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Why Homejoy Failed

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Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#61

Post by InAnEmergency »

sageabilly wrote: post #2

"The steady leak of its best workers to direct employment arrangements with its own (now former) clients." This is a huge hurdle in any direct services market. While you're not likely to hire your own private driver and thus end your working relationship with Uber, you're probably very likely to find a cleaner that you like a lot and who does a great job cleaning your house and go on to form an exclusive working rela…

I've noticed this even with Groupon. Walk into place with a Groupon, they offer you the same price but just bypass Groupon. They get a new customer in the door, the customer is fine with it because it's the same price, but the business makes more money because they don't have to pay Groupon their cut.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#62

Post by mgkimsal »

whistlerbrk wrote: post #22

I found the scheduling process to be flawed. The assumption that I'll be home at the same hour every week was not a good one. There wasn't a confirmation phone call, text or email to remind me. But yes, I could manually reschedule. The phone support wasn't glowingly friendly to boot, very forgivable though. The initial cleaning needed to be deep and thorough. I honestly think that's what people want. Get you back to…

"There wasn't a confirmation phone call, text or email to remind me."

Really? That's about the only thing I'd expect from a web-based service scheduling tool - something to remind/confirm/verify my scheduled appointment. Dare I ask what they're doing that something as fundamental as this didn't make the 'feature' cut?

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#63

Post by enraged_camel »

untog wrote: post #51
hammock wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use a service called Handy (app-based home cleaning and handyman). It works fine. And doesn't seem to be struggling from what I can tell. https://crunchbase.com/organization/handybook/ edit: I'm in Chicago

I don't know too much about it, but just from an initial glance it seems like it is better positioned, simply by offering things like plumbers, electricians, etc - again, they aren't services you fall into regular patterns with. They're very much on-demand when there is water leaking all over your apartment. That said , I'm sure "doesn't seem to be struggling from what I can tell" could have been said about Homejoy,…

Yeah, Homejoy's demise took everyone by surprise. Unless the company is public, it's almost impossible for a casual observer to tell how healthy it is.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#64

Post by scorchio »

The unnatural way Homejoy raised their seed rounds, with Cheung basically calling up Levchin and PG [1] was instrumental in setting up a failed business. This gave the startup undeserving social proof and let to the huge funding it should have never received.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVDmyRxeGCo&list=PLQ-uHSnFig...

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#65

Post by zzalpha »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #49
philh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a driver, your life is in the hands of someone who has nothing to gain from getting in a car crash. With a cleaner, your possessions are in the hands of someone who might have plenty of incentive to steal your stuff and sell it.

This casual assumption that all housekeepers are thieves is galling. Its a kind of working-class bigotry that is tossed around by the entitled without even noticing they are doing it. Of course folks have plenty of incentive to not steal - they have self-respect.

Not to mention, they want more business. A cleaner who steals doesn't work for long. The business is heavily driven by referrals and references.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#66

Post by JohnBooty »

jdmichal wrote: post #8
cm2187 wrote: post #5

The difference with Uber is that it requires a lot more trust to give someone access to your home while you're away to clean it. Not sure I would want to subscribe to a service where I would have to trust any local dude to visit my home. It's like a nanny. Picking someone to look after your kid is a very personal thing. It's not a lowest bidder thing.

Getting in a car is pretty much the most dangerous thing a person does in an average day. You may be trusting a cleaner with you possessions, but you're trusting that Uber driver with your life.

Lives are infinitely more valuable them possessions.

If an Uber driver wanted to hurt you, he would be extremely likely to pay the legal price. After all, there's an electronic paper trail of the ride he gave you. So an Uber driver won't do that unless he's essentially insane and a) doesn't understand this or b) has nothing to lose and doesn't care if he's caught or c) thinks he can get away with it because you're incapacitated/inebriated or something.

Whereas with housekeepers, it's more a crime of opportunity. They notice that you have valuable items laying around that won't be missed. Or an acquaintance of theirs pressures them for tips on houses to rob. A housekeeper that's an otherwise "good" person can convince themselves that it's a victimless crime if they decide that you won't even miss the item(s) they take. I mean, who wouldn't be tempted to take a shiny, never-used bauble from the home of somebody with 10x their income if it was the difference between having food on their table or not?

Don't get me wrong - the vast majority of housekeepers are great people. I have family members that clean houses. I just mean that an Uber driver would have to essentially be insane to harm you, whereas a housekeeper would just have to give into temptation in order to pinch some items.

    You may be trusting a cleaner with you possessions, 
    but you're trusting that Uber driver with your life.
1. Everybody I know that's had their house robbed has had reason to believe that it was been an inside job.

2. If you have things worth stealing, each person you let into your house increases the odds that a robbery will happen. Maybe the cable guy isn't a burglar, but how many friends does that guy have? 50? Is one of them a burglar? If you were a burglar and you knew a cable guy, wouldn't you bug that guy for tips?

3. Any home burglary is potentially dangerous to one's life. Who knows what happens if you're home while the robbery is in progress or if you arrive home while it's happening.

So yeah, there's a trust factor there!

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#67

Post by zippergz »

untog wrote: post #25

I think this is a demonstration of the limits in "app-ing" an industry. Uber worked fantastically because it leans heavily on the geolocation facilities in a smartphone - you're always moving, getting picked up from different places, by cars located in different places. Homejoy had none of that. You rarely move home, and your cleaner rarely does either. Effectively, from transaction #1 you're in a perfectly replicabl…

"In reality, inviting someone into your home is a very personal thing, and people much prefer to build a relationship with someone that they might pay a little more on a regular basis, than get a different person each time."

Yes, for sure. I've had professional home cleaners for nearly 10 years now. And over the course of those years, I've had many conversations with friends and neighbors who do as well (e.g. in giving/receiving recommendations). I can't imagine using a service that sends someone different every time, or even someone for whom I can't see reviews and receive references before the first visit. I think most of the people I've talked to are in the same boat. This is a service that requires putting a lot of trust in the service provider. I could potentially see myself using an app that helped me find a provider, but it would need to give me a lot of information about them up front, and let me choose from several. And then it would have to let me keep getting the same person every time. It ends up being more like an Angie's List than a Homejoy.

For something like a handyman, where the service is less intimate and less frequent, this might make more sense (though I have had enough horrible experiences with handymen that I also would want personal recommendations at this point)...

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#69

Post by geomark »

sageabilly wrote: post #2

"The steady leak of its best workers to direct employment arrangements with its own (now former) clients." This is a huge hurdle in any direct services market. While you're not likely to hire your own private driver and thus end your working relationship with Uber, you're probably very likely to find a cleaner that you like a lot and who does a great job cleaning your house and go on to form an exclusive working rela…

That's a problem even in B2B businesses. I used to run a design center where we often contracted out teams to work onsite at a client's place. Clients sometimes offered one of my guys to go direct, even though there was a big nasty clause in the contract forbidding that. But then we didn't want to start suing our clients so they usually got away with it. It must be way worse in a B2C business. I just don't see how this had any legs.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#70

Post by aamar »

InAnEmergency wrote: post #61
sageabilly wrote: post #2

"The steady leak of its best workers to direct employment arrangements with its own (now former) clients." This is a huge hurdle in any direct services market. While you're not likely to hire your own private driver and thus end your working relationship with Uber, you're probably very likely to find a cleaner that you like a lot and who does a great job cleaning your house and go on to form an exclusive working rela…

I've noticed this even with Groupon. Walk into place with a Groupon, they offer you the same price but just bypass Groupon. They get a new customer in the door, the customer is fine with it because it's the same price, but the business makes more money because they don't have to pay Groupon their cut.

How would that work? Groupon takes their cut when the the customers pay for the deal itself, days or weeks ahead of them showing up at the business.
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