Our story
Meet the Vano Team: the ATU Students Behind It
Quick answer: Vano was built by three ATU students in Galway — Ayush Puri, Cormac Hennessy and Michael Okocha — who wanted fair, flexible work for students and reliable same-day help for local households.
Vano didn't come out of a boardroom. It started with three ATU students in Galway, a whiteboard, and one simple frustration: students wanted flexible work that paid properly and fit around lectures, while households around the city needed reliable help they could book the same day. Nobody was joining those two dots — so we did.
Who we are
We're Ayush Puri, Cormac Hennessy and Michael Okocha — three students at Atlantic Technological University in Galway who built Vano between lectures, late nights and a lot of coffee. Being students ourselves is the whole point: we know what good, flexible, fairly paid work should feel like, because we were looking for it too.
Why we built Vano
Two problems, one platform:
- For students: proper pay. Every time-based job is priced so a helper takes home €15.30/hr net — above the Irish minimum wage — with no fixed rota. The full breakdown is in why Vano pays above minimum wage.
- For households: same-day help from an ID-verified local student — cleaning, dog walks, garden, moving, errands and more — without the hassle.
Where we're going
We started in Galway because it's home, and because a student city is exactly where this works best. The plan is to keep it fair, keep it local, and keep it genuinely useful — for the students who do the work and the households who rely on them.
Want to be part of it? Here's how to become a Vano helper.