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Why Homejoy Failed

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Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#211

Post by mcintyre1994 »

SilasX wrote: post #164
kefka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be? I'm seeing a lot of reasons to bust "employment". Here's some. 1. Unemployment insurance? Well, you aren't employed. 2. Get hurt on the job? You're not on a job, 1099'er. 3. You "get" to pay the employer's tax as well as your own. Jokes on you, bub. 4. Want to join a union? They kill your account. 5. Real contracts can agree upon wages. How do you do this via Uber/Homejoy/"sharing job"? You don't. 6.…

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.

Point 5 doesn't seem to apply to self-employed people, and seems like a major difference. Self employed people can negotiate their compensation, these workers have prices set by someone else.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#212

Post by thechut »

preinheimer wrote: post #88
zippergz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 givi…

I gave Handy(Book) a try, and consistency in who arrived was my issue. The first person they sent was absolutely fantastic, send her every week!. Trying to book her again was a nightmare, the docs didn't match the application, and support pointed me back at the documentation. Finally a month later, after several support calls and emails, I had the same cleaner booked. Success! The morning of my appointment I looked o…

This is ultimately my same issue with Handy. I don't want a different person every single time. I think this makes it really hard to make it work.

That being said I have had Handy come and clean many times now and not changed it, so I think there is a slight convenience factor. It would be better if Handy just facilitated the direct communication with the same person to come every time. And instead of charging me a fee, charged the cleaner a kind of 'management' fee. I think that would better.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#213

Post by cfelix »

mikeash wrote: post #36
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…

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.

I wouldn't say that finding a house cleaner is really easy, but once you solve this problem and all goes well you just stick with the same person.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#214

Post by nommm-nommm »

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.

Its the other way around. The vast majority of housekeepers are not thieves however thieves pose as housekeepers very easily. Thieves (and other criminals) pose as all kinds of different occupations.

Almost no actual landlord will take your security deposit and run but there's plenty of people on Craigslist posing as landlords to do just that. So the moral of the story is try not to be taken in by a scam.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#216

Post by marcosdumay »

prostoalex wrote: post #31
saalweachter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an important question any entrepreneur has to answer: what value do I add to the business? If you're providing some expertise or startup costs to purchase expensive investments (buildings, machinery...) or creating some sort of efficiency of scale, you've probably got a viable business. If your business plan is to skim money off of workers who could do their jobs and get paid without you, your workers ar…

> If your business plan is to skim money off of workers who could do their jobs and get paid without you Lead generation is a viable business, as demonstrated by Yelp (and previously Yellow Pages), it's just not hot and fast-growing.

Publicity does work, but it needs much larger volumes than services to work, because it can not sustain big margins for long.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#217

Post by jeorgun »

SilasX wrote: post #151
tptacek wrote: post #57

But on this particular holiday, a booking had slipped through unnoticed, due to a website malfunction, according to a former employee. Rather than cancel an appointment at the last minute, Homejoy’s cofounder and CEO Adora Cheung grabbed a toilet brush and a vacuum cleaner. Then she headed to San Francisco’s Mission Dolores neighborhood and scrubbed. “The customer had no idea,” said Arjun Naskar, one of the earliest…

>Semi-related reminder: tip your hotel housekeepers. Wait, what? What's the semi-relation there? I really hope it's not going to be another variant of "it's a hard job, therefore the tipping model obviously makes more sense there than a pure wage model".

I think the intention is less "the tipping model makes more sense", and more "given that the tipping model is in effect, you shouldn't unfairly punish the housekeepers by not tipping them".

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#218

Post by husseiny »

What I don't understand is if someone is willing at accept employment at a company under 1099 vs W2 why is it up to the government to say that it is not allowed? Can't that person just not work at this employer and seek employment elsewhere?

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#219

Post by kamaal »

jkyle wrote: post #198
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 cha…

My dad is a cab driver. I myself have a lot of experience managing cab business, I can tell you cab business works pretty much the same way. You can sign up with as many cab drivers you like and offer them as much business they can handle. Sooner or later they will find permanent paying customers and move on. Especially among elderly, kids and women.

Its the standard in every industry. Once you've built your ground, you never like to go through a third party.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#220

Post by potatolicious »

prostoalex wrote: post #31
saalweachter wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an important question any entrepreneur has to answer: what value do I add to the business? If you're providing some expertise or startup costs to purchase expensive investments (buildings, machinery...) or creating some sort of efficiency of scale, you've probably got a viable business. If your business plan is to skim money off of workers who could do their jobs and get paid without you, your workers ar…

> If your business plan is to skim money off of workers who could do their jobs and get paid without you Lead generation is a viable business, as demonstrated by Yelp (and previously Yellow Pages), it's just not hot and fast-growing.

Lead generation is IMO white-hot, maybe not for VCs but certainly to the stakeholders involved. Lots, and lots of legacy businesses yearning for new methods of leadgen, and lots of money involved for someone able to solve it.

The problem was precisely that Homejoy was a leadgen product but attempted to extract a cut of the action for the rest of time, rather than one-time as most leadgen goes.

saalweachter is right - the big question is what value Homejoy provides. In this case it's clear that Homejoy offers (to the cleaner and the customer) a substantial one time value, and then provides little to no value for subsequent engagements. Because the product doesn't offer any value into the future, both participants were incentivized (and IMO well justified) in cutting them out of the deal.

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