Pondering Homejoy’s Failure • Hacker News Board

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#11

Post by visakanv » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #3

detaro wrote: post #2

> Getting to that consistent Homejoy Cleaning proved to be way out of reach. As a result each product interaction could be wildly different, unlike the consistent factory packaged product vision that we were pushing. As a former colleague put it “Our product should’ve been positioned closer to finding the right match on OkCupid, as opposed to finding the right macbook”. Interesting quote that IMHO nicely sums up the…

Homejoy would not have succeed even if every one of their customers were to fall head-over-heels in love with their cleaner. Homejoy’s business model was fundamentally flawed and no tweaking or pivoting could ever solve this. There was no problem that could be solved with technology. No solution = no business. The only interesting thing out of the whole homejoy experiment was in exposing the shallowness of some VC’s…

> I wish we would see a reasoned explanation from the investors of why they put their limited partner’s money into Homejoy.

"There's a 0.1% chance we could 10,000x'd our investment. It might be the next Uber or Airbnb or [[insert_supposed_unicorn]]. You don't want to look like a dinosaur who missed out on the next big thing, do you? It'll only cost you a fragment of your $$. C'mon. For Glory! For Frodo!"

When it fails: "Eh, what can you do. Startups, amirite?"

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#12

Post by leothekim » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 1:57 AM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #10

leothekim wrote: post #7

This epitomizes the arrogance and drowning self-absorbedness of Bay Area startups. And it does it in a Medium post. And wow, there are some real gems in this post. For example: "Customer interactions happen inside of their homes (anything that went wrong was grossly amplified)" What did you expect? THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE SELLING. "Client expectations vary wildly" Yup, different people like different things. News at 11…

I agree with every single thing about your comment. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if these guys go on to do other things, try again, fail again, try again, fail again, and eventually build something that actually works. It might not be immediately obvious, but deluded entrepreneurs (with their blind optimism and relentless trial-and-error) make the world a better place. I don't know if we should encourage or dis…

I'd agree with your comment. But the "Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure" closing and this [1] make me believe that an important lesson wasn't learned.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#13

Post by danieltillett » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 1:57 AM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #11

danieltillett wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homejoy would not have succeed even if every one of their customers were to fall head-over-heels in love with their cleaner. Homejoy’s business model was fundamentally flawed and no tweaking or pivoting could ever solve this. There was no problem that could be solved with technology. No solution = no business. The only interesting thing out of the whole homejoy experiment was in exposing the shallowness of some VC’s…

> I wish we would see a reasoned explanation from the investors of why they put their limited partner’s money into Homejoy. "There's a 0.1% chance we could 10,000x'd our investment. It might be the next Uber or Airbnb or [[insert_supposed_unicorn]]. You don't want to look like a dinosaur who missed out on the next big thing, do you? It'll only cost you a fragment of your $$. C'mon. For Glory! For Frodo!" When it fail…

This might be accurate, but it is hardly reasoned :)

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#14

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:01 AM UTC

leothekim wrote: post #7

This epitomizes the arrogance and drowning self-absorbedness of Bay Area startups. And it does it in a Medium post. And wow, there are some real gems in this post. For example: "Customer interactions happen inside of their homes (anything that went wrong was grossly amplified)" What did you expect? THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE SELLING. "Client expectations vary wildly" Yup, different people like different things. News at 11…

It's very common for the reasons for business failure to seem obvious in retrospect. That's because building a successful business requires getting a lot of independently trivial things right, and doing so under very tight time and resource constraints. If you're a commenter on Hacker News or a student in an MBA course, you have the time to focus on what went wrong, and of course it seems obvious. If you're an entrepreneur building the business, your attention was probably elsewhere, and it's likely that the you didn't even think about the things that killed your business.

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#15

Post by danieltillett » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:02 AM UTC

reikonomusha wrote: post #9

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #6

> ...the point I am trying to make is that the Homejoy team was exceptionally talented and did amazing things... > Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans... > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. The entire post describes a litany of horr…

It is entirely possible to have an extremely good team and talented, knowledgeable people as leaders, but that doesn't make good businesspeople or imply a good vision.

This is true and it is where the investors should have stepped in. A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time."

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#16

Post by danieltillett » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:07 AM UTC

visakanv wrote: post #8

This (both the post and the comments here) are very interesting to me from a "some people are intrinsically optimistic and some people are intrinsically pessimistic" point of view. > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. Rationalization is a hell of a drug And I don't me…

It is fine for the team from Homejoy to be wild optimists, but not the VC investors. They are supposed to be a fiduciary with their limited partners money.

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#17

Post by visakanv » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:07 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #14

leothekim wrote: post #7

This epitomizes the arrogance and drowning self-absorbedness of Bay Area startups. And it does it in a Medium post. And wow, there are some real gems in this post. For example: "Customer interactions happen inside of their homes (anything that went wrong was grossly amplified)" What did you expect? THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE SELLING. "Client expectations vary wildly" Yup, different people like different things. News at 11…

It's very common for the reasons for business failure to seem obvious in retrospect. That's because building a successful business requires getting a lot of independently trivial things right, and doing so under very tight time and resource constraints. If you're a commenter on Hacker News or a student in an MBA course, you have the time to focus on what went wrong, and of course it seems obvious. If you're an entrep…

> If you're an entrepreneur building the business, your attention was probably elsewhere, and it's likely that the you didn't even think about the things that killed your business.

Great point, and it also explains the "always a success rather than a failure in our minds" perspective. From their point of view, they just kept fixing one problem after another, which looks (and feels!) like progress.

Unfortunately, feeling good != doing good. It's unenviably difficult.

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#18

Post by visakanv » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:13 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #16

visakanv wrote: post #8

This (both the post and the comments here) are very interesting to me from a "some people are intrinsically optimistic and some people are intrinsically pessimistic" point of view. > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. Rationalization is a hell of a drug And I don't me…

It is fine for the team from Homejoy to be wild optimists, but not the VC investors. They are supposed to be a fiduciary with their limited partners money.

> It is fine for the team from Homejoy to be wild optimists, but not the VC investors.

Hmm... I don't know if I agree or disagree. I think a VC's experience must be pretty unnerving– she probably turns down seemingly lousy deals and then watches them go on to be staggeringly successful. And that makes her wonder if she's too conservative, maybe. I don't know.

I believe that the partners also expect their VCs to take risks, and would rather burn money (which is difficult for common folks like us to relate to) on 100 bad startups than miss out on 1 home run.

After all, if the VC screw-ups are not tolerated, the partners will just cut off their money supply. This isn't happening, or hasn't happened yet. Which signals to the VCs to continue taking risks.

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#19

Post by visakanv » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #15

reikonomusha wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is entirely possible to have an extremely good team and talented, knowledgeable people as leaders, but that doesn't make good businesspeople or imply a good vision.

This is true and it is where the investors should have stepped in. A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time."

Hahaha, I'm replying to all your comments:

> A good investor would have said to the Homejoy team "we believe in you and will back you in any viable business venture, but the home cleaning market is not a problem that will be solved by technology. Go and find something better and we will talk - here is $50K so you don’t starve in the mean time."

I think the investors think, "Hmm, I don't think the home cleaning market will be solved by technology, but the hell do I know? The last 3 times I said that, I was wrong, and my competitors made hella bank. Screw it, let's do it. They seem smart. They'll figure it out. And if they fail and make something better next time, we have the relationship."

I totally agree with you about the need for prudence, by the way. But I'm not a VC, and I haven't experienced the pressures and challenges that a VC must face. The same "it's easy to judge the man in the arena" idea applies.

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

#20

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 2:55 AM UTC

reikonomusha wrote: post #9

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #6

> ...the point I am trying to make is that the Homejoy team was exceptionally talented and did amazing things... > Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans... > Homejoy and ‘fail’ have gotten tethered together in the tech headlines recently but for myself and many of my colleagues Homejoy will always be more synonymous with success than failure. The entire post describes a litany of horr…

It is entirely possible to have an extremely good team and talented, knowledgeable people as leaders, but that doesn't make good businesspeople or imply a good vision.

Which is precisely why Silicon Valley needs to get over its infatuation with young, intelligent engineering types who have no experience successfully applying software to business.

Giving a "talented" engineer with no demonstrable business acumen tens of millions of dollars to build a profitable, sustainable business is sort of like giving a "talented" pianist tens of millions of dollars to build commercial real estate. Just because an individual has "talent" and knowledge in one area doesn't mean they have it in all areas.