

Exec Shuts Down Non-Cleaning Service - nicklovescode

Just received this email:<p>Dear Exec Errands Customers,<p>Thank you for being great customers of Exec. Sadly, Exec Errands will be shutting down on Friday, September 20. Exec as a company will continue to operate our cleaning service.<p>Errands that have already been scheduled for after September 20 we will unfortunately not be able to perform. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes.<p>Thanks for using Exec.<p>Best Regards,<p>Justin Kan 
CEO, Exec
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s_q_b
That's too bad.

Best of luck as you move forward as a cleaning company.

The biggest issue I see with most on-demand cleaning services is that they
don't do the type of cleaning I actually need done. I don't need my surfaces
dusted as much as I need laundry picked up, washed, dried, and folded, and
trash, like soda cans, the occasional pizza box etc. gathered up and tossed.

Basically I want an on-demand cleaning service I can call when my place is a
total mess, without doing any pre-cleanup.

~~~
icelancer
Hire an independent immigrant maid service. It sounds... I don't know, evil or
something, but corporate maid services are terrible while independent hard-
working low-skill immigrants (typically middle-aged women) have been awesome
for me.

I pay $25/hr and my house cleaner comes twice per week and vaccuums, does
laundry, takes out all the trash, picks up everything, etc. Literally anything
you can think of.

~~~
s_q_b
Make that into an app, and I'll be your first customer. It's the convenience
factor that bothers me. How do you differentiate a good housekeeper from
someone who's going to steal my nutella? (I don't keep much of value in the
house.)

~~~
icelancer
No question that this needs to be done. The problem is mobilizing said labor
force to accept technology. My maid barely checks her email once per week.

The depression of wages and lack of adopting technology/communication go hand
in hand, to no surprise of anyone here.

I just met her through a moving service when I hired people to pack up and
move my belongings when I bought a new house. Actually need to put boots on
the ground for this kind of thing.

~~~
s_q_b
SMS-based maybe? Pretty much everybody's got a cell phone.

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nlh
I'm surprised to hear this. Of course there's always more going on under the
hood but I've had nothing but totally positive experiences using Exec Errands.

Curious if anyone has some more insight into what happened. Not enough demand?
Money-losing?

~~~
brandnewlow
Justin's last company, Justin.tv started off as a general purpose streaming
video company, then found out the video game streaming was the bigger
opportunity and spun off Twitch.tv which has become a much larger and more
important company.

Exec started as a general purpose errand company, perhaps they found that
cleaning held an opportunity to build an important company, so they're
trimming the fat to focus.

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flavio87
Aren't they going to have the same problem like Tutorspree, that once you have
the contact info of a cleaner that you like, you simply work with him/her
directly and bypass the (hefty?) exec transaction fee?

~~~
exit
hopefully. it's great to hear of rent seeking ventures failing.

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brunorsini
I guess "do things that don't scale" can't really work forever... Sad.

I think it's unfair to compare Exec to TaskRabbit, as the former offered a
much more curated experience. I believe the problem lies right there: it's
really tough to intermediate supply and demand for broadly define "services",
this just doesn't scale... Beyond the initial phase in which you are working
really hard to amuse early customers, that is.

I for one have been amused by them in multiple occasions, Execs have helped me
do things as diverse as assembling furniture and moving stuff around.

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cmcewen
I think Exec and TaskRabbit share(d) a similar problem in that they are so
broad that consumers aren't sure what to use the platform for. Renewed focus
on a single service makes sense, but they face competition from Handybook and
Homejoy. It's probably also difficult to differentiate in this market since
the maids are all likely independent contractors.

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continuations
I thought I read somewhere that their most popular service was furniture
assembling. Was that not the case?

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ballard
0\. HomeJoy was already in this space. HomeJoy was PathJoy, yc iirc.

[http://homejoy.com](http://homejoy.com)

1\. Any big pivot will take time for trust to return.

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zacharycohn
Consider Zarly was originally exploring this model, before they pivoted
elsewhere.

I'm interested to see if TaskRabbit and Postmates stick with it, or eventually
pivot away.

~~~
Katelyn
TaskRabbit has made a recent shift into a B2B play, too, as they've never been
sustainable. They also made a shift in company size laying off several staff
members.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6358282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6358282)

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brackin
What a shame, I've been using Exec for ikea furniture and it was great. The
cleaning service is incredibly expensive vs Homejoy which provide an
incredible service.

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woah
Interesting. Seeing more of these startups focus on small niches instead of
"we'll find someone to do anything".

