In its first big step beyond home cleaning, Homejoy is adding carpet cleaning and general handyman services to its Bay Area offering.
Co-founder and CEO Adora Cheung (pictured above with her brother and co-founder Aaron) hinted at this last year, including last week at Disrupt Europe. Over the summer, Homejoy invited customers to try a number of different home services – not just the ones officially launched today, but landscaping, electrical work, and pest control as well.
COO Xiao Wei Chen told me that Homejoy will continue to test with these other services and “solve some problems”. On the other hand, he said carpet cleaners and handyman are “ready for prime time”. (These handyman services include air conditioning installation and repair, moving and storage, furniture assembly, interior painting, and TV assembly.)
People who use the Homejoy website or mobile app to schedule house cleanings can now use the same interface to set up other services as well. This first launch includes San Francisco and San Jose. Carpet cleaning is $ 50 an hour, while handyman services are $ 60 an hour. And yes, Chen said there are plans to open up more markets soon.
When asked how Homejoy’s experience in cleaning has influenced the approach to new services, Chen said the big challenge has always been “improving the customer experience.” It is for this reason that the company has “introduced these services so carefully” one at a time.
Specifically, Chen noted that while Homejoy had to recruit a new group of artisans (crafters?), They were also able to use their existing pool of carpet cleaners.
I also pointed out that Homejoy recently changed their prices to encourage regular cleanings, but the recurring model makes less sense with the new services. Chen replied that the goal is to be “the one stop shop for all home services”.
“If we assemble your TV, we won’t be assembling it again six months later,” he added. “But when we assemble your television, we want to keep track if you want to assemble shelves or pictures.”
The expansion of Homejoy could also lead to more competition with Handy, which offers both house cleaning and handyman services.
