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 custom

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.