In the United States – a wave of community sentiment is developing among millennials, one in which many of the inconveniences of life can be, in part, alleviated by our fellow neighbor.  One such inconvenience is picking up a bite to eat or grabbing extra toiletries from the local pharmacist.  As a result, we get a new service / network platform that looks to address this common hassle – JoyRun.

JoyRun is a new service that allows all community users to set up “runs” to any location in a given area.  Once a run has been posted, everyone in the community can see it, request an item be purchased on their behalf and then have it delivered to their home.  In exchange for this service, the person making the trip, can charge a nominal fee of $2 or $3 per person.  The result is that within an hour’s time or less, student’s working furiously on their assignments can get food, toiletries or any other important item delivered to their home for a nominal fee.  Those making the run, often can make $15 to $20 a trip that can span less than an hour.  Better yet, all the money is exchanged via the app, so you won’t have to deal with change at all.

JoyRun is primarily focusing on college campuses to establish its core consumer base.  To join the JoyRun movement – individuals must possess a valid student email address to join their college’s community.  Once confirmed, users are asked to create a profile and update their payment information – and the runs can now begin.  Once assigned to a community, individuals can request to opt-in to a “run”, ordering items from a predetermined menu for a given restaurant, they can start their own run to either a specific location or to an unspecified location, or they can request a run be made on their behalf to a specific location – offering a set compensation for the favor.  In all, it’s another example of crowd-solutions to a common life hassle.  After delivery and payment of your items, community users can rate their experience, thus quickly separating the good “runners” from the mediocre ones.

In terms of monetization, the developers of the app are currently allowing transactions to occur without a fee, however, as the community matures, that is likely to change, and one can expect to pay a transaction fee to JoyRun directly.  Another form of monetization is advertising, as well as featuring certain restaurants and small business to a given community – either through specials or premium prominence within the app. 

Overall, I think the app has a very strong chance of becoming successful – however, it must be cognizant that continued and consistent community involvement will be crucial.  In order for users to want to use JoyRun, they must have users who will conduct runs during peak times on a college campus – and college students can be flaky to say the least.  Furthermore, JoyRun will become even more successful if it gets major support from local business who will be the major driver of product diversification and convenience to the end consumer. 

It looks like JoyRun will have a bright future and I look forward to using it more myself.

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