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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 h

• justinzollars 11y ago
  This is exactly their problem. I wonder if LawnLove will have the same problem?
  • sosuke 11y ago
    Or Handy
  • _sentient 11y ago
    Founder 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 ago
      I 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/ ]
    • silverlake 11y ago
      Do you schedule the customers close by to minimize travel time for your lawn care guys? I know cleaners that drive across town to jobs, effectively losing money while they're stuck in traffic. I don't know if Homejoy did that. To incentivize that, you could offer discounts for neighbors who use the service together. If Homejoy had a bunch of apartments in one location, then cleaners would make more money per day.
      • _sentient 11y ago
        Yep, that's one of our primary value props. Once we reach critical mass in a market we're able to do job clustering and route optimization. More jobs per day + less time spent burning fuel sitting behind a steering wheel means much better economics for our lawn pros.
        • mbesto 11y ago
          Aren't lawn care providers already pretty much doing this by means of fragmentation? (i.e. in one suburban town, there are only 3 providers that serve the whole area) What additional value do you guys provide that isn't already there?
          • _sentient 11y ago
            That's not actually the case for a market of any scale. More like 1000 providers / market. :) Also, routing optimization is a fairly hard problem and requires significant critical mass in a geo. Pretty hard for individual service providers to build this on their own. The closest thing may be a small-town service pro who has been in business for 30 years and eventually reached sufficient mass / frequency to optimize his routes, but that's a rare case.
• icelancer 11y ago
  Going through Homejoy instead of direct offers you Homejoy's bonded protection and insurance, plus refund platform. This is worth something.
  • unchocked 11y ago
    Sure, but is it worth their margin? The market resoundingly answered "no".
    • icelancer 11y ago
      Er, I always went through them. So did many others. They stated they are folding primarily because of lawsuit pressure, not referral issues.
      • Eiriksmal 11y ago
        > They stated they are folding primarily because of lawsuit pressure, not referral issues. I haven't seen any reasons for the closing. Where was this mentioned? Edit: More reading turned up a shady Re/Code article proclaiming that the Uber decision shuttered Homejoy. Loads of clickbait, nothing firm in the way of substantiating the title.
  • danielweber 11y ago
    Protection and insurance are most valuable the first time I hire someone, in case they are a nutcase or thief.
  • onion2k 11y ago
    The gig economy works for things like driving because there's little benefit in having the same person do the job every time because the job varies (the pickup and dropoff places are different, the time of day is different, etc). There's no reason to care about who is doing the work. When it comes to things like cleaning that is very different. Who you let in to your house matters. Homejoy's benefits are worth something while you're 'auditioning' cleaners, but once you find one who's good at cleaning, reliable and honest then those advantages evaporate and you're better off hiring the cleaner directly.
• sholanozie 11y ago
  I feel this way about AirBnB as well.
  • fweespeech 11y ago
    The difference with AirBnB is its usually a one-off situation rather than an ongoing relationship. If you use AirBnB to visit NYC once every 3-4 years, its a very different situation than someone coming to clean every 2 weeks.
  • tspike 11y ago
    I'd wager that most AirBnB stays are one-offs on vacation. Home cleaning is recurring, making it more vulnerable to the "here's my phone number" weakness.
    • tehwebguy 11y ago
      Agreed, but also I want a business with a name worth protecting to be on the hook when I have a room booked, not just some homeowner.
      • nostrademons 11y ago
        AirBnB's that business now. They used to claim they were only a matchmaking service and any risks were to be worked out between the homeowner and renter, but after some really bad publicity c. 2011, they've really doubled-down on customer service and insurance. Everyone I've known whose had a bad experience with AirBnB lately has had it turned into a good experience.
        • FireBeyond 11y ago
          "Everyone I've known whose had a bad experience with AirBnB lately has had it turned into a good experience." Minor nitpick on this... it's doubtful that it 'turned into a good experience', as much as "AirBnB was able to compensate, monetarily or otherwise, for the bad experience (which still exists)".
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• jonlucc 11y ago
  I would wager that the answer is to provide some other value to the contractors, but I have no idea what that could be.
  • brazzledazzle 11y ago
    Easy recurring payments, payment processing, scheduling, job details (customer A gets the whole 9 yards, customer B only needs X, Y and Z), easy customer communication, etc. But I'm not a cleaner so I have no idea if those are worth it.
  • Falcon9 11y ago
    Give new customer priority to the contractors that have a high in-service retention rate, perhaps. If you have a history of customers who stop using the service after contracting with you, you stop getting customers.
• davemel37 11y ago
  There are ways to solve this, like stored value. http://platformed.info/network-effects/ http://platformed.info/network-effects/
• MatthewMcDonald 11y ago
  Recurring business is really tough when you're effective just introducing customers to other businesses. Thumbtack handles this by not even addressing the recurring aspect, and focusing on getting good introductions. Recurring revenue is great, but how does a matchmaking service continue to provide value once a good fit had been found?
  • enjo 11y ago
    Just to elaborate: Thumbtack also services a very wide range of verticals, which allows them to succeed purely as a matchmaker. It's an inherent flaw in what folks like Homejoy were doing (although they had aspirations of a larger vertical focus). I need thumbtack like 3 or 4 times a year. I need Homejoy once ever.
    • elif 11y ago
      It never occurred to me to try hiring my HJ cleaner directly... If i have to travel and reschedule, i can just push a button on my phone and reschedule. I never have to worry about writing checks or tipping (thinking about it in hindsight.. does that make me a jerk?). The time I had an issue, their support made the experience "magical" Also if a cleaner ever started to get lazy and cut corners, i have the option to just chose another one... that gives me a lot of influential power even if i never have to use it. Those benefits are what made the service worthwhile for me... If I wanted to find a cleaner at the lowest rate and handle all the overhead myself i could just look on craigslist...
  • bsbechtel 11y ago
    Not too sure about Thumbtack, but Home Advisor basically just buys Google Ads to get consumer traffic, then turns around and sells the lead to contractors at a higher rate. If contractors spent 20 minutes figuring out how to set up a Google Ad campaign, they could easily outbid Home Advisor for the exact same customer. I feel like this is pretty much the same thing Thumbtack does, with a few logistical differences. These business models really seem unsustainable (or rather uncompetitive) with any service professional that takes his or her business seriously and doesn't mind putting in the work to market themselves. These companies are basically playing Google Ad arbitrage.
• birken 11y ago
  FWIW Thumbtack and many other companies have the same problem, and it can be solved by just charging the cleaners more money for the initial introduction. Instead of charging 20% of the first cleaning, charge 50% or 100% or 200% and let them own the customer (Thumbtack charges fixed amounts but it is the same principle).
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    > FWIW Thumbtack and many other companies have the same problem, and it can be solved by just charging the cleaners more money for the initial introduction. Which inherently reduces the degree to which the service is attractive to contractors compared to other marketing channels (which is really what it is for them), which reduces the contractors on the service, which reduces the value to consumers. That it works in some industries doesn't mean that its an easy solution which works profitably in all industries.
• rorykoehler 11y ago
  I ran the same business as Homejoy but on a smaller scale in Germany before stopping last year (for a variety of reasons that I won't go into here). What you mentioned is the main reason we focused on holiday lettings and B2B cleanings.
• ilamont 11y ago
  For these sorts of businesses (Upwork, Homejoy, etc.) Legal protections and payment processing are reasons to encourage people to stay in the system.
• guelo 11y ago
  It's tough being a middleman parasite.
• brianmcconnell 11y ago
  A prediction about "sharing economy" companies. Almost all of them are tacking on a thin rind of web/mobile UI and smart dispatch technology to an existing service. The long-term winners will be companies like Flywheel that recognize this and focus on providing that service to existing operators, much like payment processors. This, of course, is perceived as a smaller market since they can't count revenue the same way. EDIT: on the other hand, an advantage is they don't have to worry about acquiring customers, drivers, etc, nor the regulatory overhead of the underlying business, but instead just focus on customer experience, schedule/dispatch, etc.
  • seizethecheese 11y ago
    Absolutely, however another "advantage" of many "sharing economy" companies is that they skirt regulations that incumbents must adhere to.
    • mycroft-holmes 11y ago
      The real question to ask in this case is whether those regulations should be there in the first place.
      • austenallred 11y ago
        Disregarding the competitive aspect, it's absurd to me that people praise banning Uber and Tesla for the "consumer safety" of taxis and car dealerships.
        • jsight 11y ago
          There is a significant consumer safety element to the way Taxis are regulated. The fact that this is used to protect a monopoly is a separate issue and I agree that it is a real problem. The Tesla analogy is perfect, though. I've never felt like car dealerships being independently owned was a useful benefit. I don't see any reason why both models can't coexist.
• BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  > 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. All companies that contract to contractors have this issue and it probably isn't solvable using the same model. For instance Home Depot and Lowes will contract out service to contractors and I've had them, on every single occasion, give me their information to contact them directly in the future.
  • Animats 11y ago
    For Home Depot and Lowes, lead generation for contractors is just a way for them to sell more building materials that need installation. They don't care if you call the contractor directly for your next installation job, as long as the materials come from them. That model does not work for HomeJoy.
• wehadfun 11y ago
  Are we sure that was the problem?
• sp_ 11y ago
  I've had the exact same experience with Vint (https://www.joinvint.com/ https://www.joinvint.com/) - Go through personal trainers until you find one you like and then move off the app. The hourly cost will be lower but the personal trainer will still make more money. I've also had Uber Black drivers give me their personal limo service business cards. The difference is that a cab is a commodity while a personal trainer is something that needs to click on a personal level. I see no future for Vint even though I loved it when I used it.
  • enjo 11y ago
    It's not just that rides are a commodity, they also have an immediacy effect. I don't care who drives me, but I care that they pick me up in the next 3 or 4 minutes. When an uber driver gives me a card that's great, but it's kind of worthless because they're unlikely to be nearby. Hell in the time it takes me to call them I can likely have another car at my front door if I just use the app.
    • osi 11y ago
      Depends. I like being able to schedule rides to the airport in advance, so I know exactly when I'm going to be picked up. And the rate will be pre-determined.
    • justzisguyuknow 11y ago
      The only situation where it's nice to have a known driver is when you are scheduling a ride in advance, i.e. to the airport or something. In those cases, I frequently call a day ahead to a driver I know.
• erikb 11y ago
  I think a real value is if you add many service types together in one platform and you can manage all of your household in one website/app. Then you can still get the cleaning lady's number, but you don't want to, because you have a much better overview when you can use the app for all the services you buy.
• jonknee 11y ago
  Humorously this is in their FAQ about the close: > We hope that you are able to continue your relationship with your current cleaner, independently of Homejoy. http://blog.homejoy.com/faqs/ http://blog.homejoy.com/faqs/
• braythwayt 11y ago
  Comparing HomeJoy to ridesharing companies, I see that both had telephone analogues: You can call a taxi company, and there are lots of agencies you can call for cleaners. Besides tapping instead of calling a human (which is annoying), what is the big win for rides? For me, it's the map. When I'm told my taxi will be there in five minutes, I can see the progress on the map. I never believe a taxi company when they say, "10 minutes." Sometimes it's five, sometimes I call them back after twenty minutes to ask where my taxi is. For the next sharing economy startup founders, ask yourself what you can do in real time for users. This is ridiculous, but for another cleaning company, you might provide the cleaners with GoPros and allow the user to stream what they see, so you can watch them clean. Technically, you could set that up yourself with nanny-cams, but imagine contacting a service (via app or web page), having them clean your home, and watching it happen (or knowing that they know you can watch it happen). That bypasses the whole "call me personally" problem. If I call the cleaner personally, I don't get the cleaner-cam. To me, if you're going to give me an app or a web page, give me something in real time that I care about.
• danielrhodes 11y ago
  This was very common with AirBnb as well at the beginning: you could exchange private information with the host and then pay them directly. However, over time it just made more sense to use AirBnb's interface. What these companies need to do is provide an ease-of-use, reliability, and security so that the customer is incentivized to use the official way over doing it under the table. Sure you could pay the cleaning lady directly, but having it automatically debited from your credit card is much easier.
• wehadfun 11y ago
  If this sunk them I am shocked that no one saw this coming. I asked about this on HN over a year ago [0]. There are 2 things they could have done. 1. Hire and provide real value to the cleaners contract Uber to drive the cleaners to the houses, That would have solved the classification issue and the middle man issue 2. Charge the cleaners to be on the site, let verified purchasers leave reviews, and offer an optional payment gateway. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6855047 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6855047
• giaour 11y ago
  When I lived in New York, I was a customer of a home cleaning start-up that magically managed to avoid all of the legal quagmires and platform defections that plague sharing economy companies. The magical secret to its success: the cleaner that would visit your home was an employee, not a contractor. That meant the company could control and guarantee the quality of the service provided and would be able to have its cleaners sign non-competes if necessary.
• decwakeboarder 11y ago
  It's the same as going around Ebay and contacting a seller directly. You lose any of the protection that the servicing company (Homejoy) provides.
• eridius 11y ago
  I believe that the cleaners were not supposed to be allowed to give out their number to be contacted directly. If they did so and Homejoy found out, they could be kicked out of Homejoy. That said, it would not surprise me in the least if a great many cleaners did it anyway.
• pbreit 11y ago
  I agree that match-making is the more correct model for house cleaning. But there are certainly ways to minimize what you describe. The threat of dismissal, for one.
• jchendy 11y ago
  Even after meeting my doctors, I still use ZocDoc to schedule appointments. It's much easier for me to find the ideal appointment time when I can put my schedule and the doctors schedule side-by-side as opposed to calling the receptionist. If the doctor built a high-quality scheduling app, I might still use ZocDoc because it would likely be easier to remember how to get there.