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Homejoy says goodbye

blog.homejoy.com

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Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#91

Post by unchocked »

icelancer wrote: post #15
fraXis wrote: post #7

I used Homejoy and I liked it's ease of use. But after the cleaning lady they sent me was done, she offered me her direct phone # and told me I could contact her directly for any future cleaning needs. I always wondered how this business model was going to work if Homejoy's contractors could just give out their phone # at the end of their first service and the customer could just contact them directly for any future…

Going through Homejoy instead of direct offers you Homejoy's bonded protection and insurance, plus refund platform. This is worth something.

Sure, but is it worth their margin? The market resoundingly answered "no".

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#92

Post by BinaryIdiot »

ivankirigin wrote: post #79

Cofounder Adora Cheung is worth following. The story is a great example for founders. Check out her lecture at Sam Altman's startup class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP176MBG9Tk

This was a good talk but I can't help to think that she should have spent more time working on the business than doing these types of speaking engagements (because she had done quite a lot of them, not just this one).

Though the time spent doing these engagements and preparing, maybe that was worth it for the advertising? Not sure but they don't sit right with me.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#93

Post by amerf1 »

"I used Homejoy and I liked it's ease of use. But after the cleaning lady they sent me was done, she offered me her direct phone # and told me I could contact her directly for any future cleaning needs."

I used Airbnb and the host told me the same thing, he said book 3 nights and the other 20 pay me cash or transfer the amount to my account and avoid the Airbnb fee

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#94

Post by dkasper »

product50 wrote: post #73
tptacek wrote: post #16

I get the sense that many of the people involved in Homejoy are well-intentioned and hardworking. But I can't say that I think it's a bad thing that tech startups are finding it difficult to monetize unskilled labor. The technology that most companies like these offer (with the possible exception of Uber) is a commodity. The real asset they have is the network effect. Which makes the balance of power between the tech…

I think you have it wrong here. The fact that HomeJoy was actually playing in a market which required skill labor was responsible for their downfall. Think about it - if there is an HomeJoy operator who's actually good and did her job very well (and thus is skilled), next time I will want to deal with her directly (to save on cost) and not deal with HomeJoy at all. I certainly did this. In fact, many HomeJoy operator…

You think cleaning is skilled labor and driving isn't? Uber drivers better not be unskilled. You're putting your life in someone's hands every time you ride in an Uber (as with any car). There's almost no skill to scrubbing toilets and vacuuming rugs, and if you mess it up you get fired but no one dies. The only skill required is attention to detail and caring enough to do a good job.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#95

Post by seizethecheese »

brianmcconnell wrote: post #71
fraXis wrote: post #7

I used Homejoy and I liked it's ease of use. But after the cleaning lady they sent me was done, she offered me her direct phone # and told me I could contact her directly for any future cleaning needs. I always wondered how this business model was going to work if Homejoy's contractors could just give out their phone # at the end of their first service and the customer could just contact them directly for any future…

A prediction about "sharing economy" companies. Almost all of them are tacking on a thin rind of web/mobile UI and smart dispatch technology to an existing service. The long-term winners will be companies like Flywheel that recognize this and focus on providing that service to existing operators, much like payment processors. This, of course, is perceived as a smaller market since they can't count revenue the same wa…

Absolutely, however another "advantage" of many "sharing economy" companies is that they skirt regulations that incumbents must adhere to.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#96

Post by [deleted] »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #8

I really loved the idea, and maybe I'm just being cheap, but no way I was going to pay $250+ a month to have my 1296 sq ft house cleaned. That's a $150/month value at market rates in my area. $100/month for a bit of convenience was not worth it at all to me.

[deleted]

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#97

Post by dhaivatpandya »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #8

I really loved the idea, and maybe I'm just being cheap, but no way I was going to pay $250+ a month to have my 1296 sq ft house cleaned. That's a $150/month value at market rates in my area. $100/month for a bit of convenience was not worth it at all to me.

This is an incredibly important point. We often imagine that the price of convenience is pretty high, but more often than not, the markets we serve turn out to be incredibly price conscious. Sure, there are sections of the socioeconomic pyramid that will pay a strong premium for even marginally better, smoother service but the majority of the pyramid (a surprisingly large majority) will not pay such a premium.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#98

Post by CPLX »

minimaxir wrote: post #29

This serves as a strong counterpoint to the infamous "Dear Future Homejoy Engineer" HN job posting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8794956 Working as a family on a holiday may not be enough to save a startup.

Sometimes when you think you're "building things that enable and will change the way people live and work" you might just be missing out on family time as a young person because you've prioritized your goal of helping make the affluent slightly more affluent.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#99

Post by radmuzom »

ryandrake wrote: post #59
jimjamjim wrote: post #27

As a former customer (have not used in years), I actually felt uncomfortable with the cleaners. Not because of anything they did, but because you could just tell they were low income and being paid very little by Homejoy (I think less than $15/hr). It didn't feel right, and I stopped using them in part because of that.

You felt uncomfortable that they made less than $15/hr and solved that by making sure they never got any business from you again?

It's unlikely that the cleaners will never clean again. They will just not be using a "tech" company as the middleman.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#100

Post by WalterSear »

Zigurd wrote: post #69
acabrahams wrote: post #38

I never used the Homejoy service, but I was in the audience for the Startup School Europe talks last year where Adora gave a fantastic speech (Notes: http://theinflexion.com/blog/2014/07/26/notes-from-startup-s... ) about going through so many ideas and working so hard to get to Homejoy. The talk's ending had a 'And look, we made it, so you can too' feel, and I had no idea that they were doing anything but crushing i…

I get the opposite reaction when I hear of someone grinding away until they've got a startup. I understand that investors invest in people. But the idea has to have a life of it's own, and a value on its own. I remember when urban adventure games were a thing, and a thing that tended to attract very energetic people. But it was shown that no matter how much hustle you've got, urban adventure games are not an investab…

Even if an idea is valuable, implementation is rarely a simple process.
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