Need a company tonight but all your friends are busy? There’s an app that could be of help. A quick reminder, though: be prepared to pay by the hour. (Photo : Getty Images)
One may see a young girl together with a man who appears a bit older than her but won’t be mistaken for a relative, not even a casual acquaintance because of the way he wraps his arms around her tiny waist.
Perhaps she prefers dating older guys.
Or it could be a spectacle that will expire in two hours--and for $30.
“Come Rent Me,” the loose translation of a Chinese app, allows smartphone users to hire someone to do an assortment of things for a corresponding fee, reported TomoNews U.S.
A person needs to log in to the “Come Rent Me” WeChat account of Hangzhou AiYo Technology, the company behind this startup, to be transported to a part of the cyberworld where strangers coming from different backgrounds advertise themselves to do specific tasks as long as one can afford their hourly rate.
How much? It could be as high as 200 yuan per hour.
After logging in, a client will select a person and specify the number of hours the person will be rented out. Then the company will text the client the WeChat ID of that person for the two parties to discuss the transaction between themselves .
In case the client gets rejected by that person, the company will refund the payment.
“We’re not a community platform. We’re running an information service,” said Fan Yulong, co-founder of the Hangzhou-based startup launched in June 2015.
Fan compared “Come Rent Me” to two transportation network companies, America’s Uber and the country’s Beijing-based Didi Chuxing in terms of providing people with an opportunity to earn money during their free time.
“No matter what you do, whether it’s meeting someone or completing a task, you have a cost,” said Fan.
Indeed, as many people might have already heard: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
The startup received fresh funding in March to the tune of 5 million yuan from an anonymous supporter, reported China Venture.
The app now deals with more than 500,000 registered users.
Wang Wenzi, 19, from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, charges $15 per hour for anyone who likes to rent her out. The college student said that most of her clients have been men, according to online magazine Financial Policy on April 12.
For those who want someone to accompany them for a movie night out or to go camping with them or to simply join them for lunch, there’s an app they can use to find the right person to do that thing.
And for those who have free time, they can actually sell it.
