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Lakeland start-up aims to help women and small businesses

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LAKELAND, Fla. — A new company based out of Lakeland hopes to help all kinds of women find work on their schedule.

A venture to help women make extra cash came to Teresa O'Brien during a brunch date with her husband.

"He asked me the most romantic thing. He asked me, 'Is there a dream that you have that we can work on.,'" she said. "I was like, 'There's this idea I have.'"

Help(her) emerged as a way to match small businesses to something like a part-time employee. Think of it like Tinder for mom and pops shops.

"Sometimes they're at a place where they can't fire full time because of financial constraints and they can't hire part time because they don't know if they have enough consistent work," O'Brien said.

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Here's how it works: Businesses sign up with Help(her) and let them know what tasks they need done. Then, background-checked women are chosen and paid $15 an hour to complete the lists.

"You can do a lot of that around your calendar and around your play dates and school times," she said.

O'Brien says she's targeting women of all kinds -- empty nesters, college students, stay-at-home moms and single moms. She hopes this will give them independence and show them you can do it all.

"For whatever reason, we just don't give ourselves enough credit for whatever role of life we might be in," she said. "I want to be the one to elevate them, tell them they're important, they are valued, they do have a lot to give."

Help(her) officially launched last week. If you'd like to sign up to be a Help(her) you can do that by clicking here.