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Why Homejoy Failed

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Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#191

Post by IgorPartola »

jdmichal wrote: post #28
IgorPartola wrote: post #3

I read a comment on HN a while ago that went along the lines of "there is a new breed of startups that's in the business of selling dollar bills for 95 cents". I really like that formulation. Your job gets a lot easier as soon as you provide more value than you charge for it. Seems like that was one of the big problems with Homejoy: they were not able to charge more. The reality is that home cleaning is very price co…

Competition is really the big thing. Redbox has pretty much doubled their price in the past few years, and they can because by now all the meat-space video rental stores are pretty much out of business. However, at $2 for a blu-ray, it's already at the point where if I'm not going to the store anyway, I will just rent through the cable company for $4 or $5 bucks. And then I don't have a chance of forgetting to take t…

From what I understand Netflix disc service still has a much bigger selection than the online streaming one. A friend of mine uses it to get full seasons of TV shows that are not available online.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#192

Post by atom-morgan »

vegabook wrote: post #174
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 old-economy-speak what you just said basically translates as "you entered a crowded market". When you're standing on an unknown, rainy street corner far away from home, a taxi's services are urgently required, and not abundant. When you're lounging on your sofa and start contemplating how it would be nice for someone else to bin the pizza boxes, it's the opposite on both counts. Moreover, I don't see the money men…

I've been lurking on this thread waiting for someone to mention that post. I'm really surprised it took this long.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#193

Post by vegabook »

atom-morgan wrote: post #192
vegabook wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In old-economy-speak what you just said basically translates as "you entered a crowded market". When you're standing on an unknown, rainy street corner far away from home, a taxi's services are urgently required, and not abundant. When you're lounging on your sofa and start contemplating how it would be nice for someone else to bin the pizza boxes, it's the opposite on both counts. Moreover, I don't see the money men…

I've been lurking on this thread waiting for someone to mention that post. I'm really surprised it took this long.

Me too dude. I actually -F'd it and was surprised I was the first. Then again it's 4pm in NY, let alone SF. The night is young...(if the HN algo doesn't tank the story, that is).

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#194

Post by quanticle »

pavlov wrote: post #114
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

A story about what it's like working for Handy, "My Day Interviewing For The Service Economy Startup From Hell" : http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-s...

On a side note, I wonder why the reporter bothered changing the name of the co-founder of Handybook in that piece. From the remainder of her description (e.g. the mention of a Harvard MBA and the experience at McKinsey) I was able to determine that "Ajay" was actually Umang Dua, after about two minutes on CrunchBase and LinkedIn.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#195

Post by SilasX »

kefka wrote: post #177
SilasX wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those points apply equally well to any self-employed person. Should self-employment be abolished too? To the extent that there's a problem, it's in the fact that the law doesn't treat the self-employed/other-employed spectrum sanely, such that employer incentives don't align with social goals. We should fix that, not demonize business that optimize for the current broken system.

False equivalence. Consultants have been around for a long time. And they command a high rate, because they are pros. No, they aren't an employee, nor would either side want them to be. They do the job, paid well, and part company. Most consultants get paid somewhere between $150-$400/hr . I know of one who's compensation is $500/hr. This new thing, the "sharing economy" is a way to shove out employees from their pro…

My point is, you have to make that distinction more rigorous than "they make less money"; your original points applied just the same to consultants (and legit "independent contractors") as it did to Uber drivers. It seems your real objection and distinction is "but they make less money than my ideal model of an independent contractor". (I don't know what "knowledge" or "lawyer" or "difference of liabilities" means in terms of an articulable, rigorous distinction.)

>This is an intentional misclassification to skirt employment law.

That's specifically what I was addressing with:

>>the law doesn't treat the self-employed/other-employed spectrum sanely, such that employer incentives don't align with social goals. We should fix that, not demonize business that optimize for the current broken system.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#196

Post by ghaff »

patio11 wrote: post #168
s73v3r wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What value is there in national lead generation for something that is extremely local?

Economies of scale; national or worldwide brand recognition; improved efficiency of operations; leverage from applying top-tier marketing/etc talent to the problem. Lead acquisition at a mom-and-pop agency is the 10% project of the owner or office manager or, at best, a local SEO/AdWords/etc agency. The platform companies, by comparison, can totally hire ten people with skills superior to mine to do it, as their only…

Perhaps to some degree. I keep coming back though to the fact that national chains exist. They may not have an iPhone app or hot programmers but, for a regularly scheduled cleaning service, I'm not sure it matters and I'm not sure what problem more tech solves that cuts the costs significantly.

Mind you I'm also not sure that the national chains are a particularly great product for consumer cleaning. I used Merry Maids for a while and thought they were meh. That's an anecdote but the reviews aren't great in general.

Now I have a regular housecleaner who my neighbor recommended and she's great.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#197

Post by vinayak147 »

emmett wrote: post #167
cletus wrote: post #53

It can be pretty much boiled down to this one quote: > ...and the steady leak of its best workers to direct employment arrangements with its own (now former) clients. Services such as Homejoy create value by providing a market for the discovery of those seeking work with those seeking workers. For any regular type work the incentive for the employer and the employee (if you can call them that) is to cut out the middl…

And now I am sad again because cleaning service discovery is still broken. Not that you're wrong, just that it would be really nice to be able to find cleaners through a service with good reputation tracking and recommendation. Which is intrinsically difficult to build for exactly the reason you specify.

I asked my neighbor about cleaners, they use X and gave me her phone number. I called X and she did an amazing job. Turns out, X has a higher incentive to clean my house because she can synchronize timing with my neighbor and reduce her overhead cost. The arrangement has worked great for everyone, running 9 years in a row and more neighbors have joined.

I see this as an ideal win-win experience for all parties involved. It would be really nice to have a service that can create this type of experience at scale.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#198

Post by jkyle »

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…

> Effectively, from transaction #1 you're in a perfectly replicable pattern - Cleaner X comes to your house every Y weeks and works for Z hours.

This is the key failure.

Anyone's whose regularly procured cleaning services knows the dance. You find a reputable cleaning service, they send out a cleaner. If you don't like them, you keep asking for a different one. When you find one you like, you ask them what they'd charge if you deal with them directly.

Why should they pay an app developer (or cleaning service) a cut of their profit when they can just show up and earn it themselves?

Most of the house keepers I've known did this until they'd built up enough of a consistent clientele that they could break out on their own....eventually building their own "crew".

Cleaning services are only good for businesses who require a paper trail for tax deduction purposes and who aren't as price sensitive as individuals.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#199

Post by tyrust »

A tangential thing I noticed:

>Unlike Uber, which requires a drivers’ license, cleaners need more intensive training to do the job properly.

It's sort of bizarre to have higher expectations for cleaners than automobile drivers. Driving a car with multiple people around town to semi-familiar places? Sure, that driving test you took when you were 16 years old is fine. Cleaning a house? Waaaait one minute, what are your qualifications?

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#200

Post by jkyle »

Domenic_S wrote: post #180
mikeash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also solved a problem that's more or less already solved. Uber is great because finding a taxi can be hard, and finding a good taxi can be really hard. Finding somebody to clean your house is really easy. I must get half a dozen flyers a week for cleaning services stuck on my door. If I don't trust that, I can just ask my neighbors for a recommendation.

> Finding somebody to clean your house is really easy. Finding a warm body to drag a tepid rag around your countertop is easy, sure, but finding someone who's 1) consistent 2) always on-time and 3) not $100/hr is next to impossible. Perhaps in a large metro it's easier, but I've had basically no luck in suburban silicon valley.

Metro's aren't easier in my experience.

I live in Silicon Valley now. . . found the best cleaner I've ever had. Very happy with her and her helper's work.

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