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As of a few days ago they claim to have hit $1M a week in bookings:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/14/handy-hits-1-million-a-week...

I've encountered a couple of startups and founders like this and as much as it pains me to defend Handy, t does seem unlikely that they could have accomplished this if they were actually as dysfunctional as this story makes them seem. I'm skeptical of the author's claims.




If you ever spent time around lead gen and marketing business for general contracting services like remodel, HVAC (AC or Heating) and the like, you'd know how many shady actors are out there.

I thought myself more or less immune to much of these schemes as I have been around that industry a number of years in the past, but recently feel for a company pretending to be a local locksmith on google maps, when they are actually a lead gen company that sold me on an unrealistically low quote. When the guy showed up at 11pm and told me it was 5x the quote and explained all the reasons why the person on the phone really did not "lie" to me, I suddenly remembered what lead gen is...


My local, neighborhood locksmith who I see at my corner bar says there is a real danger of those guys coming back and breaking into your place, now that they know everything about your locks.


This guy took 2+ hours to open the door, so I'm not really worried about him specifically. That said, I did change out locks myself later on, although I'm sure if someone wants in, they'll just bust the window...


Its happened to me to as well. Even the legitimate locksmiths charge a lot. For example for just re-keying a lock (if your moving into a new place).


I don't mind paying what the service is worth, but being promised X and then paying 5X is not good business.


I've been curious if there's a business model there. Perhaps a way to vet and white-list businesses like Locksmiths to get around the scams?

Perhaps it could be partially automated by looking for storefronts in google street view?


Right place right time.

In a booming market a company that is only half functional, often to do overtime or heroics, can appear very successful. But as soon as the market cools down to normal or even still accelerated pace companies like this (assuming it's 100% true) start to drop like flies.

High profit or customer acquisition numbers can hide serious fundamental problems for a few years.


"Recessions uncover what auditors do not."


Is this really true? It seems a lot of people are part of dysfunctional organizations out of desperation. If there were better alternatives for the employees, would shifty endeavors such as the one in the article thrive?


The company in the article clearly has very serious problems. Based on the description they're in serious trouble no matter what.

But when there's a boom going on in an industry it can be so easy to make money and gain new clients that it can cover-up a lot of fundamental problems with the way that business is run.

Because money is pouring in the door (either by earning it or from VCs) the company can afford to give out a lot of perks and raises. It's easy to hire extra employees to pick up slack or for employees to get away with wasting large amounts of time or being semi-competent. If customers buy your service once and never come back who cares if there are beating a path to your door? There will always be more so you'll stay in the black. The atmosphere can be really relaxed and fun and casual. Lots of different ideas can be tried in a "throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks" manner. It doesn't really matter if you fail, things are going really well!

The problem is what happens when the market starts to cool down. The perks suddenly disappear in the raises stop happening. Manual processes that wasted a lot of employee time or cost extra people to have to be hired suddenly get cleaned up and people find themselves working overtime or without jobs. When the executive start seeing the money disappear the feeling inside the place changes completely. You better not make any mistakes or trying waste money with a new idea. Best to stick with what used to work; that must've been correct. Wasting money is the last thing you need.

But it doesn't really matter if the employees were doing their best job and weren't slacking off or wasting resources and all. Even if they are model employees the business model may have been unsustainable (like pets.com) and never would've succeeded even if everything had been run perfectly. $300/customer acquisition cost doesn't work well when the average customer ends buys $25/year in products.

If you knew all this was going on, employees could get out near the top or skip the ride altogether and work in a company that's solid building up their reputation there. Instead they might get laid off or have to leave under desperate circumstances and might have to find another job on the quick.

All because a change in the market revealed that there was a company that never should've been successful in the first place and may have only grown through an accident of luck.


That's awesome, is that a quote from something or someone, or just something that is true?



Excellent wisdom. I love coming across quotes which quantify intuition.


Successful companies are full of dysfunction; just like powerful empires. Their competitors are dysfunctional too.

I've known coworkers to suffer daily humiliations while I'm treated with absolute respect. They'd quit, often causing obvious pain to the bosses, but the company kept growing. The bosses could replace them eventually, as the corporation is structured to treat them as cogs.

Higher-up priests & bosses are treated well. Those nearer the bottom are miserable.


There's a lot of ruin in a nation, and a lot in any company. The successful ones produce enough value to make up for all the value being lost at various levels.

This company is a disaster on so many levels. It sounds like three employees low-paid are performing a critical service function and it's very easy to see them all walking out the door.


It's not just the treatment of lower level employees. It's also the lack of control, the lack of communication, the cluelessness about the business ($250 for a bathroom retiling), and the employees' lack of respect for their management.


The company that charges $250 for a bathroom retiling is the company that needs $30M in funding.


I remember a company selling furniture with free shipping during the first dot-bomb. (I think they had the furniture.com domain.) Only after they started getting orders did they realize that UPS and FedEx (at that time) wouldn't even ship that stuff for any cost.


If they are replaceable, they are cogs :)


They're taking a hammering on glassdoor:

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Handy-Reviews-E680570.htm

The positive reviews seem fairly obvious fakes too.

And self reported income is often bullshit income. The figure is probably triple their best week which itself was a one off, before cancellations and charge backs.


Quote from the CEO, Oisin Hanrahan, "Handy does not employee any cleaners. It appears that you are one of the service professionals using our platform as a contractor. Per terms of use Glassdoor is for employees. Oisin"

Are you kidding me?


Talk about tone-deaf. If they are violating Glassdoor's TOU, he should tell Glassdoor directly, not say "you aren't following the rules, we have rules!"

EDIT: Here's something from the CEO a month ago, in response to "dude/bro" culture:

> Dude / bro / elitism - As a leadership team we have been guilty of focusing on high performers and not giving enough coaching / support to under performing team members. We need to work on this.


How is this company still in business?


This attitude permeates businesses in all sectors. It's part of the "we're management, and that means we're better than you" mentality of management. It almost has nothing whatsoever to do with why a company is (or isn't) still in business.


Classical malinvestment during a boom period.


Wow. All of the positive reviews were completely reactionary to the negative reviews. If that doesn't scream "encouraged by upper management" I don't know what does. They read so unauthentically.


I guess that's why I don't bother with online reviews. I just feel it's a huge game and completely unreliable.


On Amazon I always read only the two, three and four star reviews. I find them to be an order of magnitude more reliable. Especially the ones that clearly list the pros and cons of the product.




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