
Homejoy back as Homeaglow - dawhizkid
http://Www.homeaglow.com
======
ricardobeat
And also as FlyMaid.com, DazzlingCleaning.com, CleanerConnect.com, Mopp.com,
Cleanr.ca...

Previous HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888)

~~~
OJFord
That left a seriously bad taste in my mouth at the time; not sure I'd ever
want to pay for services from that founder.

At best, it was neutral-meaning and _awfully_-executed.

------
rubyn00bie
This is just some feedback on the availability form--

It's uncomfortable to have to give you my email on it, and it becomes
irritating to only be told there are no service providers in my area. I'm not
sure why you're collecting it there, care to illuminate that for me? Or at
least reassure me I won't be spammed?

I'm genuinely interested in your service for a multitude of reasons... So
please, see this as an attempt at constructive feedback/questioning.

Also, the form doesn't remember your choice for flexibility. It'd be a nicer
experience if it did.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I don't have any affiliation with the site but this is something that messes
with me as a dev because I hate spam.

You have expressed interest in the service. Maybe they don't serve your area,
or maybe you aren't ready to use the service this month or next month but
might 6 months from now. So how does this service get your business, a
business that in theory you want?

Is the business supposed to simply wait for you to re-find it when you need
it, or continue to come back and search again for when it's available in your
area?

Isn't the whole point of LEAN and MVP to do this process so you know where
demand is coming from?

~~~
Gracana
Couldn't they tell you first if service is available, then ask if you'd like
to sign up for it or get a notification if it becomes available? That would be
effective without feeling deceptive.

------
andersonmvd
I'm wondering how they fixed the problem with cleaners that take the client
away and get paid directly instead of going through Homejoy platform. It's
similar to Upwork I guess, where the same possibility exists, but still works.
Focusing on the cleaner profile is interesting as the cleaner will only get
more number of jobs done when they're realized through the platform. I don't
have the details about this change from Homejoy to Homeaglow, but I would like
to know :) At least the Business Insider's article didn't mention or I didn't
get it.

~~~
tvjunky
Yes, this is an interesting question. Watching PathJoy become HomeJoy and then
close, I assumed (wrongly I guess) that they had moved from the match making
concept into an actual cleaning company that owned the whole process. This BTW
is how traditional companies keep employees from stealing clients. The
employment has greater value than the single client. At any rate, it's more
obvious in this latest iteration that they think there is a platform play
here.

------
pdq
[http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-cheung-brings-
homejoy-c...](http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-cheung-brings-homejoy-
customers-to-fly-maids-2015-10?op=1)

[https://medium.com/@johnsalzarulo/didn-t-homejoy-shut-
down-e...](https://medium.com/@johnsalzarulo/didn-t-homejoy-shut-
down-e8d7a2dfb485#.3tm64udxj)

------
ryporter
So, is this Fly Maids, as previously discussed here[1]? I'm very confused.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10466888)

------
sparky_
So after their last business failed, they shut it down, exported all the data
out of it, started a new business, imported all the data, and are now
operating sans all the original investors?

~~~
cglace
I believe I read they bought the data.

~~~
vonklaus
I said this above, but they are an information arbitrage company trading
information that isn't valuable. How much value can you extract from a market
for connecting people who need their homes cleaned with cleaners? Like not a
lot.

~~~
escape_goat
They have the data from the review system, as at URL [1]. They can [they hope]
create value by providing a reputation service that serves the interests of
both customers and cleaners by allowing them to screen each other. They're not
handling the actual transaction the way that AirBnB does, however, so I'm not
sure what the specifics of the business model are.

[1] [https://www.homeaglow.com/crystalb](https://www.homeaglow.com/crystalb)

~~~
vonklaus
'Arbitrage' The simultaneous purchase and sale of an asset in order to profit
from a difference in the price[0].

They take information that they purchased from their previous company, and
also collect information presumably, and sell it. Their profit is based on the
difference in that informations value to a different buyer.

A service worker submits background info, how much they are willing to work
for, logistics of what they'll do and other info. This is free for homejoy
because that person wants to work and this will let them do that.

They take that information and sell it to a buyer. The buyer pays:

cost = [workers specified rate] + [ informations value]

So homejoys profit is presumably something like the value of that information
- opex as they likely have no assets.

I am not saying there is anything wrong or unethical about this, just that
there are no barriers to entry, high competition and high ability to
substitute this for many things. This is sort of like the yelp model, except
that yelp, despite some of the hits to its reputation, has a massive data set
that is relatively complete and very difficult to replicate now in magnitude
and completeness, it is also more broadly useful. While eating out is, to some
extent, a luxury, people do _need_ food. So more people, I would baselessly
assert, eat out in some capacity on the monthly basis than have their home
professionally cleaned.

[0][http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arbitrage.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/arbitrage.asp)

~~~
escape_goat
We both understand arbitrage to mean the same thing. Where we disagree is on
whether or not this is the correct way to describe what homejoy is doing. I
don't think that your model fits the actual facts of the transaction.

------
the_common_man
This confirms my suspicion that most startups have fake testimonials on their
landing page.

~~~
ryporter
These are possibly real, though recycled from Homejoy (not that that would
make it any better).

------
moonlighter
How do they make money? The cleaners can set their own hourly rate and get to
keep the tips. If Homeaglow simply takes a cut, say 10%, then the cleaners
don't really get their requested hourly rate though...

~~~
michaelmior
They do if they automatically Homeaglow automatically adds on the 10% to the
advertised price.

~~~
moonlighter
Thanks, after finding a ZIP code they actually serve (94117), I saw that they
charge a flat $5 processing fee on top, regardless of the cleaners rate or #
of hours. I assume they charge that for all follow-up cleaner visits too.

------
nitrogen
In that line art picture slider it looks like they will bring me more books
and a new plant? That's a service I might pay for. After the cleaner comes
your house has _more_ cool stuff in it.

~~~
sib
They also apparently re-upholster your couch and put the buttons back in
different locations...

------
beachstartup
homejoy taught me that honestly, it's much less trouble to just clean my own
damn apartment.

laundry, on the other hand, i will gladly outsource.

edit: only because i don't have in-unit laundry.

~~~
mintplant
People mocked the laundry-folding robot at CES, but if one that works and
isn't too expensive hits the market, then I will absolutely get one.

~~~
hguant
Got a few years to go before that happens - seems it won't be available in
Japan as a luxury product until 2020 at the least.

------
CatDevURandom
Rebrand until it sticks?

------
ryporter
Honest question -- Is anyone at YC still in regular contact with the Cheungs?
They seem to be embarrassing themselves with these repeated attempts. When
Homejoy shut down, I still had a lot of respect for what they built. Now, if I
were a prospective investor in one of their future ventures, I would have
serious doubts about their judgment.

------
giarc
>Once you find a cleaner you love, directly connect with them to always get
them back

Never used Homejoy, was the above always a feature?

~~~
BinaryIdiot
It indirectly was a feature. Instead of always going through HomeJoy customers
would start going directly to the cleaners cutting HomeJoy out completely.
This was on top of HomeJoy offering coupons that made the service so cheap
they would lose money until the customer stopped going through them and
directly through the cleaner.

~~~
giarc
Sorry, what I meant was, with the previous implementation of Homejoy, could
you get the same person every time?

I realize their issue was people just went around Homejoy and paid the cleaner
directly. I'm wondering if people did this because they liked the work the
person did and wanted them back but Homejoy didn't offer this feature.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
I may have been a bit facetious with my response previously but if I remember
correctly HomeJoy offered that. Though it may be irrelevant whether HomeJoy
offered the feature or not; if you're interacting with a person directly and
you have the opportunity to continue working with them and it would be better
financially for both of you (no HomeJoy cut for the cleaner and likely a lower
price for you) then it's a bit inevitable. That was one of the issues HomeJoy
ran into.

Perhaps HomeAglow is structured differently? Their website doesn't say.

~~~
giarc
I can understand why customers skirted Homejoy, and I would likely do the
same. I asked my original question because I had wondered if that was there
attempt at solving a pain point. Perhaps they lost customers not because they
wanted to save $20, but because they wanted that same cleaner back and Homejoy
didn't offer that option. So the only solution was to talk directly to the
cleaner and cut the middle man. However it sounds like the above might not be
true and people truly just wanted to save $20 and the process of booking and
paying the cleaner isn't a lot of work (text them, set up time, pay using
square/cheque/cash).

------
Dr_tldr
Did they solve their untenable business model of assuming that cleaners are
interchangeable service workers AND assuming that cleaners aren't smart enough
to cut out the middle-man who literally does nothing after the initial
introduction?

------
escape_goat
In case there is any confusion on the matter, Homeaglow is the operating name
of ABAP Holdings, incorporated in Delaware in August 2015. The company has two
employees, and Mr. Aaron Chueng is listed as a co-founder and principal
contact.

------
brogrammer90
Aaron Cheung just won't give up. I wonder what site he wget'ed this time?

------
perks
Hard to see how this will have better luck than the last X iterations of this
"Uber" for cleaners idea...

------
kdamken
How are you supposed to say this? "Ho me ah glow"? "Home ah glow"? What a
weird name choice.

~~~
prawn
Home A-glow.

Aglow is a word: [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/aglow](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aglow)

~~~
tallerholler
"When you leave the oven on and come home hours later -- Home-A-Glow!"

------
vonklaus
_The art of pivoting - Homejoy in its current concept was literally the 13th
idea we fully built out and tried to execute on and tried to get customers
for. And so a lot of the questions I get are, " How do you even get to that
13th idea, and how did you decide when to move on?" The best guidance that I
can give on that is the kind of look at these three criteria, which is once
you realize that you can't grow, and despite building out all of these great
features and talking to all of these users none of them stick, or the
economics of the business just don't make sense - then once you make that
realization you just need to move on._

Adora Cheung, _How to Start a Startup_ ; Lecture 4

They worked hard, but at the end of the day this is really hard to execute on
because it is a luxury item, not very sticky, has no urgency and the barriers
to entry are virtually non-existent. Uber is a good market maker in an
analogous indutry, however they have some pretty key differences.

* Extreme urgency. If I need to get to point B, it is likely important that the quicker and easier I can get there from point A is important to me. I can probably wait to have my room cleaned, but I definitely need to be at work by 9 all the times it is a weekday or I have to be there.

* Bigger market. There are more people who, at some point during the day, find themselves needing to go somewhere that isn't where they are. Probably more people travel over a mile a day than need their house cleaned.

* Cheaper and more efficient. Uber is much cheaper than Taxis in many situations, and often a higher value prop. You can save money taking a subway and a bus to many locations, but of these things do not go to the destination in an acceptable schedule, Uber will, and it will do it cheaply and there aren't too many options although there are certainly some. If you need your house cleaned, you can google like 10-4000 providers.

* Labour is more attractive. This one is big, maybe biggest. While Uber has been slashing prices, and not offering a great value prop to drivers in many cases (based on conversations with a few drivers) they are still held in relatively high esteem by society, and the work itself is of (for many) more desirable than cleaning houses. Given the option for equivalent wages, I would rather drive around and pick people up than clean someones house.

At the end of the day Uber and Homejoy are information arbatrageurs. The delta
between knowing where all cars that would be willing to take a fare are as
well as where all the people who need to travel are, is a lot more valuable
than knowing how to contact all the people who are willing to clean houses is.

editII: unpredicatability. I can't predict that fucking bank of america would
cancel my credit card at 5:00am in the morning when I was leaving the bar to
get a cab. I needed a ride and 10 minutes prior had no idea. I can however,
pretty regularly predict when I need my house cleaned making it quite easy to
evaluate options and make those arrangements.

* difficulty to complete by user. I could, if I was some sort of heathen or proletariat type punter, clean my own house. However, it would be more difficult for me to travel somewhere far away. Granted, cleaning a dirty house would take a long time, but if we just assume an average uber is like 4 miles, most people would pay like 6.00 to not walk 4 miles which would be about an hour. However, many people would spend an hour cleaning their house rather than have a complete stranger come over and do it for them for >6.00 while they waited.

~~~
boreas
I think another fundamental difference between cleaning and cab rides is that
with cab rides you're essentially buying a different product each time
(because you are going to/from different points) so the value of a marketplace
is much higher. With cleaning services, you're buying the same product again
and again (same house, same procedure, etc.) so the marketplace is just a
useless middleman.

~~~
vonklaus
this is interesting, and I overlooked it completely but it is fundamentally
important. Uber, Lyft and AirBnB are probably the best known sharing economy
companies. While you could make the point that each house homejoy cleans is
different, and to the worker they go to different locations, but to the user
this is a service commodity _.

While, like apples or coffee vary in quality, if they are at a certain bar it
doesn't matter. To a user a clean house is pretty similar so really the only
thing that matters is how I value cleanliness. I can even do it myself in a
pinch. So the reputation almost has no value for a commodity product.

You either trust homejoy/homeaglow or you trust someone else, but the result
is nearly the same and managing this is not complex because you need almost
the same thing everytime. So if you independently find someone to do it, you
can just have them do the same thing repeatedly.

Ride and homesharing provide the same service in different places and contexts
and they provide the complex coordination of scheduling and market making on
the fly. Diverting a moving vehicle to pick up a person in a different
location than their last ride and bringing them to a location they have never
been before.

Airbnb provides people with different schedules to coordinate buying and
selling space in differing locations with a degree of trust and efficiency.
You get a different product from airbnb every time.

Homejoy does not provide a distinct service from either the market, or itself.

really good point.

_not sure what the service equivalent of a commodity is.

------
godzillabrennus
Why?

