Former Google Strategist Starts Site for Part-time Job Seekers

Local startup JobArrive is hoping to be the One-Stop Shop for local part-time job seekers. Just last Wednesday, Tomoe Ishizumi, and her company of two other interns, launched their beta site, with postings for jobs in San Francisco primarily and in Palo Alto, San Mateo and San Jose.

Ishizumi, CEO and founder of JobArrive, worked at Google as a Senior Strategist in Commerce Operations, focusing on Google Shopping until this past December. She said she started vetting JobArrive four months before leaving Google.

She said the new site is trying to improve the unemployment rate of local cities by fixing the inefficiency in the market: shift scheduling and upfront advertising fees. Users are paid $10 if they are hired on from jobs they apply to on the site, while advertising fees are charged to the company when the they hire someone.

“Users feel empowered using the site and it promotes the stores too,” she said. “What also differentiates our site from other jobs sites is that we have a better user experience, with photos and the ability to apply to jobs on the site [rather than being redirected to third party sites].”

She said her original idea for the site came when she saw her mother, an opera singer who lives in New York, looking for a part-time job. This, along with her own six months of unemployment after graduating from Harvard Business School in 2010, inspired her to find a way to efficiently help people find part-time work.

“It’s a very exciting space,” Ishizumi said. “It’s competitive because the market is going and there’s a lot more demand for part-time jobs.”

Ishizumi is trying to further grow in this space with some funds. She recently began seeking seed funding for the company and hopes to hire more employees – specifically in sales – following this first funding round. As a woman in a field that’s highly dominated by men, she said that she stands out in a positive way being both female and Japanese born.

What advice does she have for other entrepreneurs and does she think getting an MBA is necessary to jump into the startup world?

“If you have an MBA it does help you feel more confident, but it’s not necessary,” she said. “It’s best to start building your prototype and everything will follow. There’s no way you’ll be able to check off every box – have a $1 million funding, a great co-founder, etc. – so it’s better just to do it.”

Ishizumi hopes to open an office in Palo Alto if funding comes through.

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