Imagine there’s a leak at your home that you cannot fix by yourself. Your first response would be to call a local plumber or Google one. The plumber visits your home and fixes the problem. However, there’s no guarantee that the problem will not reoccur. Somewhere, you will always doubt the quality of the work.
The same is the case with the majority of the consumers. Despite hiring certified professionals, the uncertainty about the long-term efficacy of the fix always remains. To fix this problem, many consumers have started to rely on home service marketplaces like Handy, Thumbtack, or TaskRabbit. The primary reason behind the consumers’ trust in these marketplaces is that their service is backed by a brand reputation. These brands resonate with quality and professionalism with a centralized platform to help you in case of any problems.
Adding on to the success of service marketplaces, there’s a large pool of servicemen expanding their services by registering on home service marketplace platforms. In terms of figures, there are 73.3 million freelance service providers in the US alone. Both these facts; the increasing trust of consumers and upsurging demand from service providers, make launching a home service marketplace a lucrative business venture.
In this blog, we have done a complete breakdown of important factors that you need to focus on while building your home services marketplace.
Table of Contents
How a Home Services Marketplace Works?
Workflow of a Home Services Marketplace
Steps to Create a Home Services Marketplace
The primary concept of a home services marketplace originated in the early years of Web 2.0, when all major industries were undergoing a digital transformation and online business models were springing up. While some businesses were digital counterparts of offline business ideas, others were quite innovative and gained immense popularity because of being the first movers. One of those business models was the home service marketplace model.
To materialize this business model, founders needed a website where both customers and service providers could sign up. Service providers would simply create their profiles and customers hired them on a per-job, gig, or task basis. An alternative to this was to let customers upload tasks and service providers placed their bids. The marketplace owner only modulated safe payments and managed the portal.
Let’s understand with the help of a few examples:
For exemplary purposes, check out the following workflows. Note that the actual workflows can vary and depend on the home services marketplace software you select or develop through the custom development approach.
Workflow Model 1: Direct Hiring
Workflow Model 2: Job Posting
While launching a new business, the founder needs to pay attention to a lot of factors such as market research, business planning, licensing, budgeting, marketing, and launch. While launching an online business, another factor adds to the list, which is the software technology. The common dilemma is developing a marketplace from scratch by hiring a web developer or using a readymade solution. In this section, let us clear the dilemma for you.
Do your initial market research including the demographic profile of the targeted region, competitor analysis, SWOT, PESTLE, and the number of available service providers. You will realize which are the most demanded services in your region and whether your business idea would be viable.
There are two popular types of business structures, which are LLC and sole proprietorship. In an LLC (Limited Liability Company), your personal assets are separated from the company’s assets. Thus, any losses and commitments cannot be recovered from your personal assets. In a sole proprietorship, you become the sole owner of the company but are also liable to pay any damages.
There are two ways to power your marketplace business, which are by using readymade software or via custom development. To understand which makes more sense, let’s take a look at the features we require. Below is the list of the most essential features required on a home services marketplace but is not limited to:
While these features represent a single operation, every single one of them includes more settings and options, making the entire design infrastructure highly complex. On top of that, the developer may reuse a code but charge you the full development price. As it is obvious that custom development is more time-consuming, cost-inclusive and you may get a solution that is not tried and tested, opting for a ready-made solution is more reliable.
To begin with, the software has already been tried and tested multiple times by numerous business owners. Thus, you know you are getting something reliable to begin with. Additionally, it has been developed after thorough market research and would be able to assist you with daily business operations. As everything is available out of the box, you can easily deploy the software and reduce the overall time-to-market (TTM). Because of continuously improved documentation, onboarding will also be stress-free.
There’s no fixed formula to ensure a successful startup. However, one thing that stays constant is resolution. While the software tech and well-defined business model will simplify launching and operating a home services business, you will also need to work on your marketing strategy and management skills. It is better to mount your efforts towards learning digital marketing and utilize social media platforms to ensure steady growth. The in-built marketing features of your home services software will assist you in increasing your customer base. Lastly, focus on the quality of services provided to establish a name.