Comparing HomeJoy to ridesharing companies, I see that both had telephone analogues: You can call a taxi company, and there are lots of agencies you can call for cleaners.
Besides tapping instead of calling a human (which is annoying), what is the big win for rides? For me, it's the map. When I'm told my taxi will be there in five minutes, I can see the progress on the map. I never believe a taxi company when they say, "10 minutes." Sometimes it's five, sometimes I call them back after twenty minutes to ask where my taxi is.
For the next sharing economy startup founders, ask yourself what you can do in real time for users. This is ridiculous, but for another cleaning company, you might provide the cleaners with GoPros and allow the user to stream what they see, so you can watch them clean.
Technically, you could set that up yourself with nanny-cams, but imagine contacting a service (via app or web page), having them clean your home, and watching it happen (or knowing that they know you can watch it happen). That bypasses the whole "call me personally" problem. If I call the cleaner personally, I don't get the cleaner-cam.
To me, if you're going to give me an app or a web page, give me something in real time that I care about.
Besides tapping instead of calling a human (which is annoying), what is the big win for rides? For me, it's the map. When I'm told my taxi will be there in five minutes, I can see the progress on the map. I never believe a taxi company when they say, "10 minutes." Sometimes it's five, sometimes I call them back after twenty minutes to ask where my taxi is.
For the next sharing economy startup founders, ask yourself what you can do in real time for users. This is ridiculous, but for another cleaning company, you might provide the cleaners with GoPros and allow the user to stream what they see, so you can watch them clean.
Technically, you could set that up yourself with nanny-cams, but imagine contacting a service (via app or web page), having them clean your home, and watching it happen (or knowing that they know you can watch it happen). That bypasses the whole "call me personally" problem. If I call the cleaner personally, I don't get the cleaner-cam.
To me, if you're going to give me an app or a web page, give me something in real time that I care about.