121–130 of 410 posts
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]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or perhaps we need to re-evaluate our laws surrounding employment. Events like this (supposing they were caused by employment laws) are perfect illustrations of how overregulation kills jobs.
There are laws surrounding employment? California is an at-will state. Further, 1099 contractors don't get health insurance, workers comp, or any coverage by the employer. There's also no assurance of long-term employment, thus no reason for the company to be loyal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or perhaps we need to re-evaluate our laws surrounding employment. Events like this (supposing they were caused by employment laws) are perfect illustrations of how overregulation kills jobs.
There are laws surrounding employment? California is an at-will state. Further, 1099 contractors don't get health insurance, workers comp, or any coverage by the employer. There's also no assurance of long-term employment, thus no reason for the company to be loyal.
California has extensive laws that impose fixed costs on employers (paid family leave, for example). CA is also notorious for lawsuit risks. There are also federal laws - Obamacare for anyone working 31+ hours, and many more.
In economics, fixed costs and regulations like this are called "rigidities", and are well known to cause shortages/surpluses and misallocation of resources. (E.g., according to Keynesian economics, such things cause most/all recessions.)
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…
That hits the nail on the head. A 1099 contractor has to cut some 30%-40% off their wage to support things like self-insurance, etc (or add yea much). If you're "working" for a gig provider, you're not a 1099 employee by the inherent nature of the thing. Granted, you're not in a normal employer-employee relationship, but neither are you a skilled freelancer contracting your labor out on wages you yourself set and negotiated.
While I fully support the idea of TaskRabbit, Lyft, Uber, Homejoy et al, certain realities have to be faced squarely: they are not being real about the nature of their business. They really are something like employers, with something like employees.
Cheung is likely correct that a third legal category needs to be created (neither 1099 freelancer nor true employee), but in the absence of that, it seems profoundly more ethical to consider the workers employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or perhaps we need to re-evaluate our laws surrounding employment. Events like this (supposing they were caused by employment laws) are perfect illustrations of how overregulation kills jobs.
There are laws surrounding employment? California is an at-will state. Further, 1099 contractors don't get health insurance, workers comp, or any coverage by the employer. There's also no assurance of long-term employment, thus no reason for the company to be loyal.
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
So we should watch a video about "how to go from zero users to many users" from someone who did it by selling services at a loss and then going out of business?
Obviously easy to say in retrospect what mattered in the end, but I'm wondering what is a method to test this kind of assumption?
I go by my own use case - I really only care about price, and I build trust by the person and not by the company. I prefer to stay home while it's being serviced as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
With driving, nothing of that is required. Many people are in auto mode when they are driving. Think about it - is it easier to drive vs. cleaning your place? Of course you want basic driving skills to be there - but I think the DMV licensing process and Uber ratings generally takes care of that. You are going extreme by talking about death etc. - but how many Uber journeys have resulted in that. There are millions of Uber being driven every day - and I haven't read about a single death (of the passenger).
1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor.
2. People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean. Especially for those that have valuables, you want someone you trust who is going to hopefully be your maid for years to come. I wouldn't want someone new every time and for that reason, I used HomeJoy only at our office but even that wasn't enough due to poor quality.
Someone on this thread further explained this well, which is that HomeJoy is at a high level, a match making service. Once you find a match, why do you need HomeJoy? Connect directly with the maid and have them come on your own schedule for a fraction of the price.
I used to feel the same way about Uber. If I found a good driver back in the day I would get his phone # and take him exclusively to the airport. Uber solved this with UberX and by having a wealth of seemingly skilled drivers that made it a true on demand service. Having to book an appointment like HomeJoy seems like it is not a true OnDemand service, just a nicer UI than any other maid connecting service.
AirBnB I feel had a similar problem. For frequent business travelers, finding the right place at the right price is awesome and I would usually try to stay at the same place and connect with people directly. AirBnB solved this with overwhelming demand for the service (the place I like may not always be available) and with their insurance policy and scheduling tools for renters.
In any event, I don't feel like HomeJoy failing is indiciative of a bubble in the On Demand economy. There were inherent principles of this business that made it destined to fail that others in the space won't have a problem with.
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…
The question that comes to my mind is: should an entrepreneur really "fake it till you make it"?