4 ms·

Having been one of the people who built Thumbtack (and a shareholder), this would have been much more of a concern 2 or 3 years ago. At this point Thumbtack (a

by birken 12y ago

Having been one of the people who built Thumbtack (and a shareholder), this would have been much more of a concern 2 or 3 years ago. At this point Thumbtack (and other companies like Homejoy) are big enough to be able to compete against huge companies. It isn't like the big guys can just jump into the market and undercut everybody on price. Most people who hire service professionals are looking for a high quality experience at a good value. Actually finding those high quality professionals and facilitating the experience with a customer is really really hard. You can't just underprice everybody, you can't just find the cheapest service providers. And having previously worked at Google, local services is like 10x higher touch than any other business Google has. Maybe they bite the bullet and try to do it, but this isn't a very Google-like business.

sparkzilla 12y ago
What about Google's documented history of pushing competitors lower in search rankings?
- Relys 12y ago
  Shouldn't that fall under some sort of antitrust law? Edit: Yikes, just saw the thread on EU antitrust accusations which got me thinking about the concept of a decentralized search engine. I found this: http://yacy.net/en/index.html http://yacy.net/en/index.html
  - kuschku 12y ago
    Exactly, and that’s why the EU trial is going on right now. Shopping and Places are two of the main problems the EU sees right now.
- birken 12y ago
  They already do. Search for "Los Angeles House Cleaning" (or many similar types of searches). There is a 'Google places' block of results pushing down people like Thumbtack and Homejoy. Having used both services, I can guarantee you Thumbtack or Homejoy is a much better result than the 'Google places' results linking to random house cleaners. For example, on my SERP this sparse, unhelpful page (https://plus.google.com/116731524137013411814/about?hl=en https://plus.google.com/116731524137013411814/about?hl=en) ranks above both Thumbtack and Homejoy. Once you are big enough you don't need to worry about Google anymore. When I want to buy a product, I don't search on Google and then go to Amazon; I go to Amazon directly. Whoever "wins" the local services space is likely to be similar. People will just go to that site and skip Google completely.
  - magicalist 12y ago
    hmm, what does your page look like? For me I get three ads on the top, but then I get two regular search links to LA house cleaning on yelp before you get to the Google places block. And even then, the second Google place in that block is Homejoy, and all the links for the places go to direct sites...you have to click the explicit link below each for the "Google+ page" to get to those pages.
  - vezycash 12y ago
    If this behavior is intentional, there's one other possible motive to consider - Adwords. I've learned to understand Google's actions by how such actions affect its ability to sell Ads.
  - kuschku 12y ago
    And THIS is exactly what the EU antitrust trial is about.
  - takeda 12y ago
    Not sure about that. Bing and DDG show it even lower. I doubt Microsoft or DDG would cooperate with Google on that.
rorykoehler 12y ago
Scaling a business like Homejoy while maintaining quality is virtually impossible. There is just not enough people who can consistently stay motivated to do a good job in that line of work 24/7 (well more like 8/5). I ran a similar company in Germany and when Rocket Internet decided to pump €44m or whatever ridiculous number it was into their own version it was game over. They were charging less than we paid our cleaners. Even with those resources (and tagging it off the back of their airbnb ripoff) I don't think they will succeed. I know we made a lot of mistakes like bootstrapping too long but having done the business for long enough I came to realise that high staff turnover is inevitable which adds another extra cost which in turn makes the business cost structure unsustainable. Hiring and training is expensive and time consuming and people just don't want to be cleaners long term.

by birken 12y ago

sparkzilla 12y ago

What about Google's documented history of pushing competitors lower in search rankings?

Relys 12y ago
Shouldn't that fall under some sort of antitrust law? Edit: Yikes, just saw the thread on EU antitrust accusations which got me thinking about the concept of a decentralized search engine. I found this: http://yacy.net/en/index.html http://yacy.net/en/index.html
- kuschku 12y ago
  Exactly, and that’s why the EU trial is going on right now. Shopping and Places are two of the main problems the EU sees right now.
birken 12y ago
They already do. Search for "Los Angeles House Cleaning" (or many similar types of searches). There is a 'Google places' block of results pushing down people like Thumbtack and Homejoy. Having used both services, I can guarantee you Thumbtack or Homejoy is a much better result than the 'Google places' results linking to random house cleaners. For example, on my SERP this sparse, unhelpful page (https://plus.google.com/116731524137013411814/about?hl=en https://plus.google.com/116731524137013411814/about?hl=en) ranks above both Thumbtack and Homejoy. Once you are big enough you don't need to worry about Google anymore. When I want to buy a product, I don't search on Google and then go to Amazon; I go to Amazon directly. Whoever "wins" the local services space is likely to be similar. People will just go to that site and skip Google completely.
- magicalist 12y ago
  hmm, what does your page look like? For me I get three ads on the top, but then I get two regular search links to LA house cleaning on yelp before you get to the Google places block. And even then, the second Google place in that block is Homejoy, and all the links for the places go to direct sites...you have to click the explicit link below each for the "Google+ page" to get to those pages.
- vezycash 12y ago
  If this behavior is intentional, there's one other possible motive to consider - Adwords. I've learned to understand Google's actions by how such actions affect its ability to sell Ads.
- kuschku 12y ago
  And THIS is exactly what the EU antitrust trial is about.
- takeda 12y ago
  Not sure about that. Bing and DDG show it even lower. I doubt Microsoft or DDG would cooperate with Google on that.

rorykoehler 12y ago

Scaling a business like Homejoy while maintaining quality is virtually impossible. There is just not enough people who can consistently stay motivated to do a good job in that line of work 24/7 (well more like 8/5). I ran a similar company in Germany and when Rocket Internet decided to pump €44m or whatever ridiculous number it was into their own version it was game over. They were charging less than we paid our cleaners. Even with those resources (and tagging it off the back of their airbnb ripoff) I don't think they will succeed. I know we made a lot of mistakes like bootstrapping too long but having done the business for long enough I came to realise that high staff turnover is inevitable which adds another extra cost which in turn makes the business cost structure unsustainable. Hiring and training is expensive and time consuming and people just don't want to be cleaners long term.