21 ms·
Homejoy says goodbye
- cobrabyte 11y agoCrap... really liked this service.
- kevinkimball 11y agowhat happened?
- jbondeson 11y agoThe biggest is probably that the home care industries operate on such a shoe string budgets that there really isn't all that much room for a middleman to take a cut. This isn't taxis where you can bank on regulatory arbitrage to take a cut. They seemed to be trying to make money on customer acquisition and scheduling, but I'm sure they realized too late that their partner companies don't spend a huge amount of money on those activities.
- _delirium 11y ago> This isn't taxis where you can bank on regulatory arbitrage to take a cut. If anything, the incumbents are better positioned to arbitrage the law/regulations in this case. An online service like this leaves a paper trail, which makes it much harder to use the "shortcuts" common in the cleaning industry: use of undocumented immigrants, underreporting of taxable income, etc. Much easier to do that in a pure cash business with informal booking.
- smt88 11y agoMany stories about their problems, but here's one: http://fusion.net/story/142578/homejoy-uber-for-x-startups-may-be-in-trouble/ http://fusion.net/story/142578/homejoy-uber-for-x-startups-m... And maybe the main one: http://recode.net/2015/07/17/cleaning-services-startup-homejoy-shuts-down-after-battling-worker-classification-lawsuits/ http://recode.net/2015/07/17/cleaning-services-startup-homej...
- kevinkimball 11y agothanks, I had missed this
- devy 11y agoIf Uber have had defend their case and employee classification, perhaps HomeJoy may get their next round of funding and not have to close...but year, the timing sucks.
- anseljh 11y agoWow. Lots of doublespeak from the founder in the Re/code piece. While it's true that "The [California Labor Commission’s] Uber decision...was only a single claim", I'm not so sure it was "blown out of proportion." You could also see it as the tip of a big iceberg. Presumably, that's what the investors they were courting thought.
- legutierr 11y agoIf Homejoy cleaners were going to be classified as employees, entitled to minimum wage and subject to being verified as citizens or legal residents, then this seems like the right move. I can't see how they would ever be able to compete on price with all of the independent outfits out there that employ undocumented workers. It's one thing to sell your services at a loss while you're growing. In the home-cleaning business, though, there will never be a shortage of undocumented immigrants willing to work for less than minimum wage, quite possibly at a higher quality level. There would be no way to ever raise prices to fully cover costs without immediately losing out to that competition.
- acdha 11y agoI'm assuming it's related to the legal minefield of trying to avoid compensating their workers as employees: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/startup-workers-sue-to-be-recognized-as-employees-not-mere-contractors/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/startup-workers-s...
- dragonwriter 11y agoThat's probably part of it, but also, to the extent that they were bona fide contractors, the cost of actually policing them to prevent direct contracting with and referrals from the people they were matched with through Homejoy was probably a problem. Contracts may theoretically restrict this behavior, but actually policing them is non-trivial.
- acdha 11y agoYeah, I think that's part of the general cost breakdown here: something like house cleaning is already very competitive so there's a pretty narrow range where you can convince workers to give you a cut without pricing the service out of consideration. Successful attempts to do that rely on high volume, which is completely incompatible with the kind of things you mention or even basic customer service and quality review.
- dude_abides 11y agoThey got in trouble with lawsuits because of the recent Uber employee vs contractor verdict. In addition, they were bleeding cash in customer acquisition so that didn't help too. The lawsuit was the trigger but the bleeding of cash was the fundamental reason.
- smt88 11y agoNo surprise there. Tone-deaf marketing and there was a horror story a few years ago about the culture.
- krstck 11y agoWas this the company that posted their ad directly onto HN talking about how happy they were to be working on Christmas eve (or whatever holiday it was)?
- npizzolato 11y agoYes. Someone else linked it earlier in the comments, so here you go. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956
- duderific 11y agoFrom the post: "i wonder — how am i so fortunate to be the ceo of a startup where people are so driven?" Wow, that woman sounds incredibly obnoxious. Talk about a humblebrag.
- trg2 11y agoI think that was Handybook (now Handy), not Homejoy, right? http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-service-economy-startup-from-hell/ http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-s...
- ryandrake 11y agoWow, please tell me this is a fictional company. This reads like a caricature of everything wrong with the Silicon Valley tech scene.
- danielweber 11y agoAs discussed on HN at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8489273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8489273
- fraXis 11y agoI used Homejoy and I liked it's ease of use. But after the cleaning lady they sent me was done, she offered me her direct phone # and told me I could contact her directly for any future cleaning needs. I always wondered how this business model was going to work if Homejoy's contractors could just give out their phone # at the end of their first service and the customer could just contact them directly for any future needs, instead of going back through Homejoy for any future bookings.
- justinzollars 11y agoThis is exactly their problem. I wonder if LawnLove will have the same problem?
- sosuke 11y agoOr Handy
- _sentient 11y agoFounder of Lawn Love here. We think a lot about disintermediation risk. We do a number of things to prevent it, but it ultimately comes down to providing enough value to the supply side of your market. If you build a product that drives real, ongoing value for your service pros, they will be much less incentivised to cut you out of the transaction. The same is true for the demand side. Also, lawn care has a reduced risk profile compared to services that take place inside the home (maids/babysitting, etc). There is no key hand-off and the nature of the service is somewhat less intimate. Our customers don't need to be present for the work, which both reduces this risk and boosts the value of our platform as a means of managing your service.
- brudgers 11y agoI think one of the issues with Homejoy and disintermediation is that cleaning inside the home is well up the intimacy scale. It's different from say a commercial cleaning service. The risk for the customer is that next time they will send someone different. The new person will be more of an unknown quantity whereas the current cleaner, if they are good, is exactly who the customer wants sent out next time. When this happens, the customer benefits more from coordinating their schedule with the individual cleaner than from the on-demand scheduling via Homejoy. For Homejoy, saying "we are bonded and insured" reduces reluctance for a first you or when on-demand service is the primary consideration. But for recurring service, having trust with an individual beats the crap out of being able to point to the contract or collect against a bonding agency if something goes wrong. [aside: I found Adora Cheung's presentation for How to Start a Startup thought provoking: http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ ]
- pyrrhotech 11y agoI really loved the idea, and maybe I'm just being cheap, but no way I was going to pay $250+ a month to have my 1296 sq ft house cleaned. That's a $150/month value at market rates in my area. $100/month for a bit of convenience was not worth it at all to me.
- pdabbadabba 11y agoI had the same experience. I signed up but, when it came time to actually make a reservation I did some comparison shopping and found many cheaper alternatives. I think Homejoy's main challenge is simply the vast pool of available labor out there, much of which is also bonded and insured, like Homejoy, and that is already quite accessible to customers. The added layer of technological ease that Homejoy brought to the table was welcome, but ultimately not worth too much monetarily. For me, the real barrier to hiring a home cleaning service is the awkwardness and trust problems of having a stranger cleaning my house. And the technological mediation that Homejoy and similar services provide actually heighten this feeling of alienation, if anything. To make matters worse, I then got an almost comically confrontational phone call from a Homejoy rep demanding to know why I hadn't completed my booking. This is probably an isolated case (maybe the rep was just having a bad day?), but it certainly didn't make me feel like I was missing out on much--all the more so since this experience was so at odds with the rest of the Homejoy brand.
- reagency 11y agoIs your market rate using legal taxpaying workers?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pyrrhotech 11y agoI live in Hayward
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- icpmacdo 11y agoThis is a pretty big company going under right, a billion + ?
- ivankirigin 11y agoThey've raised $40M. I'd be surprised if they were valued at more than $400M when they raised the last $38M, but I don't think that was public. http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/05/homejoy-38-m/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/05/homejoy-38-m/
- aestetix 11y agoIf your company cannot afford to stay in the black with real employees (as opposed to contractors), you need to re-evaluate your business model. Edit: and the downvotes are rolling in! Would anyone who has downvoted this comment care to share why?
- socalnate1 11y agoErr, they did. They is why they are shutting down.
- aestetix 11y agoI realize that. I'm simply pointing out that this is not the last time we'll see this kind of news.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoOr perhaps we need to re-evaluate our laws surrounding employment. Events like this (supposing they were caused by employment laws) are perfect illustrations of how overregulation kills jobs.
- aestetix 11y agoThere are laws surrounding employment? California is an at-will state. Further, 1099 contractors don't get health insurance, workers comp, or any coverage by the employer. There's also no assurance of long-term employment, thus no reason for the company to be loyal.
- jes 11y agoYes, there are laws surrounding employment. Minimum wage laws are one example. IRS regulations/tests as to whether you are an employee or a contractor are another.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoThere are laws surrounding employment? California has extensive laws that impose fixed costs on employers (paid family leave, for example). CA is also notorious for lawsuit risks. There are also federal laws - Obamacare for anyone working 31+ hours, and many more. In economics, fixed costs and regulations like this are called "rigidities", and are well known to cause shortages/surpluses and misallocation of resources. (E.g., according to Keynesian economics, such things cause most/all recessions.)
- icelancer 11y agoThe service was getting increasingly terrible in my market. I am not surprised at all to see it go the way of the dinosaur. Too bad, this type of service has a lot of value to busy professionals and people with families.
- reagency 11y agoThe housecleaning industry still exists without homejoy
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Too bad, this type of service has a lot of value to busy professionals and people with families. Housecleaning service has a lot of value to professionals and people with families, to be sure. But that service existed long before Homejoy, exists in more places than Homejoy ever served, and was served by plenty of providers not working through Homejoy even where Homejoy provided services. I'm less convinced that Homejoy brought indispensable new value to the table for customers or cleaners.
- icelancer 11y agoI only started using housecleaning when Homejoy came around. The ease of use of the platform was a significant value-add. Also the price.
- tptacek 11y agoI get the sense that many of the people involved in Homejoy are well-intentioned and hardworking. But I can't say that I think it's a bad thing that tech startups are finding it difficult to monetize unskilled labor. The technology that most companies like these offer (with the possible exception of Uber) is a commodity. The real asset they have is the network effect. Which makes the balance of power between the tech company and the "1099 contractors" deeply suspicious. What are these companies doing for the laborers that makes them valuable enough to be skimming returns from the work?
- ivankirigin 11y agoGetting them more customers is incredibly valuable! I've heard this as a need from literally every service provider I've ever used. They relish referrals.
- tortilla 11y agoYes, more customers, but I don't know if the end result was more money?
- reagency 11y agoOnly if the customer base is growing. Otherwise, it is just taking revenue from another provider.
- msellout 11y agoHomejoy expected that a better service would increase the customer base. I don't hire a maid currently, but if it were easy to find a trustworthy and thorough maid, I might.
- tptacek 11y agoThat depends. It's incredibly valuable if the provider retains those customers. But if the service is set up to fence off the customer relationship from the provider, that's a much harder argument to make!
- outside1234 11y agoPretty interesting analysis around how the funding in the sharing economy is drying up after the "they are employees" decision by California.
- Diamons 11y agoI read it as: We had 3 years to exploit a loophole with $40MM in the bank and couldn't build a real business, so we're using California's law as a scapegoat.
- andersonmvd 11y agoI saw them on How to start a Startup. Was a good lecture. Sad to see they closing the doors.
- ianlevesque 11y agoI'm just so glad they didn't say it was an incredible journey.
- frou_dh 11y agoEvidently we'll be exposed to the phrase either way.
- jimjamjim 11y agoAs a former customer (have not used in years), I actually felt uncomfortable with the cleaners. Not because of anything they did, but because you could just tell they were low income and being paid very little by Homejoy (I think less than $15/hr). It didn't feel right, and I stopped using them in part because of that.
- ggreer 11y agoSo then they didn't get paid and you didn't get a clean home? That seems like a loss for both parties. Also, Homejoy let you tip, with 100% of that money going to the cleaner(s). I usually gave the cleaners a 20% tip.
- jimjamjim 11y agoI would pay more for a professional cleaner. I have no idea what the experience level of the average Homejoy cleaner is but I had very mixed experiences when I used them.
- ggreer 11y agoAh, that objection (varying quality) is more understandable. I didn't have a single bad experience. The level of cleaning was the same as other services.
- ryandrake 11y agoYou felt uncomfortable that they made less than $15/hr and solved that by making sure they never got any business from you again?
- stevejohnson 11y agoFor a house with 4 roommates, this service worked great as a solution to the "tragedy of the common [space]" problem. We've been using them for a year or more now and I'll be sad to see them go. I hope they follow through on putting people in touch with the actual cleaners.
- reagency 11y agoHow are you not in touch with the person who cleaned your house for a year?
- telecuda 11y agoEasy (Homejoy customer here). They show up at the scheduled time, say hello, clean, leave. I'm sure it's a personal relationship for some customers but wasn't for me.
- stevejohnson 11y ago(1) It was a different person every time, and (2) all booking is done online, with SMS interactions piped through Twilio.
- mynameisvlad 11y agoNot necessarily for #1. After my first cleaning was good, I requested the same cleaner for all following appointments.
- eonw 11y agothis isnt that abnormal. i used to not see my cleaning lady for many months at a time. just left a $50 on the counter every wednesday on my way to work, came home to clean house, folded clothes, everything in its place... it was awesome.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- minimaxir 11y agoThis serves as a strong counterpoint to the infamous "Dear Future Homejoy Engineer" HN job posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956 Working as a family on a holiday may not be enough to save a startup.
- mycroft-holmes 11y agoThat post still makes me cringe.
- CPLX 11y agoSometimes when you think you're "building things that enable and will change the way people live and work" you might just be missing out on family time as a young person because you've prioritized your goal of helping make the affluent slightly more affluent.
- jimjamjim 11y agoterrifying.
- kaihanga 11y agoNot only that but apparently "this is not an overnight venture; we know it'll take a long time, and we’re all committed to it." Appears to have been exactly a 204 day "commitment". "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." seems apt. For job hunters, be alert and suspicious when hiring and marketing overlap. Best of luck to the ex-HomeJoy engineers.
- blake8086 11y agoI actually just had my home cleaned yesterday through this service. I'll be sad to see it go =(
- blake8086 11y agoI just had my home cleaned yesterday through this service. I'll be sad to see it go.
- jjarmoc 11y agoWhen I hear about companies like this going under, I always think how odd it is that I've never previously heard about them. Then I realize, that may have been part of the problem.
- dfar1 11y agoI never heard of them either, but then again I never needed those kind of services.
- joshstrange 11y agoI had heard of them but with most companies that spring up then wind down a little later they never expanded to where I live. I would have loved to try them though.
- toephu2 11y agoYou were probably not their target audience, or probably never google'd for home cleaning services, if you did, you would have heard of them.
- bishnu 11y agoThis is surprising to me. I'm INUNDATED with Homejoy ads all over the internet. I've never used them (which also might have been part of their problem). Perhaps you just live somewhere they don't provide service to yet? :)
- jjarmoc 11y agoI don't know.. Google confirms they covered my area. I really don't look for house cleaning services, so maybe I just didn't get targeted for ads.
- jwise0 11y agoIt looks like they have taken the Steve Miller Band approach [1] to users who are also creditors: http://blog.homejoy.com/faqs/ http://blog.homejoy.com/faqs/ . Hope you didn't have a gift card! [1] i.e., hoo hoo hoo, go on, take the money and run
- acabrahams 11y agoI never used the Homejoy service, but I was in the audience for the Startup School Europe talks last year where Adora gave a fantastic speech (Notes: http://theinflexion.com/blog/2014/07/26/notes-from-startup-school-europe-london/#adora_cheung_homejoy http://theinflexion.com/blog/2014/07/26/notes-from-startup-s...) about going through so many ideas and working so hard to get to Homejoy. The talk's ending had a 'And look, we made it, so you can too' feel, and I had no idea that they were doing anything but crushing it after all those years of grinding work. Its hard not to be disheartened when a pair who seem to have worked as hard as they have still don't make it with an idea. I just hope they keep going.
- lesingerouge 11y agoThe question that comes to my mind is: should an entrepreneur really "fake it till you make it"?
- DarthMader 11y agoYes - even if you're not an entrepreneur
- Retra 11y agoThat's really just another way of advocating practice.
- jaxomlotus 11y agoYes. Especially in a game where you are dependent on raising capital, you always need to have an air of confidence about you.
- Zigurd 11y agoI get the opposite reaction when I hear of someone grinding away until they've got a startup. I understand that investors invest in people. But the idea has to have a life of it's own, and a value on its own. I remember when urban adventure games were a thing, and a thing that tended to attract very energetic people. But it was shown that no matter how much hustle you've got, urban adventure games are not an investable thing.
- ylhert 11y agoIs this the beginning of the end of the on-demand bubble?
- why-el 11y agoThere is a qualitative difference between this and other on-demand services such as Uber in that you will never see the "here is my phone number" phenomenon in Uber.
- ylhert 11y agoUber will be the eBay of this "bubble", which I think is limited to on demand startups but not startups as a whole. It'll be one of the few co's to survive, imo
- DarthMader 11y agoI can see Postmates and Uber as the only eventual survivors in 10 years.
- philip1209 11y agoThey've raised almost $40M in funding: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/homejoy https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/homejoy
- BinaryIdiot 11y agoI wonder if they will be returning any money to investors and if so how much.
- philip1209 11y agoIf they shut down due to lawsuits, don't debt holders (plaintiffs) get priority access to remaining cash?
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoJust goes to show you that all the money in the world can't save a bad business model.
- yumraj 11y agoAccording to Recode article they were looking to raise more money. Am curious how could they have burned $40mil in ~1.5 years..
- DarthMader 11y agoLoss leading sales that attracted 1 time customers that either never came back and/or decided to cut them out.
- arihant 11y agoCould they operate as small business and/or flip the company as a running small business? I imagine home cleaning is sort of loyalty space, where they must have a good number of regulars? It's also interesting that they are managing a workforce of around a 1000 cleaners, and they burnt through $40 MM. That's the amount of seed Elon Musk needed for SpaceX.
- loganu 11y agoI'm assuming they folded before burning $40m. IMO, it would be hard to go through that much money when you have (hundreds of?) thousands of customers and (should have) a decent profit margin. I'm more inclined to believe that HomeJoy was sold to investors as the beginning of a platform, and when it failed to hit traction, or growth potential seemed to stall, the investors decided to cut their losses and move on.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoElon put 100mm into SpaceX. Plus a few venture rounds prior to their Falcon launch so 100mm +
- telecuda 11y agoHomejoy customer here. For me, they succeeded in making home cleaning accessible to a guy in his early 30s who clicked a few buttons past a Facebook ad to schedule 2x/mo cleaning - a big stress reliever and quality of life improver. I never used a cleaning service prior to Homejoy. Where they failed was in providing an adequate supply of cleaners (no one available for weeks on occasion) and last-minute cancellations without substitutes. Never did a cleaner solicit me to hire direct, but I DO think Homejoy should leave their customers with a way to reach the cleaners I did like for rehiring. Why not, after all?
- ivankirigin 11y agoCofounder Adora Cheung is worth following. The story is a great example for founders. Check out her lecture at Sam Altman's startup class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP176MBG9Tk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP176MBG9Tk
- callmeed 11y agoSo we should watch a video about "how to go from zero users to many users" from someone who did it by selling services at a loss and then going out of business?
- mixmastamyk 11y agoFailure is the path to success, no?
- joslin01 11y agoYes, but that doesn't mean you should exactly seek out the advice of those who haven't conquered the failures and reached the end of the road of "success". Everyone has their own wisdom to offer, but I would agree with the parent, there's more notable persons to learn from and I personally feel most comfortable with someone who has BOTH failed & succeeded.
- mixmastamyk 11y agoSorry, you can learn from other's failures just like you can their successes... and maybe their big success comes in a few years.
- joslin01 11y agoOf course! That's why I explicitly said everyone has their wisdom to share. Nevertheless, we all must pan our knowledge in some form or another.
- 11y ago
- codingdave 11y agoHomeJoy seemed OK, but I never seriously looked at them because I have always been so happy with ServiceMagic (now HomeAdvisor). When you have a solid competitor who has been in business since 1999, you need a strong differentiator. HomeJoy was/seemed more focused on cleaning, HomeAdvisor on repairs and improvements... but it always seemed to me that they were trying to re-invent a wheel that didn't need re-invention.
- storgendibal 11y agoHigher prices, questionable convenience, and poorer service. The quality of the cleaning had deteriorated over time and the price was higher than independent cleaners I later found through personal referrals. I had 4 different Homejoy cleaners. The very first one was awesome and I thought, "Wow, this is great". Then every single cleaner after that was terrible. Two of them started wet mopping before vacuuming or using a dry swiffer, thus pushing wet dirt around. Another one let the toilet brush sit in the toilet in a way that the entire brush, handle and all, fell in. When I came over to oversee her, to make sure she doesn't do other things like that, she got angry and refused to work until I went into another room. As other's have said, the model sucks. In order to make money, you need to charge above market rates to get your cut. In order to justify that, you need to offer something to both sides of the market. The customer expects convenience and high quality service. If you cannot provide both those things, why would people use Homejoy? And of course, what are you offering the service provider to stay on your platform? Lastly, there was no Android app and the web app had so many bugs that even the sign-up flow was hit or miss. The sign-up flow! Logging in from my phone never worked and I always had to use a laptop. Unreal.
- brazzledazzle 11y ago>she got angry and refused to work until I went into another room. I would have kicked her out. Yikes.
- storgendibal 11y agoI was tempted. The atmosphere got very uncomfortable. I canceled all my recurring appointments after that cleaning. I had a cleaner through a personal referral in Seattle, who for $60, cleaned my place so well that I'd be happy just coming home to the neat and spotless apartment. When I moved out of Seattle, she packed up my stuff for $160. Movers would have charged >$700. Needless to say, I paid her a lot more than the $160 that she was asking for. When you have had service professionals like that in the past, the crappy and rude service from Homejoy contractors feels even worse. Someone else wrote a similar thing about a cleaner who took 45 minutes to clean the bathroom floor and then got angry when the customer asked them to move to the next room to clean. Another person wrote how they suspect the cleaner attempted to steal their jewelry.
- amerf1 11y ago"I used Homejoy and I liked it's ease of use. But after the cleaning lady they sent me was done, she offered me her direct phone # and told me I could contact her directly for any future cleaning needs." I used Airbnb and the host told me the same thing, he said book 3 nights and the other 20 pay me cash or transfer the amount to my account and avoid the Airbnb fee
- bkjelden 11y agoI think the key differentiator between successful "uber for X" companies and unsuccessful ones will end up being the customer experience in the industry each company attacks. Before uber, getting a taxi sucked. Talked to anyone who traveled extensively before uber, and they'll have plenty of stories about cabbies who tried to rip them off. AirBNB is having similar success because getting a hotel also sucked - it was often overpriced, and the quality of the room often sucked, and as a consumer you didn't really have any feedback into the system. But home services? Most people I know are able to mine their personal network pretty easily to find good home cleaning and home repair services. Or at least, it's a lot easier for them to do that than not get ripped off by a taxi driver. These companies won't win in every industry "just because". In order for these companies to be successful, they have to bring some improved experience to the table that customers simply won't be able to live without once they've tried it. Sad to see things come to an end for the team, though. I hope they find great success in whatever they pursue next.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoMy experience is the opposite: finding a good cleaner is harder than finding a taxi or a good hotel. Sure, you can ask all your friends for recommendations for cleaners, but the good ones are always fully booked.
- tomlongson 11y agoI have a hard time understanding this. The markup and demand is extremely high. Were they just overvalued so couldn't meet expectations?
- uptown 11y agoIf you believe the reviews on Glassdoor, internal management was a major problem: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Homejoy-Reviews-E686596.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Homejoy-Reviews-E686596.htm
- binarysolo 11y agoI'm surprised they didn't offer to transition/sell their customers to Handy... that's prolly mid-tens of dollars in lead-gen fees off an active customer list of... thousands of customers probably (as well as a less-active list prolly in the tens of thousands range)?
- tomlongson 11y agoYeah, cost of acquisition is a big deal.
- euphoria83 11y agoI tried using Homejoy multiple times but decided against it each time. The reasons varied from their cost, to not getting specific enough services, etc. I think they lacked in implementation, at least a little bit.
- dlu 11y agoWhat? I had no clue this was comming. I'm surprised there wasn't more signs
- nicholas73 11y agoI once asked Adora why they are not a marketplace instead. She replied that the branding and bonded/insured cleaners would be more attractive to customers. Obviously easy to say in retrospect what mattered in the end, but I'm wondering what is a method to test this kind of assumption? I go by my own use case - I really only care about price, and I build trust by the person and not by the company. I prefer to stay home while it's being serviced as well.
- ghufran_syed 11y agoI had the same thought about making it a marketplace, which of course means you have to provide value to both the buyers and the sellers. Some ideas on how you might do that: 1) allow cleaners to set their own prices / times / availability at short notice 2) have users give reviews -> encourages quality 3) provide the bonding / insurance as an optional service to the contractor, not the customer, but make clear on the listings who is and is not bonded / insured. 4) only have reviews from current customers be easily available (or maybe bad reviews live for ever, good reviews only show if from current customers ??), so there is an incentive to stay on the platform, as it represents your marketing channel 5) take a fixed, smaller percentage It seems like there is a problem in the market when you have an overwhelming supply of people willing to clean, but low actual demand due to high price:value ratio. You can interpret the difference in price between the cheapest 'craigslist' cleaner and the professional cleaning service as the 'price of ignorance' regarding the honesty and quality of the cleaner. It seems that Homejoy was trying to control quality, and then claim that price premium for themselves (as does every other professional cleaning company), while pretending that their cleaners were contractors, not employees. I think they might have been more successful if they tried to build tools that actually reduced that price premium, by making it easier for people to judge the quality of cleaners, in turn making it easier for the better cleaners to charge more, and driving the bad cleaners out of the market. You would expect the average quality/price to go up due to competition and better information, which would raise volumes, and you would still end up making money, just a smaller percentage of a much bigger market. I recall the story about how Ms Cheung spent some period of time working as a cleaner, to learn about the cleaning business. I suspect she learnt a lot about the mechanics of cleaning a house, but not necessarily what it is like actually trying to survive for several months only on the income generated as a self-employed cleaner: I wonder if Homejoy's relationship with its' cleaners and its' business model might have been different if she had?
- jasonwilk 11y agoI wanted HomeJoy to work and tried to use the service a few times. What the failure came down to: 1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. 2. People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean. Especially for those that have valuables, you want someone you trust who is going to hopefully be your maid for years to come. I wouldn't want someone new every time and for that reason, I used HomeJoy only at our office but even that wasn't enough due to poor quality. Someone on this thread further explained this well, which is that HomeJoy is at a high level, a match making service. Once you find a match, why do you need HomeJoy? Connect directly with the maid and have them come on your own schedule for a fraction of the price. I used to feel the same way about Uber. If I found a good driver back in the day I would get his phone # and take him exclusively to the airport. Uber solved this with UberX and by having a wealth of seemingly skilled drivers that made it a true on demand service. Having to book an appointment like HomeJoy seems like it is not a true OnDemand service, just a nicer UI than any other maid connecting service. AirBnB I feel had a similar problem. For frequent business travelers, finding the right place at the right price is awesome and I would usually try to stay at the same place and connect with people directly. AirBnB solved this with overwhelming demand for the service (the place I like may not always be available) and with their insurance policy and scheduling tools for renters. In any event, I don't feel like HomeJoy failing is indiciative of a bubble in the On Demand economy. There were inherent principles of this business that made it destined to fail that others in the space won't have a problem with.
- markonthewall 11y ago> the lack of passion from the cleaners I doubt cleaning other people's shit is anyone's passion.
- joslin01 11y agoJust as much as I doubt checking me out in a check-out line is anyone's idea of "passion", but it's still rude and unprofessional to not show me courtesy. You don't get a moral blank-check just because you don't like your job.
- cjf4 11y agoThis one's interesting to me, because it seems like they had done all the right things, had a real product, and worked really hard (I think I remember Graham saying she worked as a cleaner part time during YC). Without knowing any of the specifics, this seems to be a good correction of a couple threads of thought. Most notably, startups are not a science, and not every business that is technologically lagging will be drastically changed by a modern tech platform. It really comes down to value. Seems so simple but I think the startup community would do well to incorporate the importance of creating value in their pedagogy.
- callmeed 11y agoSo Forbes named Homejoy one of the hottest startups of 2013 (and they make a 30 under 30 list). They raise money from top-tier VCs and angels. Adora does quite a bit of speaking (it seems) on growth, regional expansion, and startup inspiration. They expanded to 30+ markets. But they were really just selling cleaning services for below cost–on the backs of 1099 workers. It's a worse model than Groupon and I can't fathom how the founders or investors thought it would work. It all feels icky to me.
- CrackpotGonzo 11y agoExactly this. I always felt that this was just another doomed startup that couldn't possibly survive. Curious how we'll revise our views on the company and Adora. I guess this is the playbook, right? Doesn't matter if you build a sustainable company or not. As long as you raise crazy amounts of VC $ you're considered a success.
- slackstation 11y agoI thought about this. Someone made a reddit article outlining how to do this and the profit margin depended on skirting the 1099 rules. This isn't a scalable business. Technology doesn't change the basic factors of the business in any meaningful way. I setup plans, bought a domain, had a partner but, never ended up doing it. My partner was disgusted with it as we were planning and over time convinced me. Home cleaning is a well established business. The market is well served by multiple traditional companies. A Bootstrap 3.0 website and mobile app aren't really going to change that much. It's an uphill battle and trying to take the Uber model of skirting worker protection laws is your only real source of competitive advantage over time.
- myth_buster 11y agoTechnology doesn't change the basic factors of the business in any meaningful way. I think this is the key point. Add to it the loose coupling with the workforce may make the sharing economy model rattle. One exception I can think off is AirBnB.
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- gsharma 11y agoI never used Homejoy, as they were pretty pricey. I have cleaners charging me 1/3 of what Homejoy quoted. That being said, I talked to several (10-15) people who used Homejoy at least once. The responses I got from most of those people was that the cleaners weren't professional. In fact several of them mentioned that cleaners didn't know what Homejoy was. They were sent for cleaning by their contractors. In other terms, the cohort I talked to had a really low NPS for Homejoy. I think Homejoy wasn't able to nail down that user experience of their real product (i.e. Cleaning) no matter how amazing their on-boarding/booking experience was. It must be very disheartening for the founders and the team. All the best to the their next adventures!
- birken 11y agoAt the end of the day, this is a lesson in unit economics. If you want to make a successful startup, your unit of sale better be super profitable. Most successful technology companies sell bits, with high fixed costs but very small marginal costs. This means if you grow really big, your fixed cost growth will eventually flatten out but your profit can continue to grow. Facebook, Google, AirBnb, Uber. If you are selling something in the real world, especially if you are owning the whole process, then your marginal costs are going to be pretty high, which means your profit margin is going to be lower. This is completely fine and a ton of businesses run like this, but these businesses have to be very careful with their fixed costs. You can't grow like your average tech startup because this model is different than most tech startups. The exact reason they are going out of business is less important than the fact that a business with high marginal costs is very fragile. A slight increase in a high marginal cost can destroy your profit margin, whereas if your marginal cost is extremely low then you are much more resilient. High fixed costs + low marginal cost = Good High fixed costs + high marginal cost = Be careful
- mslev 11y ago"Unfortunately, we cannot process any refunds or credits at this time." Ouch. What would cause them to not be able to offer refunds?
- joslin01 11y agoI reckon running out of money -- money which is also needed to employ those who process the refunds.
- zaidf 11y agoMy problem with Homejoy/Handy etc. is the high degree of unpredictability in the quality of each cleaning. My conclusion is that for something like home cleaning, you want to find a regular person -- not someone new each week. Our regular cleaner(which I found through nextdoor) recently had to quit. It was enough to upset me for a bit because finding a quality and consistent and affordable cleaner is very hard. Luckily I was able to find another promising cleaner from nextdoor. When looking for a regular cleaner, one of the things I have learned is that you want a "career" cleaner. You don't want someone who is doing it as a past time to make some extra cash. That might work with Uber/driving but it doesn't seem to work with cleaning that well. If a non-serious Uber driver cancels the ride, you just call another one. If your cleaner doesn't show up, you can easily lose a day before finding a replacement(and hoping he/she delivers).
- qq66 11y ago> You don't want someone who is doing it as a past time to make some extra cash. That might work with Uber/driving Until your Uber driver takes a left turn onto Shoreline Boulevard without looking, and nearly kills you.
- zaidf 11y agoThat is hardly an Uber problem. In fact, professional cab drivers are famous for dangerous driving. Example: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/taxi-driver-involved-fatal-crash-loses-license-officials-article-1.2158133 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/taxi-driver-in...
- serkanh 11y agoAny type of business that based on being intermediary between buyer and seller run the risk of "losing" customers. This holds especially true with service business. I ran a nationwide lead generation service which basically matches POS/Payment processing companies with retail/restaurant business which was purely performance based. No initiation fee, no monthly fees to enroll with only 5% commission on the closed leads. And guess what; even if i sent the business tens of leads (averaging $7000 value with at least 40% profit) per month they resorted to either not pay or simply became incredibly sloppy on follow ups so i required to be in the loop. I may have not bring in any additional value to acquirer of the service, but for the service provider i was offering them a qualified business opportunity which they would not otherwise obtained.
- confiscate 11y agoSorry to hear this guys. Know you guys worked hard on this. Best of luck
- S4M 11y agoI'm surprised. I don't know much about Homejoy but I read once that it was the company in the YC portfolio that has the highest growth, so I thought they would become a unicorn at some point. What happened to them?
- boston345 11y agoYou can always spend dollars to buy quarters. It's very different to flip that and the folks at Homejoy couldn't. I believe the key problem is that you can't train a housecleaner and still treat them as a contractor.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- 7Figures2Commas 11y agoHomejoy was (at least at one point) the fastest growing company in YC history according to PG[1], and if you go back and read the press, particularly around its funding, it was treated like it was already a success. Its rapid demise is a good reminder that growth isn't profit, and funding from top tier investors doesn't actually signal that you are building a sustainable business. Incidentally, I have pointed out the employee misclassification issue numerous times[2][3], and wrote last year[4]: > It's going to be very interesting in the coming years to see which of these on-demand companies continue to thrive because I personally think it's inevitable that many of them are going to be forced to reclassify their workers as employees. I suspect some investors aren't giving this enough consideration in their due diligence. If investors are now doing their due diligence (gasp) and realizing that many of these portfolio companies are not going to be able to effectively defend against misclassifcation class actions, Homejoy is not going to be the last of these highly-funded on-demand companies to literally hit a wall. [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1uyr6r/homejoy_is_the_fastest_growing_company_in_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/comments/1uyr6... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8489834 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8489834 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8468863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8468863 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8709632
- ChuckMcM 11y agoAnd the recode story (http://recode.net/2015/07/17/cleaning-services-startup-homejoy-shuts-down-after-battling-worker-classification-lawsuits/ http://recode.net/2015/07/17/cleaning-services-startup-homej...) which has a bit more clarity. Trying to fund raise a sharing economy business just after Uber gets a bad court decision on the employee/contractor question is hard. It is almost like having your company go back to being a 'seed round' level risk for some investors. It also lends credibility to the 'not a bubble' discussions if stage C investors are showing restraint but that is a different discussion.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y ago> It also lends credibility to the 'not a bubble' discussions if stage C investors are showing restraint but that is a different discussion. Yes, It's Not a Bubble(TM) if companies with significant and obvious legal risk are only raising $30+ million Series Bs but not $100+ million Series Cs. Oh wait[1][2]. Employment class action attorneys couldn't have designed companies more vulnerable to lawsuits if they tried. Some of these VCs should have just written checks directly to the class action attorneys. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/instacart-raised-220-million-2015-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/instacart-raised-220-million-... [2] http://time.com/3748438/instacart-lawsuit/ http://time.com/3748438/instacart-lawsuit/
- danieltillett 11y agoI agree 100%. The VC should have put all the class action law firms in this area on a retainer.
- nabeel 11y agoExcept that article is dead wrong. The court decisions were a convenient scapegoat that had nothing to do with the shutdown whatsoever.
- nodesocket 11y agoI literally just had my place cleaned yesterday by HomeJoy. I have a small studio apartment in SF, and it cost $110 total. While it was expensive, the cleaner actually did a really great job, though it was a bit difficult communicating (she is Chineese, and not fluent in English). I honestly never saw this coming, as I assumed HomeJoy was doing awesome. It will be interesting to see how Exec/Handy handle things moving forward. The startup game is tough!
- Skrypt 11y agoAs happy customers & friends of the company I'm sad to hear this news today. I wish everyone on the team all the best. I'm curious to one day read a post mortem on the company, and especially about these last few months. Our last appointment is scheduled for Monday. Thank you Homejoy.
- handy_nyc 11y agoI can very confidently say that Handy is headed in the same direction Homejoy. Handy is facing a myriad of class action suits in Boston and is facing a number of legal battles with exempt and non-exempt employee suits. I've seen the cash burn in the space and it is very unfortunate senior leadership doesn't pay attention to it. It's all about making it look like hockey stick growth to investors. The cleaning professionals working on the platform are all very unhappy too.
- mbesto 11y agoAs tptacek said, I'm sure many of the people who created and work for these businesses are well intended and hard working, and we have to applaud them for that. However, the writing is on the wall for any "sharing economy" service that is simply a technology wrapper for non-SSN'd workers in the US. A couple of challenges that aren't solved by technology: 1. Many unskilled labor positions, especially those that incorporate illegal immigrants, are paid in cash. 2. The price points are absurdly low to create any sort of margin to sustain a business (I can only assume most of these companies are doing < 10% gross margin) 3. Response of workers turns sour when they realize the system inevitably becomes indentured servitude. 4. "Rigorous background checks" - I have yet to see how technology has made background checks any more "rigorous" or how this has allowed companies to scale the quality of workers. 5. Scaling quality - many of these services (moreso for services like Thumbtack) start by hiring skilled people (usually MBA students, aspiring actors, etc) who are looking to earn a few extra bucks for fairly unskilled activities. People enjoy the service since they not only get a higher quality service but also because "it comes with a smile". There is only a limited pool of these type of workers, which inevitably means the supply side of the business gets eliminated at a certain scale. I think there might be a place for these type of businesses, but perhaps not in the venture world.
- pbreit 11y agoI think you're off on most of your points. Obviously the startups are not using undocumented workers. The risks are far too high. Gross margins are more like 20%, which is plenty to operate such a business. Not sure how it's indentured servitude compared to any other sort of job. Not sure your point about background checks. Supply & demand works out the numbers.
- mbesto 11y ago> Obviously the startups are not using undocumented workers. If this is true, than there would be a massive supply shortage. Point is, pick one argument (undocumented) or the other (undocumented) and you're going to have a biz model flaw. > which is plenty to operate such a business. "such a business" - Sure, but not a tech driven one.
- throwaway239842 11y agoPosting with a throwaway to address a few realities: 1) I used Handy to book a cleaner for the first time -- I loved her, she did a great job, and I immediately cut out the platform and hired her directly. I felt a little bad about it, but not enough to not do it. Handy got a single transaction out of me, for what is now approaching a year of work. Transaction-fee marketplaces work best where there isn't a natural inclination towards an ongoing relationship (Uber, AirBnB, eBay). For example, on AirBnB, I'm actively looking for a different adventure each time, so it's hard to cut out the platform. When I'm traveling on business, it's the exact opposite, I'm looking for a reliable, consistent experience with no surprises. That's why hotel chains try very hard to ensure a completely consistent experience between stays, and even between hotels -- so that I can book a Westin anywhere in the world and know that I will be getting the exact same bed: https://www.westinstore.com/westin-heavenly-bed.aspx https://www.westinstore.com/westin-heavenly-bed.aspx 2) Homejoy is at a disadvantage because they cannot hire illegal immigrants, and cannot pay them under the table. Under-the-table payment, and illegal immigrants, are common in all cash service business, this is no exception (My cleaner is not an illegal immigrant, since she was able to work through Handy, but she always shows up with a different partner, and very few of her partners speak any English -- I suspect that at least some of them are not licensed to work legally). I also suspect that she does not report everything, or anything, on her taxes. 3) Home cleaning is a high-trust business and one where I'm likely to want the same cleaner each time. The marketplace is interested in sending me a different cleaner each time. The company's needs are in conflict with its customers needs.
- jtwebman 11y agoWhat was the added value over other smaller cleaning services?
- kzhaouva 11y agobest of luck to the founders on their next venture
- zach 11y agoA lesson to take away here is that a startup which faces legal/regulatory threats to their existence has to be small enough to be ignored or huge enough to change the rules. Uber is probably the first company you think of, with their absurdly large investment rounds, or maybe PayPal, but don't forget YouTube. They went from a little video portal with everyone else's stuff on it to a protectorate of one of the world's largest businesses so quickly the copyright holders had no chance to deprive it of existence. The danger zone is in the middle. Homejoy didn't expect to be in this kind of trouble, but once they were, it made finding a huge round of funding both necessary and impossible. So this is the rational decision.
- soheil 11y agoWhat is the urge to hijack scrolling so high? Is it because people who those developers work for have shitty mouse/trackpad?
- sprkyco 11y agoLooks like Google may have picked up some of the team: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9904483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9904483 So not ALL that bad.
- notNow 11y agoWe’re determined to support you to keep your homes humming and business buzzing, so we will do our best to ensure partners and clients who want to continue to work together get a chance to do so independently of Homejoy. Is this why they had to terminate their operations because clients and partners managed to cut them out of the loop and to do business independently of their platform?
- soheil 11y agoI live in SF and the few times I used the service I was relatively happy. I certainly thought the cleaning was done better than Handy, but Handy got them beat in pricing. I also thought their UI was much friendlier than Handy. With Handy there is no way to terminate a recurring cleaning without contacting customer service. In busy places like SF traffic and parking seem to me to be a major hinderance for services like Homejoy. Perhaps if they provided shuttle service of some kind for their cleaners it would solve that problem. Also there is a lot of customization when it comes to cleaning vs Uber for example. With Uber you just go from point A to B, a pretty well defined problem. With cleaning services it's a bit more complicated, do you clean the light switches, door knobs, under the sofa (what if it's a 1 ton sofa?)... I think people have vastly different expectations to what it means to have someone clean your house. Sure, with Uber you care if they driver is not rude, plays your favorite music and doesn't drive like a lunatic, but there isn't a hundred others things that would significantly influence the experience, with Homejoy there is.
- icelancer 11y ago>I certainly thought the cleaning was done better than Handy, but Handy got them beat in pricing. I've heard this a few times on this post. It is not remotely true in Seattle. I just checked, Handy is 20%+ more expensive. Weird
- bryanlarsen 11y agoProblem A: good cleaners bypass your service, using you as a cheap referral service. Problem B: paying cleaners as contractors is legally problematic. The solution to both those problems is the same: hire your cleaners as employees. Then you can prevent them from free-lancing on the side in a competitive business. In states where a non-compete isn't enforceable (like California), I believe that you can still enforce it while they are employed by you.
- dragonwriter 11y agoSo, the solution is to be Merry Maids. Which is great (and, you know, exists already), but not exactly the kind of disruptive model that attracts VC money.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- shah_s 11y agoHow can they raise $40m and fail so quickly? How did they burn through that much cash? I hope they actually explain why they failed so others can learn from it.
- blhack 11y agoThis really bums me out :( -- My girlfriend and I have been making use of homejoy a lot lately, and it has really been helping us keep up with the house.
- jclune 11y agoI run a company similar to HomeJoy in Japan, and I disagree with most comments here. 1. Those who claim cleaning is not a "skilled job" should get off their keyboard, spend a day cleaning their moms house, and get back to me when they learn they are 3X slower than a pro and destroyed something with bleach-based spray. 2. It feels like nobody here actually read Adora Cheung's quotes about multiple lawsuits coinciding with investment timing. That is obviously the reason they shut the doors. 3. Those who claim flaws in matching business model are to blame are making non-quantitative assumptions. Just ask yourself, how high of a percentage of users sharing direct phone # would cause a growing company to collapse? Also the supply side risks losing stable income or insurance coverage. I do quite a number of things much differently than HomeJoy, and quality control being a major one. There are certainly a lot of challenges and operational complexity to keep my team innovating. Japan has the highest customer service standard in the world (and hardest to satisfy customers), which is great for building a more solid foundation. If any hackers are leaving HomeJoy and want to move to Tokyo, I'm hiring!
- pbreit 11y ago1. Totally agree. 2. I think that's just a convenient excuse for what was more likely a poorly run business. 3. It definitely seems like a match-making business to me. Perhaps things are different in Japan. I could perhaps see wanting a few different providers for diversification.
- storgendibal 11y agoAgree with all three of your points, especially #2. I still can't get over the fact that it took me 4 tries to be to sign up with HJ. Eventually I had to do it on my laptop because the web app on the phone was so buggy. And if the sign up flow is so badly done, I wonder what else is not executed well.
- Nadya 11y agoNot sure if the offer is rhetoric or not. No contact email, no business name. Is it related to #1 as a joke-of-sorts? 日本語を知っている必要がありますか？
- ryandrake 11y agoWhen I first heard of this company, I thought, "Too small a niche to grow--they'll never survive". This is a service for a very limited market--rich people who don't already have a housekeeper and can't manage to keep their houses clean. Nobody I know socially would actually pay someone to clean their house for them. Yet, so many customer testimonials here on HN. Are there really that many people so busy/well-off that they can't take a few minutes once a day or so to pick up after themselves and rather pay someone more than their mobile phone bill to do something so trivial? I guess I was wrong about the market size but damn...
- h2014 11y agoThere are a lot of these types of on demand startups creeping up in Europe so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
- h2014 11y agoI also wonder what their exit strategy was supposed to be?
- philip1209 11y agoLooks like Google is hiring the Homejoy engineering team: https://recode.net/2015/07/17/google-hires-homejoys-technical-team-to-build-its-own-home-services-marketplace/ https://recode.net/2015/07/17/google-hires-homejoys-technica...
- callmeed 11y agoInteresting considering Google Ventures was an investor in 2 rounds
- myohan 11y agoThey were also sued. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/startup-workers-sue-to-be-recognized-as-employees-not-mere-contractors/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/startup-workers-s...
- Simulacra 11y agoI thought HomeJoy was an awesome idea at first, until I started reading about the experiences, and tribulations, of their ...contractors? Not even sure what to call them, other than hardworking people who, when you balance it all out, weren't making that much. I'm sure the CEO and her brother made a killing, but house cleaning is tough work, even for people who do it professionally every day, for a living. I think those people should be employees, they should be given job protections, and they should be treated (and paid) a lot better than they are.
- iblaine 11y agoTheir HQ was a mess. If your business is cleaning then you should have cleaning in your blood and dream about pine sol when you sleep. I get the sense that the company was started for the sake of starting any company. In doing so they created a company without any vision. Look further into the company and you see things like the founders saying working on Christmas Eve is ok. Presentations where they say luck is irrelevant and working hard and smart are the keys to success. That's some American Psycho sh*t.
- DarthMader 11y agoThe holy grail of success isn't working hard, vision, or values. The holy grail is understanding the competitive environment so well that you impose a sustainable competitive advantage that isn't easily copied and a strategy that executes like hell. This is why Musk, Jobs, Buffett were/are so successful. This is also why Uber is absolutely crushing any other competitor in the U.S.
- classicsnoot 11y ago1. Those who claim cleaning is not a "skilled job" should get off their keyboard, spend a day cleaning their moms house, and get back to me when they learn they are 3X slower than a pro and destroyed something with bleach-based spray. Finally someone said it. Some moron posted ITT that 'no one is passionate about cleaning someone else's shit', which I find ironic as this website is populated by many people who clean up other people's shit online. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it seems to think the only job with subtle nuances is your own. Thus far in my life, I have done construction, plumbing, lawn care, film, 'fixing', security, and professional driving (not chauffeuring), and I always thought it cute how the pros in each of those vocations could go for hours about the skill and attention to detail required to be proffecient, then in the same breath speak of another vocation like it is simple. I think it is safe to assume that if someone is willing to pay for a service it probably requires some level of skill. Full disclosure: in my "unskilled", workaday life I am constantly explaining the immense amount of time, effort, and skill required to make internet fix.
- piratebroadcast 11y agoThis is the same company that posted the infamous Christmas Eve job opening ad to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956
- bane 11y agoHaving recently spent a bit of time finding a roofer, an all purpose handyman, a drywaller, a cleaner and a yard guy, I finally have a good personal team I can use. But my god it took a couple years to assemble them. And there were quite a few duds along the way. I went through 5 roofers just to get one small job done and finally had my handyman just go rent some ladders and do it. It sounds like such a first world problem, but finding quality people and reasonable prices to do this stuff is such a pain. I didn't use homejoy to find these folks, I just worked my personal network until I got them, but I can definitely see a market for something like homejoy. It's a really great idea and it's a shame it didn't work out.
- samstave 11y agoI really REALLY wanted to use Homejoy -- but only for the folding/ironing of laundry. (I have three kids - so a house of five produces a lot of laundry) $25/hour with a several hour minimum... Wow - no thanks...
- artag 11y agoThere is a ton of analysis in this post about what went wrong. As someone who runs a service marketplace business, I know how hard it is scale this type of business (scaling quality, managing a remote workforce, supply churn, repeat usage and all the other things...). The founders had worked long and hard to succeed (knowing them first hand). They also happen to be incredibly nice people - always willing to help others. All the best to Adora & Aaron. I look forward to seeing what you launch next!
- narrator 11y agoI think the problem here is low quality and lack of adequate screening. This seems to be a problem with a lot of online businesses. In a different way it was a problem for PayPal when they started. They were overrun with fraud and had to find clever ways to control it. Anytime you interact with the general public, especially people with out a resume doing cheaply paid work and with the general public internationally you are going to have, among the quality people, a bunch of bad apples, people with mediocre talent and weirdos, disgruntled and otherwise. The value that a sharing economy online service adds is screening out all that and delivering high quality. When moving into a new area it takes a while to figure out who the trusted providers are. Sometimes the top guy on Yelp is outrageously expensive and overbooked and you have to ask around the neighborhood. Then when you've found the right people you trust, you form a relationship and use them forever and they take care of your stuff. The problem is that once I find my trusted guy for X I just stick with him. Homejoy seemed to be turning that experience into a dice throw.
- jondubois 11y agoThat's surprising considering how heavily marketed they were. I think everyone assumed that they were going to be a success.
- aranibatta 11y agoRather than looking at it from a purely business perspective, I think that HomeJoy accomplished a lot in its tenure. It set an industry standard and a format that I'm sure will stick for a long time. It made huge strides in quality control and tackled a lot of the problems in the industry, if not completely solving them. You can only hope that Google keeps that spirit alive, and having met her, I have only amazing things from the impression that Adora Cheung left on me. I'm sure whatever she chooses to do next, she'll do it well.
- iaw 11y agoI met someone who worked for homejoy and was stupidly compensated, before homejoy he had worked at groupon. Verbatim he said to me: "I never want to work at a company that is profitable." I had horrible experiences with their service, and I believe that multiple factors contributed to this shutdown, but I can't shake that quote from someone being paid a quarter million dollars a year by homejoy.
- somberi 11y agoBenjamin Harrison said this circa 1890s: I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or shapes it into a garment will starve in the process. My sincere question is - Why not just make them employees? It does increase the cost of the service from 20$ to 30$ an hour, I would still have the service but use it at half the frequency. But I will be glad knowing the cleaner is treated fairly.
- calbear81 11y agoBecause if they were employees then it wouldn't be a "platform" and it would just be a maid service company with an app.
- curiousjorge 11y agoI remember listening to her talk way back when there was sam altman's startup video series. I thought it was very cool that she worked with her brother. You don't see sister/brother as business partners usually. She was also a hard worker from the impression, reading quarterly statements to find 'gems'. Lot of doing this and that. It really sounded like they were doing great, she and her brother knew what they were doing. $39.7M in 5 Rounds from 15 Investors seem like a pretty good winner. And then suddenly this. A shift in the industry or inability to be profitable and sustainable ( I don't know why homejoy failed). Cleaning houses to find out what home services would be like (lean startup approach) and YC branding (quit your job and lets go) with 5 rounds of funding and still did not emerge as a winner. In hindsight it looked like they were doing everything out of the YC/lean textbook without really forming their own ideas. It's probably comfortable this way. It appeared like they did everything right and they probably were but it did not produce success from the investors point of view. I think what we can learn from this is that just because somebody or something looks like they are doing everything right or talk like they know what they are doing it may not be the case. I wonder had they bootstrapped and operated as a small business catering to a focused market instead of trying to expanding to different markets with easy capital flowing to SV, they could have ended up with a cash flow positive and recurring source of income. I wonder if the bubble is popping and the skewed flow of capital is forcing stakeholders to operate outside of their means or comfort zone and resulting in failure. It was valued at $130 million dollars apparently. Who else out there YC or not, have unsound valuation? Surely, there will be similar stories in the future. http://wpcurve.com/homejoy-adora-cheung/ http://wpcurve.com/homejoy-adora-cheung/ Reading that article it is the same type of very logical and well rounded writing found on YC that shows expertise but then in this case it wasn't enough. What I observe to be interesting is that it mentions 'from failure to $XX million dollar in funding'. Perhaps raising a ton of money feels like success and that gives false confidence and incompatible strategies. I find it really hard to swallow that it took 50 million dollars to figure that out where investing 150k in airbnb would've yielded immense return. Back to my original strategy of avoiding piling up positions on a single bet no matter how certain you are it's a winner and instead making numerous limited bets across large number of startups. Sell half of your equity to the guy investing $15 million dollar in the next series round in case it fails.
- taigeair 11y agoRough landing...