A problem highlighted by Uber Eats (etc.) is that when technology comes into an existing market it can distort things by using heaps of Venture Capital that isn't available to the businesses who deliver the actual service to customers. Do you worry that by offering price guarantees ("We honor our online prices, even if it means taking a loss.") you may end up in a similar situation? You're more agency than marketplace, so this is especially relevant.
My understanding is that the reason prices are so unpredictable is because the work is so unpredictable: if you're guaranteeing a fixed cost on a job that then balloons in complexity, then the costs you incur are going to wipe out your margin on dozens of other jobs... but because you're growing in revenue you'll be able to keep raising capital to keep subsidising these exploding costs until at some point it becomes impossible to continue.
You speak about a system that can take inputs and price a job fairly, which sounds great in theory, but if "a system that can price jobs fairly" becomes your white whale, and you're forever subsidising bad jobs, what do you think about the impact on the independent service providers when the music stops?
I think this is a great idea and has a lot of potential to deliver value for consumers and contractors, so this comment isn't a challenge against the idea, rather I'm curious about how you're thinking about your responsibility to the service providers that have hitched their wagon to yours if things don't go to plan.
I really dig the idea, but I wonder - how can you guarantee prices? Homes can differ tremendously. There's a reason plumbers ask to come on site.
For example front and center is a fixed price tankless heater, which is great. However if the customer has serious plumbing issues which have caused the existing (tank) water heater to fail (for the example corroded pipes), if you replace just the water heater without fixing the underlying issues it could cause the new tankless heater to fail by introducing sediment, etc. into the system.
In the software world this would be akin to asking a contractor to add a new feature to your site without seeing the existing codebase. Seems difficult.
Are y'all just amortizing the cost of these things across all customers or what?
Imagining myself approaching the contractor end: why do I need this? There's more work than I can hire people to do, right now; and this looks a lot like "commit to an open ended job, unseen, for a fixed price."
NFI what happened to it, but I recall hearing of a Lowe's "official" effort to try to assemble something like this; they theoretically have the resources to find and keep good relationships with local stables of contractors; but in practice.. no, that's not gonna happen, its gonna be a boondoggle.
But where's your "have a beer with these guys" level of trust in someone's crew? You're proxying that to the homeowners, so I'm curious what you plan to do there, especially as it grows past personal relationship scales.
I just recently expressed this pain for the first time, so excited to see your service. Some pain points:
1) Scheduling required filling in the same qualification form multiple times, and texting/calling with a rather disorganized office. The better reputed the service company, the bigger mess their schedule is. You're solving this.
2) I didn't have a quote until the people came out to visit. You're solving this.
3) Once the service pros gave quotes, I had to share them with my landlord, have them approve the work, have the service pro complete it, confirm that the issue was fixed, and have the landlord complete payment. Coordinating parties was a major PITA, I hope you solve this in the future.
4) When the service pro diagnosed the issue and gave me a quote, I didn't know whether the diagnosis was truthful, and the quote was reasonable. After the fix, the symptom went away for a bit, and then came back, and the service person tried other fixes. This back and forth was a major pain. I don't know how you'll fix this, maybe a warranty on your service, or an annual insurance plan/maintenance subscription instead? Similar to Forward's model for healthcare - don't make money when you have to fix problems, make money when I don't have problems.
5) Thumbtack had a fixed price service, but it was too large a premium over the more ad hoc services. I hope you keep prices reasonable when you start swallowing more unexpectedly large scoped problems.
Great idea, but it comes across as trying to peddle water heaters, not connecting me with service pros. Remember, the value of your service is connecting homeowners with reliable contractors. Maybe the product focus is a side product of your biz model.
Hi guys - glad to see this! I agree it's a huge problem and one that I've felt several times.
The reason why I never book on TaskRabbit or Thumbtack anymore is because there's legitimately an 80% chance that they don't show up. There's no penalty for not showing up or expressing higher availability and just choosing from it.
This means that every repair or home service that I consider is a simple question. Is this worth rebooking multiple times or will I just bite the bullet and try to do it myself.
I would be willing to pay around 1.5 - 2X more than I book for if I had some guarantee - financial or otherwise, that they would show up. Just the ability to construct a simple equation in my head - "is this repair worth $X" in my head without trying to manage the cost of a no-show would be huge and would have me checking the cost of much more small repairs.
What is in it for contractors?
Or to put it another way, what evidence do you have that the market is inefficient?
Or to put it another another way, how will you overcome the fundamental economic rational actor motivation? Qualified tradespeople will prioritize: repeat customers such as real estate companies and landlords; large jobs over small; and high paying work over guaranteed affordable prices.
The best tradespeople are busy serving good clients. The best clients are busy keeping good tradespeople busy. There are business relationships.
The home repair market is a market for lemons on both sides. Inexperienced amateur clients and contractors who can’t stay busy.
Ok. I am sure there might be a longer play. I am curious about that. The “don’t you wish home repair was free” pitch not so much.
Wow guys well done! It's a ripe area for disruption and I hope you can find the right formula for growth. I'm a homeowner for 5 years now and finding good contractors for small projects has been miserable, every single time. I actually took on a similar model to yours but for custom metalwork, with Fit to Forge (https://fittoforge.com). There's a huge quality problem and crazy pricing ranges. A lot of the good craftsmen would prefer being able to stay in their shop and build.
This is a good idea and I wish you well. I would encourage you to think of gender in your marketing. Unfortunately there is a lot of sexism in home repairs, and I think many women would benefit from your service. I (a male) have several times had to get quotes for my mother (single), because she either can't get a good price or contractors will tell her she wants something else, or fail to see problems that need fixing. This could provide a bit more of a level playing field for women in this situation.
In Australia, the recently listed company https://hipagesgroup.com.au/ is a homeowner-contractor 2 sided marketplace business. Home owners offer work, tradies* bid for that work. Seems a similar business already validated Down Under.
* "Tradie" is Australian slang for someone who's gone to trade school and is now qualified as a plumber, carpenter, electrician, etc.
A problem in the home services space is large, new work/replace jobs usually supersede smaller repair jobs. For example, "fix my deck stairs" is going to probably be much lower on a list of jobs from "build me a new deck". I assume this is because the build a deck job is much more predictable and profitable. How will your service operate for repair work that is unpredictable?
"enforce strict quality standards" - This sounds good but there are also local municipal codes that work has to adhere to, sometimes where a repair job has to bring something up to current code standards as part of the work. How will your service ensure contractors are doing this?
Regarding the quality part, say someone passes the quality test before/after photos, etc. and "fixes" someones deck but it later collapses because of faulty work (using improper screws that can't handle load) and someone is severely injured or worse. Are you legally structured where the liability remains with contractors?
I will use this when you go live in the Bay Area.
Side note: I would also pay for a "Landlord as a Service". I want to treat a company like my landlord, even though I own my house. "Hi Bill, my roof is leaking" and they say "Someone will be there next week" and then send me a bill.
Guys, here is the issue for this to work. Its HARD to outsource this to other companies to show up because they are all so busy, they are losing their employees and they won't give the service needed. The repair team needs to be all in house.
There’s so many variable costs associated with contractors.
Things like: - Variable space + material price and quality - Contractors that subcontract out - People lying about their qualifications - Working multiple jobs at once - Breaking things in your house, discovering other problems, follow ups with broken stuff and I could go on.
We bought an absolute lemon of a house and have had everything fixed and while I would love a fixed price service, I just don’t see how it’s possible without at the very least a professional assessing the project virtually ahead of time.
I would love to be wrong and I would pay hundreds per month just for a dedicated solution with fixed rate pricing. I hope you succeed.
I (American) started an extremely similar VC-backed business in Germany. We were focused on car maintenance and detailing, but otherwise we had the same business model that you describe: our major selling point was upfront, fixed pricing without a diagnostic appointed, supplied by a network of independent mechanics and backed by a guarantee. We also had a sister company who focused on home services, although their initial market entry point was paint jobs.
I think this is a very viable business model that can provide tremendous value to consumers. If you guys want to chat, shoot me a DM — I’d be happy to share my experience.
I’m a home owner and this was by far the largest shock to owning a home. Good contractors are not busy looking for work, they are busy with a backlog. It was only after building personal relationships with the contractors that I could get reliable service.
Wishing you all the best for this to succeed, but from my perspective you should be trying to free up contractors to focus on work as much as you are trying to connect home owners with them. Contractors are certainly limited supply and high demand.
I have never hired a contractor based on anything online or ads, reviews, etc. It's always word of mouth, talking to neighbors and friends, talking to contractors I've been happy with (even if they are in a different trade than I need for the next job, they know people and they can make referrals).
Also in my experience, contractors loathe technology. They work by phone calls and texts at the most.
Let me add a bit of advice to any homeowners out there: learn to do the job yourself! I bought my house 5 years ago and I went from zero knowledge to remodeling the entire thing mostly on my own. Not only does it save you the hassle of having to deal with contractors, but in the cases when you need one, you'll be a lot more prepared to gauge the quote and timing.
Literally thought about this two hours ago as a huge market with huge potential. Look at what Compass did for realtors/home buyers/sellers and then apply something similar to electricians, plumbers etc etc. Big big big money. Congrats! And good luck!
I’ve used a similar app (Jiffy) and it’s awesome. Payment is fixed hourly and goes through the app so no money is exchanged with the contractor. Got my dishwasher fixed next day no problem.
Good luck guys it’s a good market to be in
Guys, you are onto the same thing I want to solve as a real estate developer. Take a look at HomeLux.ai We should connect and chat about this market place.
David DavidS@HomeLux.ai
How do you plan on getting professionals on your platform, I feel you'll have issues there
So are you acting as a general? Like are you providing the parts and marking up the labor?
Big Problem and the construction market is Huge! Looking to connect with you all.
Why start with water heaters?
Home Depot has a pro service.
us only, iphone only?
As a homeowner for 8+ years, this is a HUGE problem. Like really huge. Companies like thumbtack, home advisor, angie's list, craigslist etc are mostly not useful (I have tried them all). I hope you guys succeed.
The issue is however not just about price or cost. It is mostly about finding reliable, knowledge and honest contractors which for some reason is not that easy.
The great contractors are usually very busy already. They don't have a "need to generate leads" problem. The best way to find them is word of mouth. If someone can figure out a way to collect this information (for example we have people asking on nextdoor and facebook local groups), it will be a gold mine.