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Why Homejoy Failed

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Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#321

Post by t2phukeq »

aptimpropriety wrote: post #89

Postmortems like this are always a bit unfair. You ask employees who lost their job when the company folded what was wrong with the company, and they'll air every little complaint or inefficiency that existed within the company. Isn't the ethos of Silicon Valley to 'hack it together' with tape and glue? Moreover, I'm pretty sure that's the reality of almost every high growth company. I'm sure you could find matching…

> Postmortems like this are always a bit unfair. You ask employees who lost their job when the company folded what was wrong with the company, and they'll air every little complaint or inefficiency that existed within the company.

Couldn't agree more. I work at a unicorn and if we blow it there will be a very similar hindsight- and mediocre-employee- biased article. We aren't idiots, we are all taking calculated risks and sometimes they don't pan out.

Also, if Homejoy ended up becoming the next Uber the anecdote about working over Christmas would have been celebrated instead of derided.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#322

Post by _delirium »

steveh73 wrote: post #306
pbreit wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I also know a good number of people who have a "regular" taxi driver. Mostly in southern Europe specifically, though. Sometimes it's because they have some connection to the driver (relative / friend-of-a-friend / friend-of-a-relative) so they want to give that person their business rather than a random driver. Other times it's just someone they got a recommendation for and like. Even some tourists do, if they're the kind of tourist who goes to the same place every summer (e.g. the same town in Crete).

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#323

Post by prostoalex »

kefka wrote: post #50
prostoalex wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a certain growth period it might be more cost-effective for a company to convert certain contractors to W-2 employees. Company can now mandate hours and keep a highly-rated worker from switching to a competitor. Homejoy never passed that "certain growth period", though. So it's not a clear-cut "contractors = good, employees = bad" thing. It's just that companies exploring these markets are all at early stage of…

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.…

With exception of workers comp, the FMLA and SDI are negligible, as in they shouldn't exceed single percentages off a paycheck. In reality with W-2 such great charitable benevolent behavior on the employer's part is due to lower rate they typically pay an employee (vs a higher rate organizations would pay a contractor with a similar role) - it's understood that employee is trading off per-hour take-home pay and time flexibility in favor of paycheck stability.

We also have a precedent of wage negotiation for a part-time job in a service industry - an employer advertises a job opening at a given rate, interested parties are welcome to apply, disinterested parties are welcome to move along. (It would have to be a part-time 30-hour-a-week-max job to avoid the ACA penalty).

It has worked for retail, restaurant, manufacturing, logistics and some other industries, why would it be a show-stopper and game-changer for home cleaning industry?

It's not even a drastic change, where 100% of the workforce has to be entirely 1099 contractors or W-2 employees. As long as both options are provided and conversion at later stage is a possibility, it keeps everybody placated.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#324

Post by CamperBob2 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #283
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.

Have a bit of imagination, there's got to be plenty of ways for a driver to exploit you being in their car for criminal profit too. Provide wifi and slurp data; kidnap you; notify an accomplice that you've left the house empty and it's ripe for burglary; clone a payment card (and/or steal a pin) when you pay; take your DNA to plant at a crime scene for blackmail purposes ... erm, what else, clearly I'm not nefarious…

If this sort of thing were common, I'd hear about it.

On the other hand, home burglaries are so common they don't even make the local news.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#325

Post by philh »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #318
jpatokal wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...except that your strawman there isn't even close to what philh actually said.

"With a cleaner, your possessions are in the hands of someone who might have plenty of incentive to steal your stuff and sell it. " Did we read the same post?

I said that a cleaner might have incentive to steal. You've turned this into "all housekeepers are thieves" and "the domestic help is always stealing stuff". That's not what I said, it's not what I meant, and it's not what I think.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#326

Post by sireat »

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.

Was the cancellation form in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard"? :)

How can the gyms get away with this?

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#327

Post by debacle »

ghaff wrote: post #236
debacle wrote: post #159

> Home cleaning represents an estimated $400 billion global market Any limited critical thinking will show that this number is likely off by 1-2 orders of magnitude. Your median US homeowner is spending $0 on home cleaning a year, and the average is likely very close to that. Outside of the US and Europe, labor costs drive that small amount to almost nothing. I would be amazed to learn that the actual size of the mar…

Almost certainly high. US seems to be about a $10B market: http://www.sbdcnet.org/small-business-research-reports/comme... Note though that, outside US and Europe, labor costs are indeed a lot lower but having a lot of personal help (cooks, housekeepers, nannies, etc.) is far more common also as a result.

That link appears to include commercial cleaning services, which I don't think a service like Homejoy would be able to "disrupt."

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#328

Post by potatolicious »

sireat wrote: post #326
FireBeyond wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Was the cancellation form in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard"? :) How can the gyms get away with this?

If you look into the ownership of major gym chains you'll find that they are owned by financial companies - more specifically billing companies.

It seems like providing the gym itself is more of a side hobby to the main business: find people to bill and keep billing them whether they like it or not, and build a core competence to avoid ever not billing someone.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#329

Post by kefka »

SilasX wrote: post #195
kefka wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Money is the biggest sign of a disparity. But it's not the only sign.

Another sign is "does each side know what they are agreeing to?" In medical industry, that concept is called informed consent. A party who is accustomed to making $150-$500/hr can afford a lawyer to understand the legal and fiduciary risk. Someone making 'Uber Salary' most certainly cannot.

Next, contracts that are discussed and hammered out usually have discussions of liabilities. "What happens if I don't do X?"; "What happens if Y happens?". Instead, Uber et. al. either do not discuss it, or sweep it under the rug, only for the end worker to be bit by it when/if it happens.

For example, accepting UBER means you should have commercial driving license by the state. You should also have insurance that covers that. And there may also be other license or tickets you need to be in compliance. UBER knows many of these laws, and they do not inform the workers of these liabilities. It is not a far stretch to see that UBER is in cahoots to subvert law and be an accessory to insurance fraud

>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.

We already have a tool for businesses to use: hire them. Good 'ol W2 employment. They're choosing not to, and abuse a system traditionally meant for specialized temporary labor. And what are we to expect when one side has such power ($50 billion banked) vs someone who needs a job? One side is being abused.

Re: Why Homejoy Failed

#330

Post by JoeAltmaier »

philh wrote: post #325
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"With a cleaner, your possessions are in the hands of someone who might have plenty of incentive to steal your stuff and sell it. " Did we read the same post?

I said that a cleaner might have incentive to steal. You've turned this into "all housekeepers are thieves" and "the domestic help is always stealing stuff". That's not what I said, it's not what I meant, and it's not what I think.

I'm glad to hear that, and I believe it. What I'm very sad about is, its the first thing that's brought up whenever housekeeping is mentioned. The casual assumption that its a huge problem, happens all the time and is the major issue.
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