benefactor—bestowed on me the most wonderful gift I have ever received. Unlimited steak sandwiches.

I frequented this restaurant so much, they knew my order without me having to ask. A Steak Knife sandwich with fries and sauce on the side.

I’d just walk in, ask for the usual and wait for my number to come up. The sandwiches were not very good (the restaurant has since closed its doors), but while it lasted I felt like this was “my” sandwich shop.

And it wasn’t just because I didn’t have to pay. It was because the transaction happened in the background. There’s a difference.

Most shopping experiences end in a transaction. You pull out your wallet and swipe a credit card. You turn to leave when the cashier asks you to hold on a sec. You need to sign the receipt.

There’s a 10¢ pen shackled to the register on a chain. You scribble your name (does anyone check signatures?). You wait as three more slips of paper print out so you can stuff them in your pocket.

If you live in Silicon valley, there’s a chance you can ask the cashier to “put it on [Your Name]” and they’ll charge it to your Square account. But it’s still a mechanical transaction that you have to prepare for and initiate.

The web is even worse. It doesn’t matter if I have a credit card on file with a vendor. They will still check to make sure the card I’ve been using is still how I want to pay.

At Zaarly, we decided to require that all customers put a card on file in order to make their first purchase. This was a brand-level decision. 

When you have a card on file, it means you don’t need to think about the transaction next time. Your shopping experience from that point on is entirely human.

Order a cake from Amy and she delivers it. She’ll charge your account from her phone on the way home. Order house cleaning from Tynisa, she’ll show up and make your nasty bathroom sparkle and you’ll get an email receipt later that day. If there’s a mistake, we deal with it.

Computers should talk to computers so people can talk to people. Ask, receive, done. That’s the experience we’re aiming for.

-Matt Donovan, Designer at Zaarly

Zaarly Storefront Owner, Robyn Rosenberger seeks to empower little ones one cape at a time. Robyn founded TinySuperheroes, an organization that donates capes to extraordinary kids who exemplify strength and determination as they overcome illness and disability.

In just four short months TinySuperheroes has empowered over 500 children in 35 states and 5 countries. Robyn doesn’t want to stop here. That’s why she’s created an Indiegogo campaign to raise $64,000 in just one month. Help Robyn meet her goal by donating before June 18th so she can ramp up production and brighten even more lives with a broader reach. 

Take a few minutes to watch this video and help Robyn and all of the TinySuperheroes out there by spreading the word about her campaign to raise funds to help buy fabric, sew, personalize and ship each cape. To support Robyn, check out her storefront and donate a cape!

For a special event, a proper table setting includes at least three forks and spoons, and a variety of glasses and different sized plates. The tables at the Indian Hills Country Club, during the annual luncheon and auction of the Greater Kansas City alumnae chapter of Delta Gamma, certainly had that, but they had something extra special, too.

Zaarly Storefront Owner, Kelly Aaron, spent weeks crafting one-of-a-kind mosaic pieces to decorate the space and donate to the auction. The Delta Gammas hosts the luncheon every year, and have raised over $95,000 for sight-related charities.

Kelly has been crafting mosaics for seven years after discovering the art form at a local craft fair. She loves collaborating with clients to create custom work. Check out her Storefront and get to work on a creation of your own!

We are honored to support Leslie Kay, one of San Francisco’s best bakers, in her endeavor to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness during the month of May. 

Leslie describes her connection to breast cancer below: 

On April 24th 2012, I lost my best friend and mother, Claire, to breast cancer when she was 60 years old. I was devastated and realized that life is too short, so I quit my corporate sales job. I wanted to do something that would make a difference in this world and my mom proud. As a result, Leslie Kay Bakery was born.

Since owning my own bakery, I donate 10% of profits to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. In the month of May, I’m very honored and appreciative of Zaarly’s commitment to match all Leslie Kay Bakery donations.

Your purchase will go towards research that impacts millions of lives and quite possibly the life of someone close to you.

Thanks,

Leslie 

This Mother’s Day, help donate to a great cause and feel good knowing that you are making a difference in the lives of those battling breast cancer.

To support Leslie, visit her Storefront and purchase here. 

Zaarly does not actually sell a product.

We are a platform that allows the most talented people who we discover to start an online business - and those people ultimately sell the products.

Our marketplace only works if we find amazing people. 

So how do we find these amazing people?

Our Talent Team spends their waking hours searching for the most amazing artisans, makers, and creative entrepreneurs.

Sometimes they are referrals from friends and family. Other times we find them at farmers markets.

We are constantly searching for the best - and that discovery process is the single passion that brings our entire team together. 

When these talented people join Zaarly, our Content team helps them develop engaging biographies, listings, and photography.

This process feels very similar to a journalist interviewing an artist for a magazine article - we want the end result to feel honest and inspiring.

Once the content is finished, the entrepreneur is ready to start their business on Zaarly. 

This is the most exciting moment for everyone at our company.

It’s the reason we come to work - to help talented people create amazing local businesses and pursue their dreams. 

What does the first day of business feel like on Zaarly?

Opening a Zaarly Storefront is comparable to opening a physical retail store - except every transaction starts online and ends offline.

Our goal is to help each entrepreneur receive an order when they open their doors for business.

You can imagine what it would feel like to open a physical retail store and not sell a single item on the first day. 

We do everything possible to make sure that does not happen. 

How do we make sure the offline experience is amazing?

Our goal at Zaarly is to help every Zaarly Storefront owner build a sustainable business that meets our expectations for quality.  

This starts with Zaarly Tastemakers, a brand new program that we launched in mid-March.

What is the role of a Zaarly Tastemaker?

We release about 20-25 new Zaarly Storefronts per week in our four active markets.

When a Zaarly Storefront goes live, one Tastemaker volunteers to be their first customer - compliments of Zaarly.

Each Tastemaker offers feedback on the experience and leaves an honest review for the new Storefront owner.

Quality is a core component on the Zaarly promise - and our Tastemakers ensure that our marketplace quality remains high.

How do we measure quality at Zaarly?

Our quality expectations for Zaarly Tastemakers were inspired by Joseph M. Juran, a Western Electric engineer in the 1920’s who has been called the “father” of quality.

1. Technology: Is the Zaarly product serving Tastemakers needs and do our new Storefront owners understand how to use the technology?

2. Quality: Does the food taste amazing? Are the handmade goods beautiful? Do the services improve their lives?

3. Responsiveness: Is the Storefront owner reliable? Do they respond to communication in a timely manner?

4. Contractual: Does the Storefront Owner deliver on the promise of his/her products and services, as described on the listing page?

5. Customer Support: Does the Storefront Owner provide an amazing experience from start to finish?

How do you choose Zaarly Tastemakers?

In less than two months, we have built a passionate community which includes 150+ Zaarly Tastemakers in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Kansas City.

Our Tastemakers come from many different backgrounds and professions. 

More often than not, Tastemakers are foodies, explorers, and makers — and they love farmers markets, art fairs, and book stores of the local variety.

Most importantly, Tastemakers are authentic people who give honest feedback that helps new business owners offer an amazing experience for Zaarly customers.

What are the benefits of becoming a Zaarly Tastemaker?

The benefits for Zaarly Tastemakers are pretty simple:

You get to experience the best local food, handmade goods, and services we find - created by some of the most amazing people in your neighborhood.

Beyond the occasional freebie, you are joining a community filled with people who care about your neighborhood and want to see local entrepreneurs succeed.

We are currently accepting applications in San Francisco, New York City, Seattle, and Kansas City.

If you want to join Zaarly Tastemakers, we would love for you to apply. 

-Jeff Morris Jr. (@jmj)

This week Zaarly released a new logo. Our design team spent a few weeks collaborating with renowned type designer, Jeremy Mickel, who produced the final mark.

We think it’s pretty rad.

Over the past year our company has focused a lot on understanding and communicating the Zaarly brand. Here’s how we tend to articulate who we are and what we’re about:

1. Zaarly offers a lifestyle. We help you do what you love and buy from incredibly talented, passionate people.
2. Zaarly is local. All the wonderful services and goods people offer on Zaarly are shaped by the cities and communities they live in. Every Zaarly storefront has the flavor of the city it’s from.
3. Zaarly is relational. Transactions take a backseat to friendships on our platform. We want to make buying and selling human again.
4. Zaarly is quality. Our store owners pour themselves into their work – and it shows.

Our old playful, techy logo didn’t accomplish our brand goals any more and we wanted to drop the iconic dollar-sign Z. Zaarly is about pursuing something you love, not about chasing a quick buck.

Big ups to Jeremy for his expertise and guidance on this. Interesting note for you type nerds out there: the letter forms are based off of Trust, a new font Jeremy is working on inspired by the bicentennial dollar coin.

Last month, I became sick for about 10 days.

My entire body felt like a combination of strep throat and how those zombies probably felt in 28 Days Later.

This illness got me thinking about my childhood.

When I was a kid and felt sick, I remember lying in bed with my sheets covering my face.

I would shout random war cries and hold my breathe to make my cheeks bright red - and I’d wait for my Mom to enter my room.

Once we agreed that my illness warranted a day full of Cameron Crowe movies and “sick kid” food, I started to make my requests.

The first thing that I would always ask for: Mama Rosenberg’s homemade chicken noodle soup. 

I’m not sure why every human asks for chicken noodle soup when they feel sick, but it’s always been my cure - and my Mom’s soup is magic.

But then you become an adult and life changes and you move away from your Mom - far away from her chicken noodle soup.

Here is what they do not tell you as as a kid:

When you are an adult, you will still get sick, and you will still ask yourself, “who is making me homemade chicken noodle soup?”

My Mom lives an hour way. She would deliver soup if I called her (I love you for that Mama), but it’s not a practical 28 year-old son request anymore. 

So when I got sick last month, I found Ford on Zaarly and asked him to cook and deliver homemade soup for me. 

Ford is often described as “Martha Stewart meets MacGyver” and his Zaarly reviews for homemade chicken noodle soup are perfect. 

Ford responded within minutes and delivered the most amazing homemade chicken noodle soup since my Mom’s batch in 5th grade. 

Even better, Ford checked in with me throughout the week to make sure that I was feeling better, just like a family member would. 

People always ask why Zaarly is different.

Zaarly connects you with amazing people. You meet people who care about you and become part of your daily life. 

When you are sick, they will bring you homemade chicken noodle soup - and they will make sure you’re feeling better, even after the deal is done. 

You will be happier in your neighborhood when you discover these talented people and hire them when you need help.

I know am happier because I met Ford. Oddly enough, I kind of look forward to getting the sniffles again. 

-Jeff Morris Jr.

(you can find me on twitter @jmj and be my best friend if you agree that homemade chicken noodle soup will save the world)

We launched Zaarly on May 18th, 2011 with a very simple premise that we nicknamed the “Request Anything” model.

When a buyer posted a request (through the web or their mobile device), talented people in their neighborhood could respond and earn money selling a good or service.

After focusing exclusively on the “Request Anything” model for a year, some of the most amazing people we had ever met started to surface over and over again.

They were people like Leah, Linda, and Jonathan — who demonstrated incredible customer service and offered amazing local products and services.

When customers hired these people once, they almost always hired them again.

We witnessed something incredible: our best sellers were building a group of loyal customers and fans.

The Seller Project

In March 2012, our team took a step back to consider how we could best serve these kind of talented people, namely amazing local artisans who were making a run at their dreams.

We started an internal project called The Seller Project and spent months researching the lives of the people who made money on Zaarly.

Our employees visited the homes of our most talented sellers to learn about their craft, their professional dreams, and their goals for creating businesses on Zaarly.

Throughout the project, we kept asking ourselves the same question: “what would an online marketplace look like if every human could earn money doing what they love?”

Once our entire team answered that question, we started to build Zaarly Storefronts.

Our Passion: Zaarly Storefronts

Zaarly Storefronts are an attempt to help a talented baker like Adana focus on baking.

Or to help a house cleaner like Tynisa spend more time with her customers, rather than managing a personal website or collecting payments.

We have a dedicated team that spends their days helping these talented people build their businesses on Zaarly. We know every Storefront owner on a first name basis.

Our Talent team reviews every seller who applies for a Zaarly Storefront. They dedicate their professional lives to finding the most talented people in your neighborhood.

Zaarly Storefronts are exclusive to service providers (such as handymen, private chefs, or yoga instructors) or creators of custom-made goods (like jewelry, clothing, or furniture).

Our Storefronts feature beautiful photography, easy online payments, and a simple way for customers to find the most talented local people in your neighborhood.

Focusing On Storefronts

Buyers now have the ability to hire their favorite local sellers with one-click on either the web or mobile phone. It is no longer necessary to create a custom request and wait for replies.

As we say goodbye to the “Request Anything” model, we are excited to keep building Zaarly Storefronts and to create a product that will eventually enable millions of people to earn money doing what they love.

Zaarly Storefronts are currently live in San Francisco, Seattle, Kansas City, New York, and Los Angeles — and we will be announcing more locations in the United States soon.

Buy From Anywhere in the United States

We want everyone in the United States to have access to the most talented people we find, even if Zaarly Storefronts are not currently live in your city.

Our Zaarly National collection features the best local flavors and custom goods from some of our favorite neighborhoods.

You can also visit our Shippable Creations category to view more listings that can be shipped anywhere in the United States.

We have a simple yet powerful mission at Zaarly: help people make money doing what they love. We believe that everyone has useful skills that they can package up to sell to others. Zaarly storefronts are how we enable true person-to-person commerce by allowing buyers to purchase goods and services directly from storefront owners.  The payment experience is a core part of what makes Zaarly great, and I want to talk a bit about how it all works.

If you have any experience with systems that move money around (charging credit cards or transferring money via ACH) you’re fully aware that the actual flow of funds is dizzyingly complicated. To keep a long story short, the idea of a buyer paying a storefront owner directly is simply not possible with our existing banking infrastructure. There are significant time lags between different intermediaries and clearinghouses, so funds aren’t actually settled for multiple business days.

On Zaarly, however, a storefront owner will receive their funds in their bank account the following business day. This is a convenience few other services on the planet provide, and we’re very proud of it.

So, how does it work?

The details of charging credit cards and transferring funds to Zaarly storefront owners  are quite simple, despite the complexity of the underlying banking infrastructure. We have two fundamental fund-moving primitives — money-in (by charging a credit card) and money-out (by transferring funds to a bank account). We use a payment provider called Balanced to carry out the details of these operations.

Using Balanced as our payment provider has been a really fantastic experience, and here’s why:

A completely white-labeled payment solution. Our users never have to be redirected to another website or get emails from our payment provider. Our users are always dealing with us, and we deal with Balanced behind the scenes.

Next-day ACH. From when we submit the ACH transfer API operation, the funds will appear in the storefront owner’s bank account the following business day (subject to a daily cutoff time of 3pm PST). I cannot reiterate enough what a powerful user experience this is: As a Zaarly storefront owner, I can charge a buyer on Monday afternoon, and the funds will be in my bank account on Tuesday morning. No waiting periods, no intermediate holding accounts, no manual process for the user. Just charge the buyer, and the money shows up in your bank account the next business day. Simple as that.

Credit card gateway and ACH provider under one roof. Credit card payments and ACH transfers move in and out of the same account. There are two things worth mentioning that make this extremely powerful.

First, credit card payments are transactional — as soon as the Balanced API operation to capture a card charge succeeds, the funds are available in your Balanced escrow account for subsequent API operations (Most credit card gateways impose some sort of holding period).  What this means is that as soon we successfully charge a buyer, we collect our fee and transfer the remainder to the storefront owner via next-day ACH.

The result of this is the second, very crucial point: you do not need to manage a “float” balance to ensure you’ll make payout that day. This is a *huge* reduction in operational and cognitive overhead, and cannot be understated. 

Balanced as the authoritative ledger. Knowing that we can rely on the integrity of Balanced’s ledger and record of what took place enabled us to move faster to get to launch than we otherwise would’ve been able to. Don’t underestimate the value of relying on the experts in their area of expertise, so you can focus on yours.

Free merchant identity verification. As part of the process to create merchant accounts for storefront owners, Balanced verifies the storefront owners identity as part of the process, and they try to do it in the least intrusive manner possible, by not asking for the user’s social security number unless absolutely necessary.

Small company, personalized customer service. Balanced is still a relatively small company, and being an API service, they are extremely developer-friendly. Having the experts that built the system at the ready to help is hugely important as a customer to an API service. The Balanced staff was extremely helpful throughout our implementation process, and they continue to be valuable as support cases come up. Getting help with an issue is as simple as shooting over an email or hopping into their IRC channel.

Pretty much everything that affects customers happens in the open on GitHub. If you need support right now, just hop in IRC, and they’re almost always active. If you have a suggestion for the dashboard, open a ticket. If you’d like to see something changed in the public API, open a ticket. They run their company like an open source project, and it makes for a fantastic customer experience.

If you enjoyed this post, please upvote it and join the discussion over on Hacker News.

- Alex Sharp (@ajsharp)

Every once in a while, you come across individuals who exert amazing passion for what they do.

Milk and Honey, a new company in Kansas City started by two friends whose passion for baking and macarons drove them to ditch the steady job, go to pastry school and dive headfirst into entrepreneurship because they wanted to love what they do.

Meet Karina & Casey. We were lucky enough to be invited inside their kitchen for a behind the scenes look at their operation. We had a blast doing this interview and hearing first hand how two ladies plan to take over the world with local and stylish macarons that also happen to be gluten-free.

This was truly a special interview. Enjoy.

1. What was the moment that you actually decided to jump ship and become entrepreneurs?

I would say that Casey and I have always known that we wanted to be entrepreneurs, but those feelings were solidified after being hired to help open a bakery in downtown Kansas City three years ago. We learned so much watching the owners struggle through the process and pretty quickly came to the realization that we could not only do it, but we could do it better. Two years went by and my heart and my head agreed that the time had come for us to embark on our journey. We were both working for Nordstrom at the time so I called Casey and had her meet me in the lunchroom for our first Milk & Honey meeting.

A few months of planning, preparation and brainstorming went by when we were given the opportunity to provide macarons for a trunk show at the most beautiful event space in town, Studio Dan Meiners, on May 17, 2012. One by one, people approached our table eagerly waiting to try our colorful and highly coveted little confections. Each person’s reaction was better than the last and it was that night when we realized we truly were on to something special. We quit our jobs a few days later.

2. Where did the name “Milk and Honey” come from?

3. What was the hardest challenge to getting started? How did you get it done?

Knowing which end is up can be serious challenge when starting a business. We had no idea what forms we needed or how to form an LLC, or even what permits we needed. It was overwhelming. The Ennovation Center was incredibly helpful in simplifying the process.

4. Why did you choose to do the Gluten free route?

Casey is one of the many people that now suffer from the effects of gluten sensitivity and celiacs disease and knows firsthand just how hard dealing with it be. Baked goods bring so much joy that to deny a large group of people sugar high happiness is just mean, especially to children.

5. You’ve been at it for about 6 months full-time. What’s the best lesson you’ve learned that you never expected before getting started?

Since we are both trained pastry chefs, saying ‘no’ to requests for other pastries and wedding cakes was something we didn’t do at first. We thought all business was good but the distractions and lack of focus ended up hurting us more than the extra income helped. The best lesson to date: stick to one thing and do it better than anyone else.

Another great lesson we learned: If you are not the expert, find someone who is! If you don’t know how to do accounting, hire an accountant. If you don’t know how to do coding for a website, hire a graphic designer. Doing everything yourself is more hurtful in the end than helpful.

6. Do you feel like you’ve found what you truly love to do and have you always been bakers?

Karina and I have always loved food and the food industry. The ‘industry’ is fast paced, exciting and made up of a diverse group of people from artists and chemists to pirates and sailors. Who doesn’t like that? We wake up everyday knowing that we are going to see the direct results from our blood sweat and tears. Do we love baking? Of course! What we have come to love even more than baking is creating something of our own that we are crazy proud of.

French macarons are the chocolate chip cookie of France so we decided we would put classic American dessert flavors inside those beautiful little macarons and see what would happen. The results have been fantastic! In approaching something new or foreign it always helps to bring a little bit of home with you.

We are married to our company and each other. Boyfriends and future husbands will simply have to accept that it’s a package deal. Like any great marriage, we are total opposites with one common goal, to have fun everyday. Karina is responsible for Quickbooks and Casey is in charge of social media - the reverse would be disaster. Having a powerhouse of personality creates a better business and our differences seem to make everything more well rounded and effective. Our number one rule for bad days: to blast Katy Perry, The Beatles or Celo Green and dance like crazy. It’s hard not to see the big picture after that. The number 2 rule is: remember no matter what, this is not brain surgery, or rocket science - it’s food and it’s supposed to be fun.

And that’s it, we are Milk and Honey.

Check out their storefront on Zaarly at http://zaarly.com/milkandhoney

At Zaarly, we want to help people make money doing what they love. So our product needs to empower and enable them to do just that.

Our kick-a… ahem, totally awesome Support team talks to Zaarly members each day about how our product can best serve them. But, these conversations are only part of the equation. We also want to see people in action and observe them using our product. It’s in observing them that we learn so much about how they work, what tools they need to be successful, what trips them up and what delights them. The more formal term for this is Usability Testing. 

Here at Zaarly, we’re working to infuse testing into our process to vet our ideas, and improve our existing product. There’s really nothing like watching someone struggle to complete a task, using the very product you designed. Or seeing them totally, delightfully engaged and forgetting you’re even there. Getting this kind of information is valuable and it doesn’t have to be expensive or overwhelming. You can start small and simple so long as you follow some best-practices.

To kick things off with our team, I put together a little presentation based on my notes from “Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests.” If you’re interested in bringing Usability Testing to your team, I highly recommend reading it!

There’s so much more to good Usability Testing but these slides will give you an idea of the topics we discussed. The goal here was to get us thinking about how and when we can conduct tests with users. And, yes, the slides are created using FiftyThree’s Paper app—a favorite around our office!

- Erica Burnett

Products can be built in many different ways. But, no matter what the process, usually the end goal is always the same. A simple, useful and meaningful product that people love. 

We just released Zaarly 3.0. We wanted to share a few early sketches that we made on a favorite iPad app of ours, Paper.  

Many of the ideas below were killed, edited or morphed into something different. The editing process of going from an idea to an end product is the best and most challenging part. Paper really was a fun place to start.

Paper has a way of making things look and feel beautiful and focused yet not overly detailed so you can make core UI decisions that aren’t about the pixels.

You can see a lot of the new Zaarly (web and mobile) in many of these sketches. Many you can’t because they never made it to life. Hope you enjoy some of the thoughts behind these sketches. 

A few of Matt Donovan’s Sketches:

A few of Erica Burnett’s Paper Sketches:

A few of My Paper Sketches:

- Shane Mac - Zaarly.com

Today marks the beginning of so much here at Zaarly.

About four months ago, we took a step back and looked at all the feedback we’ve received over the past year. We read through the stories people had sent us of their amazing experiences thanks to Zaarly. We added up the money sellers made on Zaarly doing the things they love.

People like Myriah, who grew up in her mother’s North Carolina bakery and delivers some amazing baked goodies to the Zaarly office among other people in the Bay Area. We also met Jeff through Zaarly. He built some custom tables and desks for our office out of reclaimed wood. 

We reflected on all that Myriah and Jeff and the hundreds of other service providers just like them were able to accomplish through Zaarly. But we wanted to do more. We wanted to make it easier for people make money doing what they loved. And we wanted to make it easier for people to discover and buy from the Myriah’s and Jeff’s in their own community.

Today I’m thrilled to introduce the all new Zaarly. With this release, you can now easily discover local, amazing people, from leading yoga instructors to world-class chefs to trusted handymen. Zaarly connects you with the local people who will make every day amazing for you. Each person has been hand-selected by our team,  so now you know where to turn for an amazing, local service provider. We’re starting with San Francisco, our home, and plan to roll out to more cities soon. 

We are proud of our amazing sellers and proud of the work we’ve accomplished so far.  We hope you like the new things we’re doing. Thank you for being part of our journey. It’s just getting started.

Sincerely,

Bo Fishback

CEO, Zaarly

@bowman

The Fancy is part store, blog, magazine and wish list. It’s a place to discover great stuff, to curate a collection of things you love and a Zaarly Anywhere partner (read more about Zaarly Anywhere here). 

So what happens when you’re browsing The Fancy and you find a cool DIY project that you don’t have the time or the expertise (like this Upcycled Liquor Bottle Tiki Torch)? Or, what happens when you stumble across cookie monster cupcakes? Simple, you ask for them on Zaarly. 

And when you get those cupcakes baked fresh and delivered from an amazing local baker, what then? Simple, you brag about it on Facebook or Pinterest. Check out awesome things on Fancy. You can take any hand-made or one-of-a-kind item on thefancy.com and ask for it on Zaarly. We’ll connect you with an amazing local person who can make the thing you fancy a reality.

Check out these ideas from Fancy that were recently bought on Zaarly:

Zaarly Anywhere, launched in July 2012, lets you turn any piece of online content into offline reality. With just a few clicks on any of our partner sites, you can post a request to Zaarly, connect with an local seller and get exactly what you wanted. It’s like having your own personal Make/Do/Help button as you browse the web.

One of our favorite Zaarly requests is food – from delicious desserts to nutritious meals to one-of-a-kind ethnic dishes. So when Zaarly Anywhere launched on our partner site, Cookstr, we were pretty excited. Cookstr is making the world’s best cookbooks and recipes universally accessible on the web by making thousands of recipes easy to find by price, difficulty, ingredient or even by celebrity chef.

“It’s like having your own personal Make/Do/Help button as you browse the web.”

How many times have you found a great recipe but haven’t had the time, expertise or patience to make it happen? Now, when you come across an amazing recipe on Cookstr, Zaarly can connects you to an amazing local person who can help — from an in-home chef, a prep cook or the whole dinner delivered directly to your door. Just ask.

Check out these recipes from Cookstr

And it looks like we’re not the only ones making good use of food-related requests. Here’s a few of our favorite requests from Cookstr that people near you have turned from digital inspiration into mouth-watering dishes.

Isabella’s Chile BBQ Ribs (Request and fulfilled in San Francisco, CA)

Mexican Chocolate Shortbread Cookies (Request and fulfilled in New York, NY)

Sticky Date Cupcakes (Request and fulfilled in San Francisco, CA)

Irish Stew (Request and fulfilled in San Francisco, CA)

Black-eyed peas and pasta (Request and fulfilled in San Francisco, CA)

Beignets (Request and fulfilled in Columbus, OH)

At it’s core, Zaarly allows you to buy from amazing local people. Since launching in May 2011, we’ve been hard at work building new ways to help you find skilled people and unlock remarkable experiences right in your backyard. We’ve loved seeing how Zaarly has helped bring people together in countless ways - from launching new businesses to creating surprises and memories.

Today we’re excited to share Zaarly Anywhere, our next step in realizing our vision of making it easier to unlock hidden talent from the people around you. Zaarly Anywhere provides a seamless way to marry ideas from great online content with offline commerce in your local community.

For example, if you’re like us, you’re inspired by the incredible creations you come across on the internet each day, from Hanging Teardrop Terrariums to a Trunk that Turns into a Bar. But with that feeling of inspiration probably comes the thought of, “that looks awesome, but how in the world could I ever make that myself?”

That’s where Zaarly Anywhere saves the day. Turning challenging projects like an aquarium built into your IKEA bookcase and tasty-but-time consuming creations like Roasted Apple Beignets with Cinnamon Sugar into reality are now just a click away. Experiences, goods, and services that have never before been for sale are now possible.

We’re launching Zaarly Anywhere with seven amazing partners at the top of their class in online content: Everyday Health, The Fancy, Los Angeles Times’ Home section, Cookstr, IKEA Hackers, Remodelaholic and Simplified Building.

Everyday, millions of readers engage on these partner sites looking for inspiring lifestyle ideas. They’re seeking great experiences, delicious food, home improvement projects, creative design concepts and new ways to get healthy. Now, add talented people nearby to create action — that’s Zaarly Anywhere.

“Zaarly Anywhere is the new way to buy local. Zaarly Anywhere changes the game. Imagine seeing a beautiful piece of furniture, a delicious dinner or the perfect nursery and then having a nearby carpenter, chef or designer make it happen. Turning ideas into reality, that’s Zaarly Anywhere.” - Bo Fishback, Zaarly Founder and CEO.

“Zaarly is the next best thing to having Jamie, Mario or Nigella as your personal chef. Cookstr has the largest collection of inspirational and accessible recipes from great chefs, and Zaarly can bring that inspiration into reality.” - Art Chang, CEO of Zaarly Anywhere Partner Cookstr

We’re incredibly excited about with Zaarly Anywhere, and we can’t wait to see how you use it.

What will you Zaarly for first? Here’s some ideas to get you started:

• Cookie Monster Cupcakes via The Fancy
• Closet Organization Solutions via Remodelaholic
• Jamie Oliver Banana Pancakes via Cookstr
• A Maker Table via Simplified Building
• Fitness Help via Everyday Health
• Nailhead Side Table via Ikea Hackers

Get Started Now!  

This past Sunday I had the best picnic of my life.

I love picnics. I’ve always loved picnics. And I probably haven’t been on five of them in my entire life. That’s about to change.

It’s hilarious to get too get excited about picnics as the CEO of Zaarly because the picnic industry is not exactly a booming industry that venture-backed companies are falling all over themselves to get a piece of. But I don’t care about that… what I care about is that I had a dream-like two hour experience with my wife, our 10-month-old son and our 13-year-old golden retriever. It felt like something from the movies. But it was real, and it was super easy thanks to Zaarly. I posted a request for a perfect picnic earlier in the week, got a few really nice responses and ended up choosing someone who just seemed genuinely excited about making this happen. She’s a third-grade teacher during the day, but a picnic wizard by night (and weekends). She’d love to do this more, and we’ll definitely be hiring her again.

We walked up to this…

And when we were done, we just walked away. She took care of everything. We didn’t even know what we were having until we arrived and everything from the strawberry salad to the homemade chocolate cookie sandwiches was perfect.

The full agenda from our end was watching Pierce (our son) feed our dog for the first time and lounging around for a couple of hours in the park eating delicious food. She even made Hot Dog Mac’n Cheese for Pierce.

It’s something that we’ll never forget and that we’ll definitely do again… and again.

Thank you Meghan for taking paying such close attention to detail and creating an incredible experience for my family. When we can easily link to seller profiles, I’ll be linking to yours often. 

— Bo Fishback (@bowman)