[HN Gopher] Launch HN: HomeBreeze (YC W21) - Easy booking of hom...
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Launch HN: HomeBreeze (YC W21) - Easy booking of home repairs
Hi HN, we're Vineet and Chris, founders of HomeBreeze
(https://www.homebreeze.com). We make booking home services
radically simpler for homeowners. We do this by using details about
the home to provide upfront, guaranteed prices and instant
scheduling, with work completed by a network of qualified
professionals. We're starting with hot water heater replacements
and are live in Southern California so far. Many homeowners
struggle to find contractors who will provide quality work without
gouging them on price. They burn hours of time contacting pros and
hosting onsite scoping visits, just to get prices and availability
--with little insight on quality. Lead generation platforms like
Angi and Thumbtack only solve a narrow slice of the problem -
finding pros - without helping to price, schedule, or guarantee
work quality. For contractors, it's hard to manage lead generation
and sales, while spending most of the day in the field, doing work.
To grow their business, contractors often buy expensive leads from
Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack and more, but convert those leads
poorly because of their unreliable communication. Because of the
high stakes, they spend nights and weekends following up to sales
calls. Great for the lead generation platforms, but bad for both
service pros and homeowners. Chris bought his first home and
experienced this first-hand. Quotes to paint the outside of the
house ranged from $7K to $25K and getting painters to show up for
quotes took hours across dozens of phone calls and text messages.
Digging into the problem, we found complex operations and a
fragmented, old-school market. I had worked at Opendoor and Chris
at UberEats for years, so we were no strangers to operational
complexity. We decided to build the solution. With just a little
bit of information from homeowners, we give them upfront, honest
prices for water heater installations (and soon other home
services). They can schedule online if they'd like to move forward.
Nearly all service pros we talk with insist on scheduling an on-
site visit before providing prices. Our clients can avoid this
time-consuming step and almost always get better prices. On the
backend, we've built a system that takes those inputs and prices
jobs fairly, based on criteria we've gotten from our network of
service professionals. We match the jobs with the plumbers who we
know are available to do them. Importantly, we enforce strict
quality standards by remotely auditing before/after photos of the
installation, aligning contractors to our quality principles before
their first job with us, and verifying that every plumber in our
network is licensed and insured. I'm sure every homeowner in this
community has had their own experiences with home services. We've
love to hear about them - the good and the bad - and get feedback
on our initial approach.
Author : vm
Score : 44 points
Date : 2021-07-30 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
| hwoolery wrote:
| 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.
| codegeek wrote:
| You can't learn it all. Some things are better left to
| professionals. I once had a leaking bathtub. I watched some
| youtube videos and was able to fix the problem (replacing a
| gasket). However, one time my HVAC stopped working in the
| middle of winter and I wouldn't know what to do there. Had to
| call in pros. few days ago, I had a yellow jacket nest in one
| of the ceilings (yep!!). I wouldn't want to fix that myself.
| hwoolery wrote:
| For sure, agree!
| sjg007 wrote:
| Home Depot has a pro service.
| DavidSafai wrote:
| Very hard to even use their services.
| matt_s wrote:
| 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?
| sjg007 wrote:
| "Fix my deck stairs" is basically a handyman job. So you'd look
| for someone like that. My local ACE hardware provides that
| service.
| vm wrote:
| Initially we're focusing on a set of services that we can
| define well, some of these were previously considered
| "unpredictable".
|
| The contractor takes on the liability, just like any other job.
| As part of our quality standards, all work needs to be up to
| code. We ingest the local code standards and include those in
| our quality controls. The controls are pretty rigorous, down to
| the specific materials used in jobs, including tracking the
| purchase, pickup, and usage of those materials.
| unixhero wrote:
| us only, iphone only?
| DavidSafai wrote:
| 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.
| twoslide wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| We want to level the playing field!! Similar to your
| experience, we've seen too many examples of homeowners
| receiving different prices or treatment based on gender,
| socioeconomic status, or other factors that have nothing to do
| with the underlying service. HomeBreeze eliminates this for our
| customers.
| h2odragon wrote:
| > there is a lot of sexism in home repairs
|
| My wife did bathroom remodeling for a bit last year; she got
| some incredibly stupid examples of that from both customers and
| contractors, stuff you'd expect in a kindergarten. One of her
| contractors sent messages to others in the business in two
| counties about her employing a black man and how it would lower
| the standards of the trade to work with her.
|
| Both my wife and her employee had known these people (the local
| contractors) for years from serving them at a hardware store,
| but going from retail clerk to independent business in their
| area made it an entirely different thing.
| DavidSafai wrote:
| 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
| vm wrote:
| Great! Will reach out
| endisneigh wrote:
| 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?
| vm wrote:
| Homes with majors issues like that have been extremely rare in
| our experience. When they come up, we've been able to catch
| them early (at least so far). In the future situation where we
| miss it, we have some back stops with our scope of work
| agreements. We would be okay eating losses in a lot of
| situations, to your point about taking a portfolio approach,
| and then updating our approach to avoid repeating those
| mistakes. This was something that worked well at Opendoor
| (buying/selling houses), where I previously worked.
|
| We haven't met service professionals who have the capability to
| do that directly, but doing so delivers a much, much better
| homeowner experience.
| DavidSafai wrote:
| Big Problem and the construction market is Huge! Looking to
| connect with you all.
| fd542 wrote:
| 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.
| codegeek wrote:
| 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.
| dharmab wrote:
| It's especially difficult to find licensed and bonded
| contractors and handymen who won't straight up ghost a project.
| city41 wrote:
| I couldn't agree more. As far as I am concerned this problem
| remains completely unsolved. I've had very bad experiences with
| Angi, HomeAdvisor (which now looks to be owned by Angi), Yelp
| and NextDoor recommendations. Finding good contractors is so
| hard I've changed to doing as much work myself as I possibly
| can.
| jwithington wrote:
| I've had great experiences with contractors recommended to me
| by other people on NextDoor.
|
| Thumbtack is a dumpster fire.
| vm wrote:
| Spot on. It's all about trust, which in this context means
| getting the offering honest scoping & pricing, completing work
| as promised, and doing quality work. Contractors who deliver
| that trusted experience already are usually booked up and hard
| to get hold of when you need them.
|
| We're betting that more contractors can achieve those same
| standards in our structure, and we can deliver better
| availability and consistent trust to homeowners.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. It's sometimes hard to just get someone on the phone
| willing to take your money. You leave a message and they
| won't even bother to return your call. When you finally talk
| to someone they're either booked for the next four months, or
| they are just not really all that interested in doing your
| small job.
| sithlord wrote:
| You think that the type of contractor who is already
| unreliable will be do better having to log into an app to do
| things, than literally answer a call or text from their
| phone!?
| vm wrote:
| We need to unpack what makes someone "unreliable" because
| we've found every single contractor runs late, ghosts some
| leads, misses some scopes, etc. The root cause is that it's
| a complex job to manage and they may not excel at those
| small business tasks, despite having excellent
| craftsmanship.
|
| We simplify their job. Normally they would have to field
| leads, visit homes to scope jobs, find suppliers who can
| deliver the right parts, figure out a price, convince
| customers to choose them, and then balance that with their
| other projects. Instead, we send them fully scoped jobs,
| parts pre-ordered and ready for pick up, customers already
| scheduled, and more. We do a lot behind the scenes to take
| that burden off their shoulders, and let them focus on
| doing great work.
| sithlord wrote:
| I think the big unreliability I have seen, and often hear
| people complain about is, work gets done 90% of the way
| then they just basically stop showing up. Or some of the
| work is bad, and they have no desire to show back up and
| fix it.
|
| I guess the issue being that, it is more profitable to
| ghost them. Is HomeBreeze going to insure the jobs?
| vm wrote:
| We've seen similar things for general contractors and
| construction, which is a market we don't yet serve. Today
| we target jobs that are completed within one day. We find
| our jobs get prioritized because we drive material volume
| to contractors.
| brudgers wrote:
| The market is efficient. Good contractors have good clients and
| work on good jobs. They have B2B business relationships.
|
| It is a two sided market for lemons. The contractors are mostly
| contacted by lemon customers. Mostly lemon contractors are
| likely to respond.
|
| What makes homeowners lemon customers besides price sensitivity
| and non-repeating projects is inexperience.
|
| Construction scheduling is in NP. Professionals subjectively
| incorporate that into their expectations with experience and
| the experience is often at the institutional level. Weather
| delays, materials shortages, slow owner decision making, things
| hidden behind drywall, bad soil underground, etc etc. The
| second 'etc' because any of these things on someone else's job
| affects your job.
|
| Nobody who has been around the rodeo actually believes it will
| be done in time for Christmas. Maybe Memorial Day if you are
| lucky. But Labor Day just to be safer.
| version_five wrote:
| This is basically a better version of what I came here to
| say. I worked in a family construction business, and my
| perspective / experiencr is that good, established
| contractors do no advertising and have years of backlog (at
| least for custom homes or major renovations). I like how you
| define two markets, that's how I have seen it. There are
| people that are looking for quality and have the experience
| to know what to look for and what to pay in terms of money
| and patience, and there are those that watched a show about
| how to negotiate with your contractor and get three quotes,
| etc. Ironically, you usually pay less with a good contractor
| because you're paying for work and not marketing.
|
| I've seen different variations on the "connect you with a
| contractor" business model, and to me they don't work because
| good contractors are not a commodity. There is definitely a
| class of contractor that will go for this, but they are
| always the worst ones because if they were better they would
| be loaded up with work without having to pay in to a service
| that takes a cut from them.
|
| For very routine jobs, this kind of service is provable fine.
| Like ordering McDonald's from uber eats. And this appears to
| be what they are initially targeting.
| brudgers wrote:
| Home Depot and Lowe's already offer service in the market
| segment. They advertise fixed prices but their affiliates
| don't take on projects with unusual conditions. And
| sometimes never provide a quote because they are busy.
|
| There is always an unmet demand for below market rate
| services. Always a demand for work with infeasible
| economics.
|
| The construction market is highly efficient. Competitive
| bidding is normative.
| vm wrote:
| Interesting... HomeBreeze has quickly become an important B2B
| relationship for the home pros we work with. Although a lot
| of what you're describing is for construction, which we don't
| serve, your comment makes me think that we could be giving
| homeowners access to great contractors who they wouldn't be
| able to otherwise access.
| brudgers wrote:
| Installing water heaters is, as you know, construction.
|
| Giving homeowners access to average contractors is a step
| up. Hard times are the measure of relationships.
|
| In your case it will be when you have to choose one side of
| the market's interests over the other.
|
| Ultimately, vetting of customers is necessary. That's
| equilibrium. The supply of sweet lemons is limited.
| hardtke wrote:
| My brother is an honest contractor in the Bay Area and he gets
| called several times per day by potential clients. The problem
| is that he can't scale to meet demand because of a dire
| shortage of labor and subcontractors (painters in particular at
| the moment). The contractors that will answer your call and
| give you an estimate tend to be what he calls "paper
| contractors" that don't have their own crew and subcontract out
| everything. These are the jobs that end up taking two years
| where there never seems to be anyone actually working. I don't
| think matching technology can fix the market -- what's needed
| is efficiency gains on the contractor side as well as some way
| to increase the labor pool.
| kornish wrote:
| Is he...reasonably honest?
|
| (asking because as a bit of trivia, there's an SF handyman
| named Reasonably Honest Mike who's both hilarious and
| effective. http://reasonablemike.com/about.html)
| vm wrote:
| What type of contracting does your brother do? We see what
| you're describing with general contractors but rarely with
| plumbers who are our initial focus
| hardtke wrote:
| Mostly kitchen and bathroom remodeling.
|
| For some reason, plumbing is one of the few types of work
| where it doesn't seem to be as hard to find someone (at
| least in the Bay Area). Unless, as happened recently to me,
| you have a leaking shower drain in which case you are
| completely hosed.
| bradknowles wrote:
| We found that Angie's List was useful, until it became popular.
| Then too many people started using it and less reputable people
| started gaming the system, and then it all went down the
| toilet.
|
| Same with Craigslist before that.
|
| I would say that the same sort of problem will occur with all
| these services, unless you can bring new functionality to the
| problem where you can guarantee the level and quality and speed
| of service.
|
| See also "tragedy of the commons".
| vm wrote:
| We have a few ideas on how to manage this but totally agree
| that maintaining quality is critical (and hard!)
| h2odragon wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| The contractors who love us are small, independent shops who
| are great at their craft, but not great at sales & marketing.
| Unlike lead-gen services, we send them jobs with defined scope
| and payment. We need to be really good at scoping because if we
| botch it, then we take liability for that rather than putting
| it on the contractor. We've had contractors hire more people to
| their team and buy additional service trucks, purely based on
| the volume we send them.
|
| Scaling will be a lot of complex work but we've built systems
| like that in the past at UberEats, where Chris was one of the
| first GMs, and at Opendoor (largest homebuyer in the US).
| h2odragon wrote:
| That sounds good, and I certainly wish yall luck, there's
| definitely need for the service. I've heard (and seen) very
| little good from the existing efforts, which seem to be
| mostly focused on selling contractors access to database
| entries made up from whole cloth in foreign call centers.
|
| (Tip for people looking at those: rural zipcodes are great
| canaries for fake data, "we've done work at $Neighbor's
| house" is a good brag, except when the house burned down 5
| years ago and wasnt the one in the picture)
| rascul wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Lowe's does this. It's not a boondoggle. Works out well in many
| cases because they can sell for example windows and the install
| at once.
|
| https://www.lowes.com/l/lowes-home-services.html
| maxdjacobson wrote:
| 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.
| gingerlime wrote:
| what's the name of the sister company? is it available in
| English? (as a non German speaker in Berlin I have an even
| bigger problem finding crafts people, let alone negotiate or
| explain the problem or repair job... but I guess that's a lot
| to ask)
|
| p.s. there's no way to DM on hacker news, unless you leave some
| details on your profile.
| maxdjacobson wrote:
| Oh, I didn't realize that, thanks for the headsup.
|
| The sister company was named Homebell, but I don't think
| they're in business anymore.
|
| I used in live in Berlin too, and yes, figuring these things
| out without knowing German is probably very difficult.
| Honestly, I think your best bet is probably to ask a German-
| speaking friend for help.
| gingerlime wrote:
| oh what happened to them?
|
| yeah we get help, but it obviously adds one more link to an
| already tricky chain trying to find and coordinate home
| repair jobs, plumbing etc
| vm wrote:
| Vineet, one of the cofounders here. Would love to chat! Don't
| see your contact info anywhere - could you email myhomebreeze
| at gmail?
| maxdjacobson wrote:
| Sent!
| brudgers wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| For tradespeople we're a high value, repeat client. Similar to
| a large landlord.
| sjg007 wrote:
| >The home repair market is a market for lemons
|
| I thought a good idea would be home owner insurance that
| provides vetted contractors. So vertical integration.
| brudgers wrote:
| Home owners insurance claims are often fulfilled by vetted
| contractors. It is another non-lemon sink that increases the
| ratio of lemons in the open market for homeowners.
| dd36 wrote:
| So are you acting as a general? Like are you providing the parts
| and marking up the labor?
| eighteyes wrote:
| 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.
| cmager wrote:
| Totally agree, thanks for the feedback! We're trying to find
| the right balance on leaning into the connection point and
| demonstrating expertise within categories, and we still have
| work to do there.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| 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!
| vm wrote:
| Thanks! Reach out if you ever want to work on this or just geek
| out on the category - myhomebreeze at gmail
| serviced wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| We had a lot of those concerns too. We're here to build a
| sustainable business (really the only kind of business). We
| have zero interest in hyperscaling something that isn't viable.
| We started with categories with minimal tail risk (for example,
| we're not doing whole home construction), and have had good
| success. We also limit our exposure through agreements on
| scope.
| sunshinekitty wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| Totally agree that we need to make top contractors happy. We're
| building a way for them to not have to deal with the "running a
| small business" tasks that can eat up a huge chunk of their
| time and that many (most?) don't enjoy. It frees them up to
| spend more time doing their trade and, hopefully, earn more.
| waterside81 wrote:
| 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
| vm wrote:
| Good to know. So much room for innovation in this market.
| Appreciate the support!
| stove wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| Appreciate the support! Love the "landlord" concept too - we
| have a few ideas here...
| jwithington wrote:
| Why start with water heaters?
| sokoloff wrote:
| No connection, but a theoretical customer. Water heaters are a
| periodic replacement item where the scope of the job is
| (relatively) fixed. Periodic means enough search volume/demand.
| Fixed scope means it's possible to estimate without a site
| visit.
|
| I can do a water heater in copper in a little over an hour and
| a half on-site. I might spend more time figuring out which
| water heater will fit and be best for me and going to pick it
| up than I will soldering or moving the heaters around.
| dd36 wrote:
| Longest part is waiting for the old one to drain.
| wizwit999 wrote:
| How do you plan on getting professionals on your platform, I feel
| you'll have issues there
| cmager wrote:
| Great question! We're early, but so far, we're adding pros
| mostly through referrals and cold calls.
|
| Our pitch is rather than charge for leads, we directly give our
| pros jobs, and deal with all customer acquisition, customer
| service and payment. That means they can spend 0% of their time
| on sales & job scoping, and only need to accept the jobs when
| they can fit them into their schedule. So far it seems to be
| resonating, but it's early.
| dd36 wrote:
| What do you charge them?
| neil_s wrote:
| 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.
| vm wrote:
| Hey, Vineet here, one of the HomeBreeze cofounders. Really
| appreciate you sharing this. We've seen a lot of #1, #2, and
| #4. We haven't seen too much with landlords yet and would love
| to learn more...What kind of unit do you rent (single family,
| large managed apartment, from a big company or single owner,
| etc.) And what repair issue did you have?
|
| I'd be down to trade emails to chat live too, if you're open to
| it - myhomebreeze at gmail
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