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Last year, a startup called “ManServants” was founded that promises women what they really want: a man for hire who anticipates their desires and pampers them.

CEO and co-founder Josephine Wai Lin tells Business Insider that her service “started as a joke and then became way too real.”

Last fall, ManServants launched in San Francisco and then Los Angeles. Most recently, the very real startup launched in New York City. Soon, Lin says, it will expand to Las Vegas.

When might you need a ManServant? Anytime, really. ManServants gives a few examples on their website: bachelorette parties, girls’ nights, and a pool party that requires a cabana boy, to name a few. Wai Lin says ManServants have also been hired for some gay weddings.

Since we were curious about the service, we decided to gather some friends and try it out for ourselves.

Wai Lin and her co-founder Dalal Khajah were working in advertising last year before launching ManServants. The pair wanted to hire a “hot male assistant” for one of their friends’ birthdays. After failing to find anyone on Craigslist and TaskRabbit (“There was no attractive help on TaskRabbit,” Wai Lin recalls), they turned to a strip agency.

After a failed attempt to hire a stripper to do menial office work, Wai Lin and Khajah’s colleagues asked the two women to help them find and hire more such men for their hen parties instead of real strippers. So Wai Lin and Khajah quit their jobs last year to start ManServants.

ManServants are “not just good-looking,” Wai Lin tells us. “They are very versatile and multitalented. He can’t just look good. He also has to be funny and entertaining.”

There are only about 12 ManServants per city, Wai Lin tells us. She says the number of ManServants is intentionally small because she is more interested in recruiting a small number of highly qualified ManServants. “It’s harder than you think to find a man who is both good-looking and witty, charming, emotionally intelligent and a gentleman,” she tells us.

To recruit new ManServants, the company sends its “Cutie Collector” to local bars and restaurants. This recruiter hands out business cards to potential ManServants with the note: “I’m not making advances to you, but we could use a charming gentleman like you.” ManServants also has a Talent Director, a former model with many connections in the industry.

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This is not an escort service, but an opportunity to be fully served and pampered, the startup emphasizes. Common requests for ManServant tasks include braiding hair, serving drinks, assisting with Instagram photo shoots, painting nails and fanning customers with a banana leaf or a real fan.

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Wai Lin says the main criticism she gets about ManServants doesn’t usually come from women — it’s people who hear the service’s name and assume ManServants is a way for women to give orders to men.

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When you hear the term ManServant, Wai Lin says, you think of dominant women and submissive men. But, she says, “it’s really just gender dynamics that make it not work that way. We say he’ll do anything to make your tuxedo dreams come true, and what women want is to have their hair braided.”

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Wai Lin says ManServants considers itself a feminist startup because they have created an experience specifically tailored to the needs of women.

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Okay, enough about the company. What’s it like to hire one of these ManServants for yourself? We had to try it out. After entering some information about the type of event you’re hosting, you’ll have the option to give your ManServant a name. You can call him anything you want, from Fabio to Ryan Gosling. After much discussion, we named our ManServant Alejandro.

That part struck me as a little odd – assigning a name to another human you hire? What about their real name? You can’t know the true identity of your ManServant, the startup’s co-founders told TechCrunch last year. “Women sometimes get attached to one of our guys, so we have to protect the men,” Wai Lin said.

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Source.

ManServants clients must also agree to the company’s code of conduct, which, among other things, stipulates that interactions with your ManServant will be non-sexual.

After we gave our ManServant a name, we could choose what our ManServant should look like.

Right now, Wai Lin says she gets a lot of requests from women for ManServants who can braid hair. Many women also ask for man buns, lumbersexual men and “darker gentlemen,” she says. “I think because of the Kardashian trends.”

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ManServants undergo rigorous testing and assessment before being hired. In addition to an online test, they also undergo scenario and role play training and interact with women in real life (IRL) who then evaluate each ManServant. This is just one of the questions prospective ManServants must answer as part of an online training test.

Each ManServant costs $125 per hour. ManServants’ pay is based on a sliding scale that starts at $50 per hour and goes up to $80 depending on feedback and the number of events completed. Right now, the ManServants are contract workers, but Wai Lin says the company is converting them to W2 employees in the coming months.

Our servant arrived on time. This is “Alejandro”. He always wears a tuxedo and always carries a fan and a parasol.

Right now, ManServants only serves Brooklyn and Manhattan, but “Alejandro” made the trip to Queens to serve me and my friends. He introduced himself – complete with a fictional backstory – and immediately started helping out in my apartment and serving us snacks. Most of the ManServants, like “Alejandro,” are working actors, models and comedians, Wai Lin told us.

I expected ManServants to be an unpleasant experience – I’m not used to being waited on all the time, and it was really weird to hire someone to do it – but my friends and I later agreed that it was anything but. ManServants are trained to anticipate their clients’ needs, Wai Lin told us.

“Alejandro” immediately made himself comfortable in my cramped kitchen and immediately prepared drinks for us (my boyfriend and I provided the alcohol). True to ManServants’ word, I didn’t lift a finger for the entire hour that “Alejandro” was with me.

“Alejandro” entertained us with dramatic readings of our horoscopes. There was not an embarrassing moment the entire time “Alejandro” was there – he did his best to entertain us.

“Alejandro” also took the opportunity to fan us.

He also helped arrange (and fulfill) our music requests.

“Alejandro” took a lot of photos of me and my friends…

…and then insisted on a group selfie.

Afterwards, we went for a nice walk through my neighborhood. When “Alejandro” held his umbrella over me and my friends, we definitely got some doubtful looks from my neighbors.

After reciting a poem announcing his departure, “Alejandro” left the place. My friends and I agreed – it was a really fun experience, although due to the high price tag, ManServants is probably more suitable for a birthday party or bachelorette party than a casual Saturday night gathering.

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The post “ManServants lets you hire a man who will do your every whim for $125 an hour—here’s how it works” first appeared on Business Insider.