Why we started Welpco

The idea for Welpco started in front of a community noticeboard at a coffee shop on Bloor Street. A handwritten note read: "Looking for someone to walk Murphy Tuesdays and Thursdays. Two blocks from here. References appreciated." A different handwriting underneath, a torn-off tab with a phone number, a thank-you. By the time we read it, the tab was gone.

That noticeboard already worked. People in that neighborhood found each other, exchanged trust, and got the thing done. The reason it worked is that everyone walking past it had already opted in to being seen — they were locals, they shopped at that café, they knew the dog by name. It worked because the trust was already built.

The problem isn't that communities can't help each other. They do, all the time. The problem is what happens when you don't already know the right person, when the noticeboard isn't yours, when the favor you need has run out. Most of us live there more often than we'd like to admit.

What Welpco actually is

Welpco is a marketplace for that gap. Two sides of a neighborhood: one side asks for help, the other gives it. A parent who needs a tutor on short notice; a student a few blocks away who teaches calculus. A retiree with a free Wednesday and an instinct for getting things organized; a neighbor whose elderly mother needs company twice a week. The work is real, the people are real, the money moves the way you'd expect.

We didn't invent any of this. Communities have always done this kind of exchange — informally, on noticeboards, through churches and schools and group chats. What we built is the part that fills in when none of those channels happen to have what you need. The gap is bigger than people admit, and the alternatives are usually worse: a faceless contractor app where the relationship lasts one job, or scrolling through a classifieds page that hasn't been useful since 2009.

The shape of the marketplace

Three things make Welpco a marketplace and not a directory.

It's two-sided on purpose. Customers and Welpers are different people doing different work, and we built different surfaces for each. A Welper's profile shows what they offer, where, and what they charge — not a star rating extracted from one review. A customer's view shows who's available near them, with the relevant facts (verification, distance, what they do) up front. Each side gets the tools that actually help them, not a hollowed-out version of the other side's screen.

Payment is part of the safety story. When you book, your card is authorized — not charged. We hold the payment until the work is done. If something goes wrong before then, the hold releases. This sounds like a marketing line until you've been on the wrong end of "I paid them and they ghosted me." Building the money around the work, instead of beside it, is the difference between a marketplace and a referral.