11–20 of 96 posts
Great idea, but it comes across as trying to peddle water heaters, not connecting me with service pros. Remember, the value of your service is connecting homeowners with reliable contractors. Maybe the product focus is a side product of your biz model.
Imagining myself approaching the contractor end: why do I need this? There's more work than I can hire people to do, right now; and this looks a lot like "commit to an open ended job, unseen, for a fixed price." NFI what happened to it, but I recall hearing of a Lowe's "official" effort to try to assemble something like this; they theoretically have the resources to find and keep good relationships with local stables…
Scaling will be a lot of complex work but we've built systems like that in the past at UberEats, where Chris was one of the first GMs, and at Opendoor (largest homebuyer in the US).
"enforce strict quality standards" - This sounds good but there are also local municipal codes that work has to adhere to, sometimes where a repair job has to bring something up to current code standards as part of the work. How will your service ensure contractors are doing this?
Regarding the quality part, say someone passes the quality test before/after photos, etc. and "fixes" someones deck but it later collapses because of faulty work (using improper screws that can't handle load) and someone is severely injured or worse. Are you legally structured where the liability remains with contractors?
Imagining myself approaching the contractor end: why do I need this? There's more work than I can hire people to do, right now; and this looks a lot like "commit to an open ended job, unseen, for a fixed price." NFI what happened to it, but I recall hearing of a Lowe's "official" effort to try to assemble something like this; they theoretically have the resources to find and keep good relationships with local stables…
The contractors who love us are small, independent shops who are great at their craft, but not great at sales & marketing. Unlike lead-gen services, we send them jobs with defined scope and payment. We need to be really good at scoping because if we botch it, then we take liability for that rather than putting it on the contractor. We've had contractors hire more people to their team and buy additional service trucks…
(Tip for people looking at those: rural zipcodes are great canaries for fake data, "we've done work at $Neighbor's house" is a good brag, except when the house burned down 5 years ago and wasnt the one in the picture)
A problem in the home services space is large, new work/replace jobs usually supersede smaller repair jobs. For example, "fix my deck stairs" is going to probably be much lower on a list of jobs from "build me a new deck". I assume this is because the build a deck job is much more predictable and profitable. How will your service operate for repair work that is unpredictable? "enforce strict quality standards" - This…
The contractor takes on the liability, just like any other job. As part of our quality standards, all work needs to be up to code. We ingest the local code standards and include those in our quality controls. The controls are pretty rigorous, down to the specific materials used in jobs, including tracking the purchase, pickup, and usage of those materials.
The issue is however not just about price or cost. It is mostly about finding reliable, knowledge and honest contractors which for some reason is not that easy.
The great contractors are usually very busy already. They don't have a "need to generate leads" problem. The best way to find them is word of mouth. If someone can figure out a way to collect this information (for example we have people asking on nextdoor and facebook local groups), it will be a gold mine.
As a homeowner for 8+ years, this is a HUGE problem. Like really huge. Companies like thumbtack, home advisor, angie's list, craigslist etc are mostly not useful (I have tried them all). I hope you guys succeed. The issue is however not just about price or cost. It is mostly about finding reliable, knowledge and honest contractors which for some reason is not that easy. The great contractors are usually very busy alr…
As a homeowner for 8+ years, this is a HUGE problem. Like really huge. Companies like thumbtack, home advisor, angie's list, craigslist etc are mostly not useful (I have tried them all). I hope you guys succeed. The issue is however not just about price or cost. It is mostly about finding reliable, knowledge and honest contractors which for some reason is not that easy. The great contractors are usually very busy alr…
We’re betting that more contractors can achieve those same standards in our structure, and we can deliver better availability and consistent trust to homeowners.