Homejoy says goodbye • Hacker News Board

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#341

Post by ghufran_syed » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 8:59 PM UTC

brianmcconnell wrote: post #217

mycroft-holmes wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question to ask in this case is whether those regulations should be there in the first place.

In the case of using the "independent contractor" loophole to avoid paying UI, social sec tax, minimum wage, etc, it's an issue of making sure everyone plays by the same rules. Operators who abide by these rules should not be punished for doing so.

The quote from one of the lawsuits suggests that the 'independent contractors' really weren't very independent...

"Cleaners are unable to provide any additional information before jobs are assigned. For example, a Cleaner cannot tell Homejoy that while she may have picked different zip codes or cities as part of her territory, she only wants to stay within one zip code, or within one small part of a zip code, each day. Instead, if a Cleaner chooses Oakland and San Francisco as part of her territory, Homejoy alone determines whether the cleaner will stay in Oakland on a given day, stay in San Francisco on a given day, or travel in between the two cities multiple times on a given day. Furthermore, Cleaners cannot tell Homejoy whether they want a little or a lot of down time between each job, or each job start time or end time. Cleaners cannot tell Homejoy how much driving they prefer to do, whether the jobs need to be near public transportation, whether the Cleaners prefer to be stuck in rush hour traffic or instead on routes that are reverse commutes, how many jobs the Cleaners want to perform each day, or whether or not they want to return to a previous customer."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/startup-workers-s...

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#342

Post by bane » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

Having recently spent a bit of time finding a roofer, an all purpose handyman, a drywaller, a cleaner and a yard guy, I finally have a good personal team I can use. But my god it took a couple years to assemble them. And there were quite a few duds along the way. I went through 5 roofers just to get one small job done and finally had my handyman just go rent some ladders and do it.

It sounds like such a first world problem, but finding quality people and reasonable prices to do this stuff is such a pain. I didn't use homejoy to find these folks, I just worked my personal network until I got them, but I can definitely see a market for something like homejoy.

It's a really great idea and it's a shame it didn't work out.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#343

Post by nikolaj » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:04 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #188

nikolaj wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this a bit differently. Uber and AirBnB caters to immediate needs for a short term engagement, so the dispatching capabilities are the real value (find me someone who can do X right now). Homejoy is dispatching for a long term relationship, so it has a hard time staying engaged in the relationship as it progresses. I think the skill is less important than the duration of the engagement for a dispatching service…

Upwork/oDesk connects people with long-term providers and are more or less able to avoid disintermediation by providing services that the providers want to take advantage of, like time tracking, payment processing, and tax documents. Companies like HomeJoy need to figure out what services their providers really crave and make those contingent upon using their platform. Maybe there isn't anything lacking like that in…

Agreed! My point was not against the home cleaning industry, as it was the "dispatch-as-value-add" model. Tax and liability are probably the biggest "headaches" that could be managed by homejoy and ensure they retain their position in the relationship.

Anecdotally I pay Molly Maid to clean my apartment, because i don't want to deal with liability, legality or tax complications.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#344

Post by ectoplasm » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:05 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #307

x0x0 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but complaining their cleaner wasn't "passionate" mostly comes off as being pissy your poorly-paid short-term menial labor didn't fluff your ego enough for being so awesome to pay him or her. You can do a perfectly good job cleaning without pretending you're so passionate about cleaning you'd just love to do it for free! (I have similar complaints about development jobs, btw -- you can do a perfectly good job a…

A lot of jobs involve what sociologists call "emotional labor" - jobs where, to be an effective worker, you can't always show your first-choice emotions. If I'm at a table service restaurant and my waiter is visibly unhappy about having to bring us food and drinks, I don't want to be an asshole by keeping on making him do that. I'd rather cook my own food at home next time. But a table service restaurant where waiter…

That's an interesting concept... but doesn't it apply to every job?

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#345

Post by jeremyt » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #329

jeremyt wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reoccurr…

Interesting. I haven't seen the article, but if it says what you say it does then I think they've got it wrong.

To be clear, I'm not saying that an MBA student or an aspiring artist can't decide to start a home cleaning business and sign up with our service.

I'm no longer with the company, but I will say that the entire time that I was there, at no point was our business model based on recruiting/training unexperienced people to fill our verticals. In fact, our biggest worry was getting enough high-quality experienced providers.

I'm not privy to future plans, but currently any recurring work is just an added benefit to our service providers.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#346

Post by hkmurakami » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:16 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #308

zaidf wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. x100. There is a lot more variance between two cleaners than say two Uber drivers.

Due to the regulations needed to drive. Put someone with no experience driving behind a wheel and you'll quickly see how skill based driving is. Just, unlike good cleaning, we have a lot of training and experience with good driving. Or if this is too extreme of an example, look at what happens when you give a driver who has only driven small cars a big truck pulling a loaded trailer. They'll definitely be slower than…

There's a great place to see this in action in SF: the Anchor Steam brewery in Potrero Hill.

The truck drivers turn around 18 wheelers in an impossibly tight space there and it's jawdropping to watch.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#347

Post by mynameisvlad » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

stevejohnson wrote: post #107

reagency wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you not in touch with the person who cleaned your house for a year?

(1) It was a different person every time, and (2) all booking is done online, with SMS interactions piped through Twilio.

Not necessarily for #1. After my first cleaning was good, I requested the same cleaner for all following appointments.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#348

Post by emodendroket » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:32 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #220

_ea1k wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a significant consumer safety element to the way Taxis are regulated. The fact that this is used to protect a monopoly is a separate issue and I agree that it is a real problem. The Tesla analogy is perfect, though. I've never felt like car dealerships being independently owned was a useful benefit. I don't see any reason why both models can't coexist.

> There is a significant consumer safety element to the way Taxis are regulated. Whatever those safety elements are, I've certainly never experienced them. Theoretically they're there, I guess, but my (admittedly anecdotal) experience has been that Uber is safer in every way than taxis are.

Well, I'd say they're twofold:

* Obviously, whether the guy is going to try and kidnap you. Well, Uber has rating, but the background checks are pretty flimsy. Still, I'll concede that it may well be just as good.

* The second thing affects non-customers and it's ensuring the roads aren't congesting with a glut of taxis driving around looking for fares all day (with all the attendant problems that causes). While the average car spends 2 hours or less on the road in a day a taxi or an Uber is going to spend a lot more than that. I'm not really convinced Uber has an answer to that.

There are also issues like insurance/liability and so on that are rarely encountered, but are something of a big deal if they do come up. And there's the worker protection aspect of it.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#349

Post by bsbechtel » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #281

jclune wrote: post #268

I run a company similar to HomeJoy in Japan, and I disagree with most comments here. 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. 2. It feels like nobody here actually read Adora Cheung's quotes about multiple lawsuits coinciding…

> Those who claim cleaning is not a "skilled job" should get off their keyboard The term "unskilled", which is commonly used to reference these types of workers, is an economic term used to distinguished types of workers by characteristics like low education levels, minimum wages, and limited economic value. The skill you are talking about is called quality assurance and customer service, which as you rightfully poin…

>>That's called a gross margin and it's incredibly low.

I've wondered this about every single XX-as-a-service startup. I've heard Uber is 20%, but the overhead to manage a ride-sharing service that is doing tens of thousands of dollars a day in a medium-sized city is significantly less than what is required for other XX-as-a-service startups. The only other sector I can think of where the economics even come remotely close is food delivery. All other sectors - cleaning, home repair, lawn care, painting, etc - require significantly higher marketing spend/customer for a much lower volume of transaction. In addition, as discussed here, the overhead required to ensure quality and customer satisfaction is much higher as well.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#350

Post by samstave » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 9:43 PM UTC

I really REALLY wanted to use Homejoy -- but only for the folding/ironing of laundry. (I have three kids - so a house of five produces a lot of laundry)

$25/hour with a several hour minimum... Wow - no thanks...