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Why Homejoy Failed

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Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#301

Post by georgemcbay »

robotresearcher wrote: post #286
jonknee wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they hadn't they wouldn't have been getting in touch to say that the particular individual wasn't going to make it. If anything, the OP should send Handy an invoice for a cancellation fee, not the other way around.

This text is on the form you use to choose an individual: "We'll do our best to match you up again on your new booking, but please understand that as an independent contractor, it is up to the discretion of the professional to accept or decline your booking. In the event we cannot match you, another professional will be assigned." If you don't like that deal, don't take it. But don't be all pissed off when they do ex…

All of your "read the fine-print" logic can be applied to Handy and Amex just as easily as to Handy and the customer.

eg:

If Handy doesn't like the deal where an Amex customer can request a chargeback for inadequate customer service then they shouldn't accept Amex as payment.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#302

Post by jldugger »

> direct employment arrangements with its own (now former) clients.

There's really no way to avoid that, and it dooms the whole enterprise if Homejoy is serving as a middleman. I'm kinda curious how MerryMaids and the like work. Seems like the only viable system is simply a lead generations service.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#303

Post by WillAbides »

matchagaucho wrote: post #244
jkyle wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So, is a "one time referral fee" business model the key to success? This is effectively the yellow pages model, where cleaners pay for leads via advertising placements, and own the long-term relationship with the customer.

The business model was articulated above. You join a successful crew and scrub toilets with them for a couple of years until you know the business and have people who trust you enough to employee you directly. The they spread the word among their friends and you get more clients. Eventually you get more than you can handle yourself and find some people you trust to help you out.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#304

Post by nostrademons »

mattmanser wrote: post #259
datashovel wrote: post #254

I operate my business on such a tight budget it seems almost criminal for a business to fail with $40 million to work with. I could spend many lifetimes growing my business with that kind of money. IMO you don't force a market to grow. You accept what the market gives you and then you grow into the market as it allows you to grow. Not the other way around. This is one of the biggest flaws in how investors expect thei…

That's the old bootstrap vs VC money argument, but bootstrapping doesn't work for a lot of business. You can't make an Uber or Google or Facebook or Twitter without VC money, it simply can't happen.

You can take one to the point where it's clear that business growth is constrained by available resources and not by market demand, though. At that point, investing in the business becomes a no-brainer.

Uber, Google, Facebook, and Twitter all had working products that were attracting users faster than they could service them before they took VC money.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#305

Post by idlewords »

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".

They're grossly underpaid and they clean up your shit. Leave them cash.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#306

Post by steveh73 »

pbreit wrote: post #278
jpatokal wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the single largest market for limousine services: businesspeople traveling to and from airports. These people absolutely will pay extra for a reliable, no-surprises ride from a person they know, plus they know in advance exactly when they will travel. Uber offers little to no advantage for this group. Uber's advantage comes from catering really well to ad-hoc, short-hop travel, but this is a different market…

Right. The person said "taxis". And the limo market is tiny compared to the Uber opportunity.

Works for taxis too. An acquaintance of mine has regularly (once or twice a week) had to travel from his home to the airport, about a $100 fare each way. He's used the same taxi driver for about 10 years - knowing that either this driver (or someone the driver vouches for) will be on time every time.

(taxi expenses are covered by his work but personal car travel is not, so he doesn't drive, go figure)

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#307

Post by duskwuff »

FireBeyond wrote: post #258
potatolicious wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "no way in the UI to cancel the subscription" Handy isn't the only one, and this ought to be illegal. If I can sign up online I ought to be able to cancel online. These companies can lie to themselves and the public all they want - the exclusive purpose of making you call to cancel (or worse, visit a physical location) is to discourage cancellations. It compromises the notion of a free and voluntary exchange of mon…

LA Fitness has this one down to a fine art. You have to send a form, -by certified mail- to an address. They will not let you cancel in person, on the phone, or online. And if you send in the paperwork, but not by certified mail? They'll toss it, unactioned.

This dark pattern is common to many gyms and fitness programs. :(

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#309

Post by juddlyon »

It failed because it was unreliable and a good deal of contractors felt no obligation to be loyal. I could never book the same person on the same day. As has been pointed out - cleaning is a routine.

They should sell the software to local providers, the booking features were quite nice.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#310

Post by a3voices »

datashovel wrote: post #295
a3voices wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. You can make a Google without VC money if you start in 1994.

I actually think within the next 5-10 years companies that require scale like Google, Facebook, etc. will be possible at very low cost. Low enough even that the project can be bootstrapped without funding. They of course won't start out at that scale, but given the ease with which one can scale cloud products (or have it done automatically for you via things like Elastic Beanstalk) and how cheaply it can be done, I w…

Well that's true that it's low cost. The difficulty I'd run into is how to get people to actually use it without spending on advertising.
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