Jobalo, a Chapel Hill startup, wants to make more job opportunities available for high school students. Jobalo is among the emerging companies participating in the CED’s annual Tech Venture Conference.

The website already features a variety of contract, part-time and full-time offerings.

Some samples:

  • “Data Input: Quick job … We Need Someone For 1-3 Hours To Do Some Data Input Into Excel. Would Be Nice To Have A Computer And Excel Or Google Drive.
  • “Wine cellar logging help: Need Help Finishing Logging Wines In My Wine Cellar. Probably 2-4 Hours Of Work. Need To Catalog Wines Using An App, Then Label Them.
  • “Marketing intern: Need Someone To Do Research. This Is For A Short Weekend Project If Someone Is …”

“There is no dominant job platform for this age group, the High School market is under served, and we would like to change that and give students a reliable platform that can effectively serve them. But, we realize that the High School job market is changing,” says CEO Max Alway-Townsend.

“In many cases, less students want a traditional part-time job. We accommodate to this by including internships, volunteering opportunities, and one-time jobs, so literally any student can satisfy their work needs through Jobalo.”

The company has already raised $70,000 and has four employees.

This profile is one of a series being published by WRAL TechWire in partnership with the CED.


Profile: Jobalo

  • Website: jobalojobs.net
  • Email contact: maxalwaytownsend@jobalojobs.com
  • Address: 321 W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill, 27514
  • CEO: Max Alway-Townsend
  • How many employees? 4
  • Link to CED Tech Venture Company Profile: https://cednc.org/company-profile/jobalo

What is the focus of your business?

Our mission is to make job opportunities more accessible for high school students. Businesses, charities, and everyday people list jobs on our platform for local students to apply to.

What is the top pain point/business application you are seeking to address?

There is no dominant job platform for this age group, the High School market is under served, and we would like to change that and give students a reliable platform that can effectively serve them. But, we realize that the High School job market is changing.

In many cases, less students want a traditional part-time job. We accommodate to this by including internships, volunteering opportunities, and one-time jobs, so literally any student can satisfy their work needs through Jobalo.

What makes it unique?

Not only is our target age group unique, but unlike other job sites that specify on one job area (part-time, or contract) we include the 4 main jobs any student could need.

Part-time, internships, volunteering and contract listings (yard work, babysitting, etc.). For employers, we strive to provide the highest quality applicants as much as possible.

Why should investors be interested in your firm?

While we currently have a very niche market, this will allow us to expand quickly and saturate many markets in a short period of time as we perfect our sales and user acquisition strategies. Once we are large enough, if we would like to, we can easily move up into the college market.

This is because every single college student will already know about us and have used our platform before while they were in High School, the adoption could be enormous. Even if we do not scale into the larger college market, we can reach a very large audience and revenue base with the High School model.

How are you financed at this point?

We have raised $70,000 in pre-seed funding from a number of local individuals. We will be raising a seed round in January 2018, $500k goal.