How it works
Find each other → agree → pay → confirm → build trust
The Town Works is deliberately thin — the paperwork, payment, and memory layer underneath neighborhood commerce that already happens, with a straightforward directory to help you find someone when you don’t already know who to call.
This already works fine
Someone in your neighborhood group knows a person who fixes fences.
Your cousin's friend does hair out of her kitchen and she's booked for weeks.
A guy two blocks over has a truck and will haul anything for cash.
The tamale lady at the corner takes weekend orders on WhatsApp.
Word of mouth already works well, and we’re not replacing it — we just make it easier to find someone when you don’t already have a lead, and back whoever you find with the paperwork, payment, and trust layer that comes after.
What’s actually missing
Everything that happens after you say “yes, let’s do it”
A record of what you agreed to
“I thought it was $80” vs. “I said $100”, remembered two different ways by two people who both mean well.
A way to pay that isn't cash-only or Venmo-and-hope
Cash works until it doesn't. A payment app with no context leaves no record of what it was for, or that the job was ever finished.
Something to point to if it goes wrong
A broken lamp, a no-show, a job that was rushed — small, common problems that are expensive to fight about and expensive to ignore.
A reputation that travels with you
Five years of reliable work, known only to the people who happened to be there for it — not visible to the next neighbor deciding who to call.
So here’s the walkthrough
- 01
Find
You already know how you find people — a post in a local group, a recommendation from a friend, a flyer on a corkboard. The Town Works doesn't change that. It gives the person you found a page.
- 02
Agree
Start a draft — AI, a template, or just type it. Share it as a QR code or link; the other person can join even if they've never used The Town Works before. Either of you can edit it until you both sign.
- 03
Pay
Card, bank transfer (lower fee), or your TTW balance if you have one (no card fee — see /account/funds). Cash costs nothing and still counts toward the record, if you both confirm it. New accounts need a one-time admin approval before real money moves either direction — a deliberate, careful early rollout, not a permanent hoop.
- 04
Confirm
Both people mark the job done. That's what turns a payment into a transaction record — evidence, not just a receipt.
- 05
Build trust
Completed jobs, repeat customers, and neighbors who vouch for you accumulate into a profile that's about evidence, not star ratings.
Where this works
The Town Works is scoped to Northern California right now — not a launch-week limitation we’ll quietly drop, but where we can actually stand behind the coverage and support on /costs#coverage. In-person work needs to be located in Alameda or Contra Costa County. Remote work needs a paying customer with a billing address in Northern California. You confirm this when you create a job.
What we deliberately don’t do
We don’t employ anyone, dispatch anyone, or set anyone’s price — and we don’t call a discretionary community reserve “insurance” before it legally is one.
Read the full governance commitments →