Ask HN: Is 'Handy.com for offices' a viable business idea?

  • I'd be as huge fan. Running a small office with 15 people in it takes a lot of work. I'm definitely not above mopping the floors, doing the dishes or hanging whiteboards myself, but it's more effective for me to pay someone to do this while I spend my time working on the product or helping someone else.

    I can't speak for the size of the market, but offices we've looked at in LA don't often include cleaning services, and there are a lot of small offices that couldn't justify a full time person for this role.

    I would like to be able to get the same person most of the time.

    The services that would be important to consider doing are:

      - Cleaning  
      - Assembling new desks/furniture  
      - Light repair and maintenance (stuff not covered by the lease and doesn't require speciality knowledge)   
      - Setup / Cleanup for meetups and other events  
      - Running errands and picking things up from the store

  • In San Francisco, every downtown office space I've been in has had cleaning service included in the rent and a building manager who looked after fixing minor issues.

  • For one off or infrequent services like cubicle assembly or wiring new Ethernet ports, an uber model works, but cleaning you probably do every day and you want a contract to outline exactly what you want done and to negotiate a lower price.