Teenage Entrepreneur Builds Safer Marketplace for Odd Jobs

Sasha Bagrov, a 14-year-old student at Hampton School in London, is the founder and CEO of KidsHustle, the UK's first iOS marketplace for teenage employment.

He began coding at age 9, had software on the App Store by 12, and spent three years building KidsHustle before its launch in April 2026.

The idea for KidsHustle came about when his family had a couple of teenagers come to their front door and ask if they could wash their car.

Bagrov thought that this was unsafe and wanted to create a platform that would provide safety and financial security for teenagers.

KidsHustle is targeting the UK's 3.6 million teenagers aged 13-17, representing an estimated £1.2 billion casual labour market that remains entirely unplatformed.

Every major gig economy platform requires users to be at least 18.

KidsHustle is the first platform to build verified, compliant infrastructure for this market across the UK and Europe.

According to Bagrov, there's clearly a market of teenagers who want to be entrepreneurial and earn money.

But many of the existing entry points lack safeguards and involve posting something in a Telegram or WhatsApp group.

How the Platform Works

KidsHustle connects teenagers with local paid jobs while keeping parents involved throughout the process.

Jobs include gardening, babysitting, dog walking, tutoring, and tech help.

A parent creates a Stripe-verified account and posts a job with the task, pay, and location.

Teens browse nearby opportunities on a map, with parents retaining approval over applications.

Once a job begins, the teen checks in using a QR code, triggering live GPS sharing with their parent for the duration of the job.

When the work is completed, payment is released from escrow, and the teen receives a CV-ready reference.

KidsHustle charges the job owner a service fee on top of the job price, meaning the teenager receives the full amount they were promised.

Keeping Parents in the Loop

Safety is embedded throughout the platform.

Bagrov explained that the parent is kept involved before the job owner can see who the teenager is.

Once the teenager applies, the job owner can see things like their statistics and reviews, so the parent has approved that first.

If the parent approves it, the teenager then appears on the job owner's applicant list.

The job owner can approve or deny the application and assess whether the applicant is a good fit.

KidsHustle also has a geolocation feature coming soon.

If the teenager leaves a predefined area, it can send a notification to their parent and activate other safety features.

Once the teenager completes the job, the platform asks them to take photos of the finished work, which the job owner can review.

This gives a paper trail of what happened, and if there's a dispute, KidsHustle has concrete evidence that the work was completed.

Can AI Decide Which Jobs Are Safe for a 14-Year-Old?

One of KidsHustle's main uses of AI is content safety.

When a job is posted, Google Gemini assesses whether it is appropriate for the teenager's age.

For example, if the target demographic is 14-year-olds and they're going to be moving heavy boxes, Gemini could identify that as a safety risk and deny the job.

Parents are required to complete ID verification and KYC.

At the same time, KidsHustle says it has completed a Data Protection Impact Assessment and complies with GDPR and the Children's Code, including minimising the data collected from minors.

Building a Startup Around School

By the time KidsHustle launched, Bagrov had spent roughly three years building it around his school commitments.

He developed most of the platform himself with occasional back-end help from his friend Gabriel.

Balancing work and school is a challenge.

During term, development slows as Bagrov fits KidsHustle around homework, working on it after school and at weekends.

School and KidsHustle kind of revolve around each other, he explained.

Bagrov admits that his friends aren’t entrepreneurs, but they are supportive.

He does a lot of theatre tech at school - lighting, sound and stage management.

They're supportive because they understand that this is something he wants to do and something he finds really fun.

Organic Traction, Fundraising, and GCSEs

The platform is seeing organic growth with teenagers.

Then through its user acquisition funnel, it also acquires parents because the teenagers need their parents to sign up.

The parents are the ones who post the jobs, so either way they're bringing in both the demand and supply sides of the marketplace.

Bagrov is now looking to raise £500,000 in pre-seed funding to grow KidsHustle into a profitable business and bring more people onto the team.

But building a startup still has to fit around school - and his upcoming GCSEs.

This app is very personal to me because it's pretty much how I learned to code, he said.

All the technologies and platforms I know have come from building KidsHustle.

That learning has sometimes been very hands-on.

For example, learning about servers has come from our servers being down at 3 am.

It's a very deeply personal product for me because I've learned so much from it, just from a technology perspective.

When You're Too Young for LinkedIn

Some of the biggest challenges for Bagrov stem from being a founder under 18, which he admits makes things really complicated.

It's a problem he saw firsthand when he was removed from LinkedIn for being underage - he found out via a message from his dad in his inbox.

Bagrov argues that much of the legal and regulatory framework isn't designed with young entrepreneurs in mind.

We want to fill that gap, he said.

Some teenagers want to earn money, become entrepreneurs, and start businesses, but legally they can't do much.

There are too many roadblocks.

Those barriers extend beyond entrepreneurship to the relative lack of employment opportunities for younger teenagers.

Even people he knows - his friends - want to earn money.

But where can they do that?

If you Google how to earn money now, you get things like dropshipping or making different physical products.

They can be good businesses, but they're not necessarily sustainable in the long term.

If you get a massive supplier involved and have to sign a contract, what do you do then when you're under 18?

KidsHustle is trying to change this by providing a safe and secure platform for teenagers to earn money and gain experience.

The platform is seeing organic growth and is now looking to raise £500,000 in pre-seed funding to grow into a profitable business.

Bagrov is determined to make KidsHustle a success and provide opportunities for other young entrepreneurs like him.