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Homejoy says goodbye

blog.homejoy.com

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Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#321

Post by classicsnoot »

1. Those who claim cleaning is not a "skilled job" should get off their keyboard, spend a day cleaning their moms house, and get back to me when they learn they are 3X slower than a pro and destroyed something with bleach-based spray.

Finally someone said it. Some moron posted ITT that 'no one is passionate about cleaning someone else's shit', which I find ironic as this website is populated by many people who clean up other people's shit online. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it seems to think the only job with subtle nuances is your own. Thus far in my life, I have done construction, plumbing, lawn care, film, 'fixing', security, and professional driving (not chauffeuring), and I always thought it cute how the pros in each of those vocations could go for hours about the skill and attention to detail required to be proffecient, then in the same breath speak of another vocation like it is simple. I think it is safe to assume that if someone is willing to pay for a service it probably requires some level of skill.

Full disclosure: in my "unskilled", workaday life I am constantly explaining the immense amount of time, effort, and skill required to make internet fix.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#322

Post by _sentient »

silverlake wrote: post #270
_sentient wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founder of Lawn Love here. We think a lot about disintermediation risk. We do a number of things to prevent it, but it ultimately comes down to providing enough value to the supply side of your market. If you build a product that drives real, ongoing value for your service pros, they will be much less incentivised to cut you out of the transaction. The same is true for the demand side. Also, lawn care has a reduced r…

Do you schedule the customers close by to minimize travel time for your lawn care guys? I know cleaners that drive across town to jobs, effectively losing money while they're stuck in traffic. I don't know if Homejoy did that. To incentivize that, you could offer discounts for neighbors who use the service together. If Homejoy had a bunch of apartments in one location, then cleaners would make more money per day.

Yep, that's one of our primary value props. Once we reach critical mass in a market we're able to do job clustering and route optimization. More jobs per day + less time spent burning fuel sitting behind a steering wheel means much better economics for our lawn pros.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#323

Post by myth_buster »

slackstation wrote: post #233
CrackpotGonzo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I always felt that this was just another doomed startup that couldn't possibly survive. Curious how we'll revise our views on the company and Adora. I guess this is the playbook, right? Doesn't matter if you build a sustainable company or not. As long as you raise crazy amounts of VC $ you're considered a success.

I thought about this. Someone made a reddit article outlining how to do this and the profit margin depended on skirting the 1099 rules. This isn't a scalable business. Technology doesn't change the basic factors of the business in any meaningful way. I setup plans, bought a domain, had a partner but, never ended up doing it. My partner was disgusted with it as we were planning and over time convinced me. Home cleanin…

  Technology doesn't change the basic factors of the business 
  in any meaningful way.
I think this is the key point. Add to it the loose coupling with the workforce may make the sharing economy model rattle. One exception I can think off is AirBnB.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#324

Post by mbesto »

pbreit wrote: post #299
mbesto wrote: post #193

As tptacek said, I'm sure many of the people who created and work for these businesses are well intended and hard working, and we have to applaud them for that. However, the writing is on the wall for any "sharing economy" service that is simply a technology wrapper for non-SSN'd workers in the US. A couple of challenges that aren't solved by technology: 1. Many unskilled labor positions, especially those that incorp…

I think you're off on most of your points. Obviously the startups are not using undocumented workers. The risks are far too high. Gross margins are more like 20%, which is plenty to operate such a business. Not sure how it's indentured servitude compared to any other sort of job. Not sure your point about background checks. Supply & demand works out the numbers.

> Obviously the startups are not using undocumented workers.

If this is true, than there would be a massive supply shortage. Point is, pick one argument (undocumented) or the other (undocumented) and you're going to have a biz model flaw.

> which is plenty to operate such a business.

"such a business" - Sure, but not a tech driven one.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#325

Post by dsl »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #242
jasonwilk wrote: post #129

I wanted HomeJoy to work and tried to use the service a few times. What the failure came down to: 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…

>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. For me personally, it felt they had little training of how to clean. Things like d…

> The cleaners were not professionals.

I live in a "secure building" where you need to be buzzed in or have a key fob. A Homejoy cleaner assaulted me while screaming "I'm late for a job you gotta let me in!" when I refused to let her tailgate in. When asked for identification or what unit she was trying to get to, I was simply told: "You stupid punkass bch, I work for Homejoy... ya'll s is paranoid."

After 6 phone calls and just as many promises of being called back, I was basically told they couldn't address my problem because I wasn't a customer.

Took the issue to the HOA and we banned Homejoy from the building.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#326

Post by jonknee »

chc wrote: post #239
markonthewall wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of passion from the cleaners I doubt cleaning other people's shit is anyone's passion.

I knew a guy who was a window cleaner. He was really and truly passionate about it. He would go to window-cleaning competitions and come home bragging about placing first in some category or another. People can take pride in a job well-done even if they job isn't prestigious. I don't think it's reasonable to require cleaners to be that enthusiastic, but I don't really see why somebody should feel less proud about mak…

I had no idea there were competitions. That must be satisfying. I looked it up and man they're fast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8JCG-ww3Fg

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#327

Post by toomuchtodo »

joslin01 wrote: post #203
toomuchtodo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't get a moral blank-check just because you don't like your job. Whether someone can "feel" your passion about a job isn't about morality. I can do my job well, even if I feel its the equivalent of shoveling horse shit, and have zero passion for it. Whether someone is doing their job well is never a moral question. If someone didn't do the job you agreed to, its contractual; don't pay or pay a reduced rate b…

To expand on what you said below, imagine someone hires you to code up a simple API. You get started, but then decide you just don't like your job so you write 50% tests and hand it back to the client. Let's say the 50% of other tests weren't needed because your code actually ran perfect. "Here" you coldly tell him and walk off. Was it fair that you did a poor job for the client because you didn't like the work? Did…

> Did you not technically complete the job, but in a shoddy, unprofessional fashion?

I don't see how that's immoral. You either completed a job to spec or you didn't. API works but you didn't complete the tests? You didn't do what you were paid for. No morality comes into play.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#329

Post by mbesto »

jeremyt wrote: post #302
mbesto wrote: post #193

As tptacek said, I'm sure many of the people who created and work for these businesses are well intended and hard working, and we have to applaud them for that. However, the writing is on the wall for any "sharing economy" service that is simply a technology wrapper for non-SSN'd workers in the US. A couple of challenges that aren't solved by technology: 1. Many unskilled labor positions, especially those that incorp…

Cofounder of thumbtack here. I think you misunderstand our business model. We don't hire anybody; we're just a marketplace. A request comes in, we connect it with qualified professionals, and then they bid directly on the job. At no time have we gone out and hired "MBA students or aspiring actors" to fill our provider directory. From day one all of our providers were actually working in their industry prior to signin…

Fair enough, thanks for clarifying. I'm having a hard time finding the article but I believe a FastCo/Wired/etc (one of those sites) did a longform article about how many of those type of workers (students, actors, etc) existed on Thumbtack, which was further backed up by someone who had interviewed with you. That was the basis for my conclusion.

Out of curiosity, given you're a marketplace how do you handle reoccurring work then? Or do you focus entirely on net new business?

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#330

Post by jchendy »

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…

Even after meeting my doctors, I still use ZocDoc to schedule appointments. It's much easier for me to find the ideal appointment time when I can put my schedule and the doctors schedule side-by-side as opposed to calling the receptionist. If the doctor built a high-quality scheduling app, I might still use ZocDoc because it would likely be easier to remember how to get there.
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