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Homejoy says goodbye

blog.homejoy.com

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Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#311

Post by icelancer »

soheil wrote: post #243

I live in SF and the few times I used the service I was relatively happy. I certainly thought the cleaning was done better than Handy, but Handy got them beat in pricing. I also thought their UI was much friendlier than Handy. With Handy there is no way to terminate a recurring cleaning without contacting customer service. In busy places like SF traffic and parking seem to me to be a major hinderance for services lik…

>I certainly thought the cleaning was done better than Handy, but Handy got them beat in pricing.

I've heard this a few times on this post. It is not remotely true in Seattle. I just checked, Handy is 20%+ more expensive. Weird

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#312

Post by jjarmoc »

bishnu wrote: post #135
jjarmoc wrote: post #34

When I hear about companies like this going under, I always think how odd it is that I've never previously heard about them. Then I realize, that may have been part of the problem.

This is surprising to me. I'm INUNDATED with Homejoy ads all over the internet. I've never used them (which also might have been part of their problem). Perhaps you just live somewhere they don't provide service to yet? :)

I don't know.. Google confirms they covered my area. I really don't look for house cleaning services, so maybe I just didn't get targeted for ads.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#313

Post by iblaine »

Their HQ was a mess. If your business is cleaning then you should have cleaning in your blood and dream about pine sol when you sleep. I get the sense that the company was started for the sake of starting any company. In doing so they created a company without any vision.

Look further into the company and you see things like the founders saying working on Christmas Eve is ok. Presentations where they say luck is irrelevant and working hard and smart are the keys to success. That's some American Psycho sh*t.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#314

Post by philip1209 »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #109
philip1209 wrote: post #49

They've raised almost $40M in funding: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/homejoy

I wonder if they will be returning any money to investors and if so how much.

If they shut down due to lawsuits, don't debt holders (plaintiffs) get priority access to remaining cash?

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#315

Post by danielweber »

ryandrake wrote: post #253
trg2 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was Handybook (now Handy), not Homejoy, right? http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-s...

Wow, please tell me this is a fictional company. This reads like a caricature of everything wrong with the Silicon Valley tech scene.

As discussed on HN at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8489273

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#316

Post by fweespeech »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #271
fweespeech wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This. Very much. There was one guy that came into my apartment, and he was in the valuables room. Not much of a peep had gone by in 30 mins, so I checked in and I heard a drop of the jewelry box. He said he was just cleaning around and that an earring was missing and he was looking for it. I didn't say much because I was thinking in my mind what's he doing with an earring in the first place. I walk out the room and…

Basic security measures were taken in the valuables room. The jewels out-of-site and in the box were all fake. Whether the jewels were fake or real or whether anything was taken or not doesn't matter right now. It was the experience of that interaction that mattered and I didn't feel that Homejoy lived up to that promise.

> It was the experience of that interaction that mattered and I didn't feel that Homejoy lived up to that promise.

...literally all maid companies are ineffective at screening out people who might give the impression they take things. Its why its a running joke.

I get people on HN think of cleaners should be paragons of ethical morality incapable of creating a misunderstanding for $10/hr.

I'm still going to call it extremely naive to expect anything close to 100% of cleaners to meet that standard.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#317

Post by kaihanga »

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.

Not only that but apparently "this is not an overnight venture; we know it'll take a long time, and we’re all committed to it." Appears to have been exactly a 204 day "commitment".

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." seems apt.

For job hunters, be alert and suspicious when hiring and marketing overlap.

Best of luck to the ex-HomeJoy engineers.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#318

Post by yummyfajitas »

xenadu02 wrote: post #241
yummyfajitas wrote: post #61

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.

I agree. It would be far more efficient to have the government provide a baseline level of services to everyone. Then the vast majority of small companies and startups employing contractors wouldn't have to worry about it. We already have a baseline level of retirement covered with Social Security. Companies who want to attract more talented employees offer enhanced retirement benefits in 401k plans or other incentiv…

I'm talking specifically about imposing fixed costs on the purchase of labor.

I'd propose a different method of handling a "baseline level of services", specifically a Basic Job Guarantee which pays only in-kind benefits [1]. But that's a somewhat orthogonal issue. The key point is that when you impose kinks and missing regions in supply&demand curves, bad things happen.

[1] I.e., you show up, do 8 hours of work for the govt and in return your basic needs are met; you get a govt dorm, govt brand clothes and 3 nutritious govt meals/day in a cheap location.

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#319

Post by oroup »

radmuzom wrote: post #82
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…

It appears from this article that recent worker classification lawsuits also had a part to play - http://recode.net/2015/07/17/cleaning-services-startup-homej...

From the article: > Homejoy was able to raise funding, but not enough to grow > the company as big as its founders and backers had hoped. > “We declined those investments because it wasn’t enough, and > we wanted to stay true to our vision,” Cheung said.

I'm sorry but shutting the company down because the round you could raise wasn't as big as you hoped feels like wimping out. Alive beats true to your vision and dead. In "The Hard Thing About Hard Things", Ben Horowitz coins the term WFIO (pronounced wiff-e-o) for that "We're Fucked, It's Over" feeling that entrepreneurs get on a regular basis. Lawsuits spooking investors is certainly bad but hardly even qualifies.

Given how big an issue the worker classification issue is for the whole economy, I could see the regulatory issues getting sorted out over the next few years. Quitting seems like a premature move to me. How do the investors who put $40m into the company feel? Who's going to invest in this team again? Who's going to go work there?

Re: Homejoy says goodbye

#320

Post by bla2 »

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…

What's the name of your company?
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