5 ms·

Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

82 points by brianchu 11y ago

detaro 11y ago
> Getting to that consistent Homejoy Cleaning proved to be way out of reach. As a result each product interaction could be wildly different, unlike the consistent factory packaged product vision that we were pushing. As a former colleague put it “Our product should’ve been positioned closer to finding the right match on OkCupid, as opposed to finding the right macbook”. Interesting quote that IMHO nicely sums up the differences between something like Homejoy and something like Uber. Not everything can be neatly packaged in a one-size-fits-all service.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Homejoy would not have succeed even if every one of their customers were to fall head-over-heels in love with their cleaner. Homejoy’s business model was fundamentally flawed and no tweaking or pivoting could ever solve this. There was no problem that could be solved with technology. No solution = no business. The only interesting thing out of the whole homejoy experiment was in exposing the shallowness of some VC’s business acumen. I wish we would see a reasoned explanation from the investors of why they put their limited partner’s money into Homejoy.
  - visakanv 11y ago
    > I wish we would see a reasoned explanation from the investors of why they put their limited partner’s money into Homejoy. "There's a 0.1% chance we could 10,000x'd our investment. It might be the next Uber or Airbnb or [[insert_supposed_unicorn]]. You don't want to look like a dinosaur who missed out on the next big thing, do you? It'll only cost you a fragment of your $$. C'mon. For Glory! For Frodo!" When it fails: "Eh, what can you do. Startups, amirite?"
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      This might be accurate, but it is hardly reasoned :)
MattRogish 11y ago
I think a theme that I keep hearing re: HomeJoy (I was a customer in 3 cities over 3-4 years) is they weren't solving the right problem. My problem as a customer wasn't finding a cleaner, but finding and retaining a cleaner I liked, was good, and I trusted. Their platform did none of the latter, and barely did the former. I couldn't pick cleaners based on rating. I couldn't even see rating. It took forever until I could request the same person come every week. And, I knew in the back of my mind I was paying Homejoy a premium that the cleaner didn't see. For what? They were begging clients and cleaners to setup an outside relationship. Price goes down for the client, cleaner gets paid more. Win/win. In my opinion what Homejoy should've done is paid for the connection - given my time preferences, match me with the best cleaner in my price range. Then I pay the cleaner directly. If Homejoy wants to setup stripe, collect just the 3% fee. Charge the cleaner for access to the platform, or charge me for the matchmaking. Or both. How do you get around the 1099 -> W2 issue? Have a series of training classes that the cleaners can optionally take, list this on their profile, allow them to level up. Provide services to allow individual cleaners to differentiate them from the pack (having dealt with dozens or more individual cleaners, there were clearly some that were just doing it as an experiment and some that made this their career). Yes, HomeJoy maybe wanted to treat cleaners like replaceable robots, but humans don't work that way. As the author stated, Homejoy was solving a human problem with engineering.
- birken 11y ago
  What you are talking about is essentially what Thumbtack does, and not surprisingly Thumbtack is a much healthier business. It is also nice that such a platform works pretty similarly across hundreds of different service categories, whereas such an ultra-specific platform like Homejoy only works for a few.
7Figures2Commas 11y ago
> ...the point I am trying to make is that the Homejoy team was exceptionally talented and did amazing things... > Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans... > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. The entire post describes a litany of horrible business decisions and mistakes that are hard to reconcile with the author's compliments of the Homejoy team.
- reikonomusha 11y ago
  It is entirely possible to have an extremely good team and talented, knowledgeable people as leaders, but that doesn't make good businesspeople or imply a good vision.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    This is true and it is where the investors should have stepped in. A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time."
    - visakanv 11y ago
      Hahaha, I'm replying to all your comments: > A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time." I think the investors think, "Hmm, I don't think the home cleaning market will be solved by technology, but the hell do I know? The last 3 times I said that, I was wrong, and my competitors made hella bank. Screw it, let's do it. They seem smart. They'll figure it out. And if they fail and make something better next time, we have the relationship." I totally agree with you about the need for prudence, by the way. But I'm not a VC, and I haven't experienced the pressures and challenges that a VC must face. The same "it's easy to judge the man in the arena" idea applies.
leothekim 11y ago
This epitomizes the arrogance and drowning self-absorbedness of Bay Area startups. And it does it in a Medium post. And wow, there are some real gems in this post. For example: "Customer interactions happen inside of their homes (anything that went wrong was grossly amplified)" What did you expect? THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE SELLING. "Client expectations vary wildly" Yup, different people like different things. News at 11. "High cleaner turn-over when product quality demands consistency" What did you expect? Any warm body off the street can be trusted to go in some stranger's home? "I could go on, but the point I am trying to make is that the Homejoy team was exceptionally talented and did amazing things given how punishing the industry was." Oh I'm sorry. What you were trying to do was hard. That's because you were doing it wrong in the first place. "To be fair legal constraints did throw a wrench into some of our plans." For serious? To be fair? Fair to whom? "Given what I’ve taken away from Homejoy I don’t look at it like a failure. I think there’s a morbid curiosity about what went wrong with a failed startup." I don't give two shits about your failed startup. You failed for patently obvious reasons. You trivialized the problem which, for a company founded by so-called two engineers, is the ultimate sin of engineering. "Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure." Delusions of grandeur.
- visakanv 11y ago
  I agree with every single thing about your comment. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if these guys go on to do other things, try again, fail again, try again, fail again, and eventually build something that actually works. It might not be immediately obvious, but deluded entrepreneurs (with their blind optimism and relentless trial-and-error) make the world a better place. I don't know if we should encourage or discourage it, and I'm not too sure if these people can be discouraged either. I suppose at best we can advocate for caution and due diligence.
  - leothekim 11y ago
    I'd agree with your comment. But the "Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure" closing and this [1] make me believe that an important lesson wasn't learned. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888
visakanv 11y ago
This (both the post and the comments here) are very interesting to me from a "some people are intrinsically optimistic and some people are intrinsically pessimistic" point of view. > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. Rationalization is a hell of a drug And I don't mean that in a snarky way– synthesized happiness every bit as "real" as "genuine" happiness. The brain doesn't discriminate. Dan Gilbert did a great TED talk [1] about this: > "Who are these characters who are so damn happy? The first one is Jim Wright. Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country lost everything. He lost his money, he lost his power. What does he have to say all these years later? "I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every other way." What other way would there be to be better off? Vegetably? Minerally? Animally? He's pretty much covered them there." Startups are often started by wildly optimistic people, while Internet messageboards tend to be populated by wildly pessimistic people. I'm not saying that either is better or worse, but it's an interesting phenomenon to witness. So the interesting thing here is... while Homejoy is obviously a failure, I legitimately believe that OP feels good about himself, and probably better than some successful founders feel about their successful startups. Rationalization is a hell of a drug. [2] PS: Another lesson I think the cynics and pessimists could take away from this (but, by definition, probably won't) is that you can get away with a lot more failure in this world than you imagine, and still probably end up on top. OP is still probably better off than a lot of us career-ily and in many other ways. I wonder, if blind optimism could be sold in a drink like coffee, would it be worth buying (in terms of net impact on well-being?) Seems like it might be. Curious for your thoughts. --- [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200912/downside-manufacturing-our-own-happiness https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200912/downs...
- danieltillett 11y ago
  It is fine for the team from Homejoy to be wild optimists, but not the VC investors. They are supposed to be a fiduciary with their limited partners money.
dangoldin 11y ago
Two years ago I was wondering why there was such a glut of these cleaning startups. The entire idea of applying the Uber model just didn't make sense - one is a commodity product with no way to bypass the middleman while the other requires letting someone into your home and encourages going off platform. Dug up the old post for those interested - http://dangoldin.com/2013/12/09/why-are-there-so-many-cleaning-startups/ http://dangoldin.com/2013/12/09/why-are-there-so-many-cleani...
xiaoma 11y ago
Interestingly, even after it had failed Homejoy was one of the few startups YC specifically called out as on the home page as examples of what the program could provide. I've only just now seen it updated not to include that section. What was it about Homejoy that got it so much attention, promotion from its investors and press from the media? What's the underrated startup that everyone has been overlooking during the same period?
stevebmark 11y ago
> Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans, but both wildly out of place given the nature of the problem we were solving. A tangent: This is something that scares me about many Bay area startups. What do software developers really care about home maintenance? This is a serious question. Some startups you can tell the founders are in love with the idea. The founders ARE the idea, and they're devoted to it. They believe it entirely independent of making money. Home care seems like a nuisance and a real world problem. But why devote your life to it? Again, this is a serious question, not a stab at Homejoy. It doesn't seem like a problem that anyone could seriously put their life's work into. It's not like you're a home repair person crafting the finest cabinets you can for clients. From an outsider's perspective, this seems like the founders could only superficially be in it for the money. For the > majestic startupville spell , but not for for the true, deep love of the idea. I've seen the Stanford engineer dropout start the clothing company. The bored engineer spin up yet another time tracking app that they don't use themselves. The car-less developer vagrant try to "disrupt" auto sales. I've been there before, brainstorming "startup" ideas. I'm glad none of them panned out, because I can't imagine being attached to any of them. Fringe ideas to make money and solve problems I didn't have. I don't know what makes a company successful, but to me a red flag is a mismatch of founder lifestyle and true, obvious investment in the idea. Can a successful startup be founded by someone who's only in it for the money? Probably, and many Bay area startups are probably in that category. The money's here, after all. Is it an unattainable ideal that the founders of a company truly believe in the product, entirely independent of financial success? Does that correlate with company success? I'd like to think so, even if just a fantasy. As an outsider, Homejoy doesn't appear to fall into that category, because I have a hard time believing two software engineers cared about the idea at their core, outside the obvious desire for something you build to succeed.
- liamcardenas 11y ago
  I don't know much about Homejoy or its founders, however, I wouldn't assume that they weren't dedicated to their idea. I believe that being excited about something is largely a choice. I, personally, could easily be excited about a cleaning related start up. And trust me, I hate cleaning... but there is a huge difference between the act of cleaning and making a cleaning service. Maybe you are right, but I think it is awfully speculative to say that they didn't "[care] about the idea at their core."
luluki 11y ago
A couple things stood out to me about Homejoy: -When seeing the founder Adora speak at YC female founders day, she talked about doing cleaning herself to learn how things worked, and something along the lines of it being embarrassing if she'd been "seen" by someone she knew. That underlined to me there wasn't really a respect for cleaners. It seemed strange to start a business where you think it's embarrassing to be one of your own staff. -When I did order Homejoy, the cleaner was sooo bad/slow that I felt that they'd secretly sent me one of their engineers who'd never cleaned an apartment before. He just seemed lost. He spent an hour and 45 minutes just cleaning my bathroom which was really strange. When he left, I realized that he'd moved the plunger out of the bathroom and left it on the bedroom floor and I had to move it back! It was just weird, an experienced cleaner wouldn't move a plunger into a clean area and just leave it there! I wrote a long email to them about the experience and they offered to send someone back to finish up the clean - of course I'd finished cleaning myself by then and said I wasn't interested. I didn't feel they really took my feedback to heart - it was detailed an took a while to write, but they didn't respond to any part of it directly.
alaskamiller 11y ago
600 days ago Exec pivoted and left the game. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7380912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7380912 Can we stop now?

82 points by brianchu 11y ago

> Getting to that consistent Homejoy Cleaning proved to be way out of reach. As a result each product interaction could be wildly different, unlike the consistent factory packaged product vision that we were pushing. As a former colleague put it “Our product should’ve been positioned closer to finding the right match on OkCupid, as opposed to finding the right macbook”. Interesting quote that IMHO nicely sums up the differences between something like Homejoy and something like Uber. Not everything can be neatly packaged in a one-size-fits-all service.

danieltillett 11y ago
Homejoy would not have succeed even if every one of their customers were to fall head-over-heels in love with their cleaner. Homejoy’s business model was fundamentally flawed and no tweaking or pivoting could ever solve this. There was no problem that could be solved with technology. No solution = no business. The only interesting thing out of the whole homejoy experiment was in exposing the shallowness of some VC’s business acumen. I wish we would see a reasoned explanation from the investors of why they put their limited partner’s money into Homejoy.
- visakanv 11y ago
  > I wish we would see a reasoned explanation from the investors of why they put their limited partner’s money into Homejoy. "There's a 0.1% chance we could 10,000x'd our investment. It might be the next Uber or Airbnb or [[insert_supposed_unicorn]]. You don't want to look like a dinosaur who missed out on the next big thing, do you? It'll only cost you a fragment of your $$. C'mon. For Glory! For Frodo!" When it fails: "Eh, what can you do. Startups, amirite?"
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    This might be accurate, but it is hardly reasoned :)

MattRogish 11y ago

I think a theme that I keep hearing re: HomeJoy (I was a customer in 3 cities over 3-4 years) is they weren't solving the right problem. My problem as a customer wasn't finding a cleaner, but finding and retaining a cleaner I liked, was good, and I trusted. Their platform did none of the latter, and barely did the former. I couldn't pick cleaners based on rating. I couldn't even see rating. It took forever until I could request the same person come every week. And, I knew in the back of my mind I was paying Homejoy a premium that the cleaner didn't see. For what? They were begging clients and cleaners to setup an outside relationship. Price goes down for the client, cleaner gets paid more. Win/win. In my opinion what Homejoy should've done is paid for the connection - given my time preferences, match me with the best cleaner in my price range. Then I pay the cleaner directly. If Homejoy wants to setup stripe, collect just the 3% fee. Charge the cleaner for access to the platform, or charge me for the matchmaking. Or both. How do you get around the 1099 -> W2 issue? Have a series of training classes that the cleaners can optionally take, list this on their profile, allow them to level up. Provide services to allow individual cleaners to differentiate them from the pack (having dealt with dozens or more individual cleaners, there were clearly some that were just doing it as an experiment and some that made this their career). Yes, HomeJoy maybe wanted to treat cleaners like replaceable robots, but humans don't work that way. As the author stated, Homejoy was solving a human problem with engineering.

birken 11y ago
What you are talking about is essentially what Thumbtack does, and not surprisingly Thumbtack is a much healthier business. It is also nice that such a platform works pretty similarly across hundreds of different service categories, whereas such an ultra-specific platform like Homejoy only works for a few.

7Figures2Commas 11y ago

> ...the point I am trying to make is that the Homejoy team was exceptionally talented and did amazing things... > Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans... > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. The entire post describes a litany of horrible business decisions and mistakes that are hard to reconcile with the author's compliments of the Homejoy team.

reikonomusha 11y ago
It is entirely possible to have an extremely good team and talented, knowledgeable people as leaders, but that doesn't make good businesspeople or imply a good vision.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  This is true and it is where the investors should have stepped in. A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time."
  - visakanv 11y ago
    Hahaha, I'm replying to all your comments: > A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time." I think the investors think, "Hmm, I don't think the home cleaning market will be solved by technology, but the hell do I know? The last 3 times I said that, I was wrong, and my competitors made hella bank. Screw it, let's do it. They seem smart. They'll figure it out. And if they fail and make something better next time, we have the relationship." I totally agree with you about the need for prudence, by the way. But I'm not a VC, and I haven't experienced the pressures and challenges that a VC must face. The same "it's easy to judge the man in the arena" idea applies.

leothekim 11y ago

This epitomizes the arrogance and drowning self-absorbedness of Bay Area startups. And it does it in a Medium post. And wow, there are some real gems in this post. For example: "Customer interactions happen inside of their homes (anything that went wrong was grossly amplified)" What did you expect? THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE SELLING. "Client expectations vary wildly" Yup, different people like different things. News at 11. "High cleaner turn-over when product quality demands consistency" What did you expect? Any warm body off the street can be trusted to go in some stranger's home? "I could go on, but the point I am trying to make is that the Homejoy team was exceptionally talented and did amazing things given how punishing the industry was." Oh I'm sorry. What you were trying to do was hard. That's because you were doing it wrong in the first place. "To be fair legal constraints did throw a wrench into some of our plans." For serious? To be fair? Fair to whom? "Given what I’ve taken away from Homejoy I don’t look at it like a failure. I think there’s a morbid curiosity about what went wrong with a failed startup." I don't give two shits about your failed startup. You failed for patently obvious reasons. You trivialized the problem which, for a company founded by so-called two engineers, is the ultimate sin of engineering. "Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure." Delusions of grandeur.

visakanv 11y ago
I agree with every single thing about your comment. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if these guys go on to do other things, try again, fail again, try again, fail again, and eventually build something that actually works. It might not be immediately obvious, but deluded entrepreneurs (with their blind optimism and relentless trial-and-error) make the world a better place. I don't know if we should encourage or discourage it, and I'm not too sure if these people can be discouraged either. I suppose at best we can advocate for caution and due diligence.
- leothekim 11y ago
  I'd agree with your comment. But the "Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure" closing and this [1] make me believe that an important lesson wasn't learned. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888

visakanv 11y ago

This (both the post and the comments here) are very interesting to me from a "some people are intrinsically optimistic and some people are intrinsically pessimistic" point of view. > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. Rationalization is a hell of a drug And I don't mean that in a snarky way– synthesized happiness every bit as "real" as "genuine" happiness. The brain doesn't discriminate. Dan Gilbert did a great TED talk [1] about this: > "Who are these characters who are so damn happy? The first one is Jim Wright. Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country lost everything. He lost his money, he lost his power. What does he have to say all these years later? "I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every other way." What other way would there be to be better off? Vegetably? Minerally? Animally? He's pretty much covered them there." Startups are often started by wildly optimistic people, while Internet messageboards tend to be populated by wildly pessimistic people. I'm not saying that either is better or worse, but it's an interesting phenomenon to witness. So the interesting thing here is... while Homejoy is obviously a failure, I legitimately believe that OP feels good about himself, and probably better than some successful founders feel about their successful startups. Rationalization is a hell of a drug. [2] PS: Another lesson I think the cynics and pessimists could take away from this (but, by definition, probably won't) is that you can get away with a lot more failure in this world than you imagine, and still probably end up on top. OP is still probably better off than a lot of us career-ily and in many other ways. I wonder, if blind optimism could be sold in a drink like coffee, would it be worth buying (in terms of net impact on well-being?) Seems like it might be. Curious for your thoughts. --- [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200912/downside-manufacturing-our-own-happiness https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200912/downs...

danieltillett 11y ago
It is fine for the team from Homejoy to be wild optimists, but not the VC investors. They are supposed to be a fiduciary with their limited partners money.

dangoldin 11y ago

Two years ago I was wondering why there was such a glut of these cleaning startups. The entire idea of applying the Uber model just didn't make sense - one is a commodity product with no way to bypass the middleman while the other requires letting someone into your home and encourages going off platform. Dug up the old post for those interested - http://dangoldin.com/2013/12/09/why-are-there-so-many-cleaning-startups/ http://dangoldin.com/2013/12/09/why-are-there-so-many-cleani...

xiaoma 11y ago

Interestingly, even after it had failed Homejoy was one of the few startups YC specifically called out as on the home page as examples of what the program could provide. I've only just now seen it updated not to include that section. What was it about Homejoy that got it so much attention, promotion from its investors and press from the media? What's the underrated startup that everyone has been overlooking during the same period?

stevebmark 11y ago

> Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans, but both wildly out of place given the nature of the problem we were solving. A tangent: This is something that scares me about many Bay area startups. What do software developers really care about home maintenance? This is a serious question. Some startups you can tell the founders are in love with the idea. The founders ARE the idea, and they're devoted to it. They believe it entirely independent of making money. Home care seems like a nuisance and a real world problem. But why devote your life to it? Again, this is a serious question, not a stab at Homejoy. It doesn't seem like a problem that anyone could seriously put their life's work into. It's not like you're a home repair person crafting the finest cabinets you can for clients. From an outsider's perspective, this seems like the founders could only superficially be in it for the money. For the > majestic startupville spell , but not for for the true, deep love of the idea. I've seen the Stanford engineer dropout start the clothing company. The bored engineer spin up yet another time tracking app that they don't use themselves. The car-less developer vagrant try to "disrupt" auto sales. I've been there before, brainstorming "startup" ideas. I'm glad none of them panned out, because I can't imagine being attached to any of them. Fringe ideas to make money and solve problems I didn't have. I don't know what makes a company successful, but to me a red flag is a mismatch of founder lifestyle and true, obvious investment in the idea. Can a successful startup be founded by someone who's only in it for the money? Probably, and many Bay area startups are probably in that category. The money's here, after all. Is it an unattainable ideal that the founders of a company truly believe in the product, entirely independent of financial success? Does that correlate with company success? I'd like to think so, even if just a fantasy. As an outsider, Homejoy doesn't appear to fall into that category, because I have a hard time believing two software engineers cared about the idea at their core, outside the obvious desire for something you build to succeed.

liamcardenas 11y ago
I don't know much about Homejoy or its founders, however, I wouldn't assume that they weren't dedicated to their idea. I believe that being excited about something is largely a choice. I, personally, could easily be excited about a cleaning related start up. And trust me, I hate cleaning... but there is a huge difference between the act of cleaning and making a cleaning service. Maybe you are right, but I think it is awfully speculative to say that they didn't "[care] about the idea at their core."

luluki 11y ago

A couple things stood out to me about Homejoy: -When seeing the founder Adora speak at YC female founders day, she talked about doing cleaning herself to learn how things worked, and something along the lines of it being embarrassing if she'd been "seen" by someone she knew. That underlined to me there wasn't really a respect for cleaners. It seemed strange to start a business where you think it's embarrassing to be one of your own staff. -When I did order Homejoy, the cleaner was sooo bad/slow that I felt that they'd secretly sent me one of their engineers who'd never cleaned an apartment before. He just seemed lost. He spent an hour and 45 minutes just cleaning my bathroom which was really strange. When he left, I realized that he'd moved the plunger out of the bathroom and left it on the bedroom floor and I had to move it back! It was just weird, an experienced cleaner wouldn't move a plunger into a clean area and just leave it there! I wrote a long email to them about the experience and they offered to send someone back to finish up the clean - of course I'd finished cleaning myself by then and said I wasn't interested. I didn't feel they really took my feedback to heart - it was detailed an took a while to write, but they didn't respond to any part of it directly.

alaskamiller 11y ago

600 days ago Exec pivoted and left the game. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7380912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7380912 Can we stop now?