Fancy Hands: Personal Assistants for All

Headquartered in New York City, Fancy Hands is a team of personal assistants serving clients around the world. Clients who are normal people like you and I. The startup believes that anyone can benefit from having someone else do small yet necessary jobs for them, such as scheduling an appointment with the dentist or finding a list of reasonably priced places to eat in a certain area. You don't have to be a corporate hotshot or a Hollywood star to have a personal assistant. The idea behind Fancy Hands is that we don't have time to do it all and don't even want to do some of the tasks on our to-do lists. With Fancy Hands, you can free up some time to focus on the things that matter to you the most. Have someone else schedule your meetings, book your reservations, do your research, and more.

Fancy Hands was founded by developer Ted Roden, who got the idea for the startup when he was sitting in a maternity ward with his wife and newborn. He was working for the New York Times and writing a book at the time. With his personal and professional lives fully booked, he wondered when he would ever have time again to do tasks like paying the electric bill or making a dinner reservation. According to Roden, “The idea came totally out of a need. Rather than make a simple phone call to take my wife out to dinner, I built an elaborate platform.”

For the first six months of its launch in 2010, Roden was that elaborate platform's only user. These days, Fancy Hands' thousands of US-based personal assistants work for clients across the globe. Plans start at $25 per month, which will get you five requests. Fancy Hands has been featured in several media outlets, including Lifehacker, Forbes, TIME, The New York Times, and Slate.