Ever since the concept of money surfaced, its use has been the primary means of exchange of goods and services. Now days, you can hardly get something without money. When someone sells you something, you are asked for money. Furthermore, when you sell something, you demand money. But this does not always have to be this way because Swapire is here to provide an alterative to spending money. Read on to see how.
Not all transactions need involve money contrary to what we may believe or expect. As many people in this world, you likely have many good skills because you use them everyday! On other hand, earning and saving money takes time and commitment. As such, not everyone is successful with saving and spending money. So trading of personal skills is an attractive approach when:
- money is not available
- there is lock of expertise or skills in a particular area
- you like helping others
I developed the idea on swapping a service after seeing many examples of trades without the involvement of money. It all started when I visited India at the end of 2007. I discovered that people in rural areas often traded their skills with others. I noticed:
- Farmers trading their farming skills
- A woman trading her house cleaning services for having her TV-set repaired
- A student trading his math skills to learn English from another student
After a while, when I returned to United States, I discovered my dad traded his painting skills with a carpenter. Basically, while my dad needed some cabinets work in his kitchen, the carpenter needed some rooms painted in his house. Surprisingly, they traded without any discussions of money. Perhaps this was because they knew each other for a long time.
All of these examples show that there are alternatives to spending money to get tasks done. However, this presently happens:
- at a smaller scale
- at the local level only
- among those who know each other
There are astonishing number of websites in the world yet there is not one geared toward helping people find good opportunities to connect with other people to trade time, expertise, skills, roles, or services. But why a website when people can trade their skills within their circles? I believe the need through traditional means is not being met to the fullest because of lock of awareness and coordination.
Presently, when it comes to trading of expertise or skills, it is done at a limited scale. Would not it be strange if a plumber called a car repair shop to have his car fixed in exchange for some plumbing work? But this site is proposing to do is to help the plumber find a mechanic that needs plumbing work done or vice versa.
Swapire is derived from two words swap and empire. "Swa" from "swap" and "pire" from "empire" or Swap from "swap" and "ire" from "empire" makes the new word swapire, as illustrated here:
What Swapire’s is set to do is unique. I hope that people find the site helpful in their search for alternative to shopping – trading. So stop shopping and consider trading today. Thanks for stopping by and please come back again. Start by creating a profile if you have not done so.
Raj Singh
Founder, Swapire