Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

recode.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 205 posts

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#51

Post by Spooky23 »

Domenic_S wrote: post #23
Spooky23 wrote: post #14

Judging from my Ikea kitchen delivery experience, I fully expect to have some dude with $20k in cabinets tied to the roof of his Honda shop up at people's houses.

Holy cow, you spent $20k on Ikea kitchen cabinets? Edit: Wow, you guys are touchy. For $20k you could get fully custom cabinets from a local shop made with cabinet-grade plywood for a typically-sized kitchen.

I spent around $7k, came down to around $5 after we got concessions for the damage caused by the van full of drunken homeless people who delivered the stuff.

The guy ahead of me in line spent like $30k on a massive kitchen. It seems strange to spend that much, but if you lack the funds to build a super high quality massive kitchen, IKEA is good enough at bargain prices.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#52

Post by psychometry »

robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

...or to pick up furniture at an IKEA location, since they're usually way out in the suburbs and shipping prices are exorbitant.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#53

Post by bleonard »

thespace123 wrote: post #21

Wow, is this the first React-Native success story? As far as mobile app startups are concerned?

Not likely a direct cause ;-) but React Native does add to our velocity. We are now definitely hiring if you want to be part of the ongoing React Native success story... Feel free to hit me up: brian at taskrabbit.com

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#54

Post by panda88888 »

ghaff wrote: post #9
stcredzero wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect TaskRabbit never really made it big because of some combination of transaction costs I was a TaskRabbit user. I'd say that they had a problem with quality control and maintaining a really good user experience. Too many of their workers were kind of meh. This was especially apparent with moving. I would be unpacking and something from storage and think to myself, "She did that!? " I also made the mistake of…

I'm sure they also have the same business issue that a lot of these personal services firms do. If I come across a particularly good handyman (or whatever) when using the service, you can be sure that we'll trade cards and I'll probably be calling him directly for any relevant task in the future.

This. Uber works because the need to get somewhere is time critical and drivers(mostly) are more or less commodity. For more personal, repeat services that are not time sensitive, uber-like middleman service doesn't make sense beyond 1st contact.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#55

Post by fhood »

smelendez wrote: post #27
thebrettd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here...IKEA might still be great for you as long as you avoid all the subcontracted installation services? Unless you don't know or care to turn a screwdriver, I guess! :)

Not OP, but I'm fine putting together basic IKEA furniture but don't think I would try to install kitchen cabinets myself.

Why not? It is the perfect opportunity to A. buy more tools, B. Use almost untouched tools you bought last time something like this happened.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#56

Post by apendleton »

smelendez wrote: post #27
thebrettd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here...IKEA might still be great for you as long as you avoid all the subcontracted installation services? Unless you don't know or care to turn a screwdriver, I guess! :)

Not OP, but I'm fine putting together basic IKEA furniture but don't think I would try to install kitchen cabinets myself.

I've installed Ikea kitchen cabinets before. The assembly is trivial (they're just boxes), and they all sit on a single rail you screw into the wall at the start. Lifting them into place takes an extra set of hands, but it's not high-skill work. This is not custom cabinetry or anything.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#57

Post by flachsechs »

jessriedel wrote: post #36
TylerE wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The store build-out on this model may be done, at least in the US. It most definitely is NOT. For instance the nearest Ikea to the Raleigh/Triangle area is over 2 hours away. There are 24 US states without a single Ikea store.

It may be that they have mostly saturated in the markets where they think they are competitive.

i doubt it. i think america is just huge, and that they can't responsibly expand too fast.

remember, ikea is expanding globally. on my last vacation, i saw an ikea identical to the one by my house in california, in southern germany. that's really sort of unprecedented at the scale of an ikea store.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#58

Post by ghaff »

panda88888 wrote: post #54
ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they also have the same business issue that a lot of these personal services firms do. If I come across a particularly good handyman (or whatever) when using the service, you can be sure that we'll trade cards and I'll probably be calling him directly for any relevant task in the future.

This. Uber works because the need to get somewhere is time critical and drivers(mostly) are more or less commodity. For more personal, repeat services that are not time sensitive, uber-like middleman service doesn't make sense beyond 1st contact.

And at that point, the business is essentially just an electronic yellow pages with ratings. Which is fine. But, at that point, the business model is probably just charging a listing fee. Which is fine but is never going to have the potential revenue of getting a cut from each transaction.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#59

Post by stcredzero »

mLuby wrote: post #11
stcredzero wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect TaskRabbit never really made it big because of some combination of transaction costs I was a TaskRabbit user. I'd say that they had a problem with quality control and maintaining a really good user experience. Too many of their workers were kind of meh. This was especially apparent with moving. I would be unpacking and something from storage and think to myself, "She did that!? " I also made the mistake of…

When you say interface to you mean app UI/UX or more generally what TaskRabbit does?

UI/UX. It was only after the booking was done, and I contacted the TaskRabbit person the day before to confirm, that she realized it was a move out cleaning, and that I should have put my request in the "Intensive Cleaning" section, or something like that. To be fair to TaskRabbit, she didn't read my job description at all. But still, I felt kinda slimed by the interface.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#60

Post by KerrickStaley »

justboxing wrote: post #46
jagger27 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TaskRabbit was cheaper than IKEA's own build service?

IKEA is almost always cheaper, but the service is horrible. They outsource the build service to local contractors and it's a hit or miss, mostly miss. I bought a closet from IKEA and arranged the service through them. They sent 3 dudes who couldn't speak a word of english. On top of that, the 3 dudes got mad that there was no parking in San Francisco and left. So I had to call IKEA again and get them to come on a Sun…

Personally I build IKEA furniture myself. It's very straightforward and often pretty fun.
Post reply on HN