CRYSTAL RIVER, FL (352today.com) – When Ryan Hoffland started his own business, R&C Versatile Services, in November of 2025, he immediately began looking for ways to connect with potential customers.
“Hanging ceiling fans, stump grinding, junk hauling, hanging TVs and pictures, some light handyman stuff,” he said. “I keep it pretty basic, but I do a lot of different stuff.”
He used all of the Digital Age avenues for exposure, from targeted ads to social media. He also signed up for one or two of those big, well-known subscription services that are supposed to garner business for contractors and tradesmen. (You know the ones.) Hoffland declined to name the services he tried but found the fees he was being charged just weren’t being offset by the work he was getting from them as a small, local, independent business. It seems the businesses that sign up for those services pay to do so whether they get business or not, and often also have to chip in a commission on top of that for the jobs they do accept.
“A customer goes on there and says, ‘I need a ceiling fan installed,’ and they put that information in, and then it pops up a list of all the people in the area who install ceiling fans,” he said. “Most of the time what people do is they select two, three, four people… Well, when they send it, that platform charges each business the second that it’s sent, so once they send that request to four small business, all four small businesses are charged a fee. And we’re not talking about a couple of dollars.
“I was getting work, but I was also getting charged for a lot of jobs I wasn’t getting.”
Hoffland knew there had to be a better way. When he couldn’t find it, he decided to make it himself.
The result of that search is Find-A-Pro, a smartphone app and website that connect folks who need a fix with professionals in their area (just like the big guys) but only charges those businesses a few dollars if and when they accept a job (a very different proposition). Find-A-Pro is 100 percent free for customers, and businesses have two options: They can pay $5 for each job they take, and nothing more, or they can pay a subscription fee of just $10 per month and an additional $3 per job, which could turn out to be a real money-saver for businesses who pick up a lot of jobs through the app.
“If you get [a job notification] and you look at it and you say, ‘Oh they need it done in the next three days and I’m booked,’ you hit decline and you’re not out any money,” Hoffland says. “The whole point of it is you only pay for what you want. And you don’t have to pay anything to be on it.”
Which means businesses can join, add in all their information, bona fides, Google business profile, photos and whatever else, and not accept any jobs. Essentially, at the very least they’re getting another ranking link, and potential search engine result, on the internet for free.
Hoffland has no coding experience. He built the app and website using an AI “vibe coding” agent created to turn a user’s text prompts into the programming languages behind the platforms. The ads for such agents make it seem as if the process happens seamlessly, but Hoffland says integrating all the moving parts to create Find-A-Pro’s online ecosystem was a lot more difficult and time-consuming than he’d anticipated. He started working on the project in March; it wasn’t until August that Find-A-Pro was robust and stable enough for him to start searching out businesses in his immediate area to act as beta testers while connected more bells and whistles, like payment processing.
“Nobody that’s on there right now has to put in credit card info or anything until traffic starts picking up,” Hoffland said.
Finding those first 20 businesses was also harder than he expected. It was difficult to get Find-A-Pro afloat in the sea of social-media white noise and countless competing startups on a practically nonexistent marketing budget. Hoffland often resorted to cold calling recommended pros and pitching them the concept. He thoroughly vets all the businesses on the platform and has had to give a few the boot for incomplete profiles, lack of credentials and other red flags.
Now, Find-A-Pro boasts around 60 businesses in five states, and he’s consistently announcing new partners via the app’s Facebook page. In keeping with Hoffland’s grassroots approach, more than half are in the North Central Florida region. Sixteen are in Marion County, for instance, and about 30 service that county, running the gamut of “mobile detailers, housecleaners, a food truck, contractors, tree services, land clearing, handymen, a plumber, an electrician, multiple HVAC companies, there’s a bunch,” according to Hoffland.
The app is currently available in the Google Play Store. Hoffland says Find-A-Pro is coming to the Apple App Store soon, but that iOS users can pin the site (which offers the same functionality) and use it as a webapp until that happens. In the meantime, he’s just driven to build Find-A-Pro up and out, offering the opportunity to connect small businesses with customers, and jobs, on a simple platform that won’t break their budgets.