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WHENEVER A NEW service or app arrives, the temptation to try to be everything to everyone will always exist.
While the rewards for such an approach is vast, more and more services are opting for simplistic experiences instead. Dedicating one function and doing it well is essential in a world that demands simplicity, especially since apps and smartphones have come into play.
One service which recently launched in Dublin and follows this mantra to a tee is Hassle.com. Describing itself as a ‘Hailo for cleaners,’ its goal is ease of use and accessibility by letting users book a cleaner in 60 seconds for €12 an hour.
Yet while the aim and execution is very simple, this wasn’t always the case. Instead, it came after an attempt to take in all freelance areas and making the tough decision to drop it all for one area.
When it first launched in 2011, it covered more than 25 different professions such as personal trainers and driving instructors, but it soon realised that a startup taking its first steps wasn’t the best fit for this.
For Hassle’s Chief Product Officer (CPO) Jules Coleman, who co-founded the company with Tom Nimmo and Alex Depledge, it was a case of scale and ambition not seeing eye to eye.
“Basically we found that [for] a young company without a lot of money, it’s really hard to be great at 25 different things all at the same time,” explained the Kildare native. “The lesson we learnt the hard way the first time around is that as a young company… [don't] spread yourself too thinly.”
Since most people were using the service to look for cleaners, the team decided to scale back during Christmas 2012. After taking the site down and updating it, the current version of Hassle launched on 2 January and has progressed from there.
The idea was we would focus on cleaning with a really good app and put all of our effort into this one thing, roll it out to a number of cities, and in time, we can start looking at other areas again, but when we do that, we’ll be more considered and structured about how we add them.
This week, the company launched its services in Dublin, having focused on the UK market. The aim is not only to expand across Ireland, first to Co. Dublin and then the rest of the country, but also across Europe as well.
After the first day of its launch, the company received more than 700 applications from cleaners wanting to join the service. Since trust is a major issue, the company has a strict vetting process to ensure everything’s above board.
This process would involve filling out an application form, taking a phone call from the company, bringing them into their Dublin offices to meet them, check their references and even when they’re approved, they look at feedback from customers to see if they are reliable.
While it’s a comprehensive approach, the company is usually able to get through the process “within a week or two because we let the cleaner know straight away if they haven’t made it to a certain stage… We’re not keeping people waiting, we’re very transparent on that.”
Ultimately, the process is to ensure that the standard of its service is as high as possible since people trusting it and those who get work through it is what will make or break the company.
“What we’re selling here is trust and convenience. Trust is a big thing for us [and] it’s really important that we have a physical presence in Dublin as we want to meet each and every one of them in person.
Yet the greatest lesson Coleman learnt from her time running Hassle is the barriers to entry have fallen dramatically in the past five to ten years. This was reflected in how the company started out, mainly with two of its founders teaching themselves how to code to make their idea work.
“Myself and Tom (one of Hassle.com co-founder), when we left our jobs, we taught ourselves to code to begin,” said Coleman. “We didn’t have any money when we started, we literally bought a book and learned to code and up until eight weeks ago, we were the only developers in the company.”
Overall, the experience has held them to good stead and for Coleman, it shows how drastically the cost of starting a business has fallen in recent times.
“You don’t need to be buying servers and you don’t even have to be hiring people to build things.” says Coleman. “It is possible to teach yourself and do it for just your client basically for the cost involved.”
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This type of low paid insecure work is likely to become more and more common and the journal could really have taken a more critical look at it rather than putting out what is essentially an ad for the company. Cleaners with hassle get paid ‘up to €10′ an hour while the customer pays €12 making a tidy profit for the owners, but without them having to bear any of the responsibilities that normally come with being an employer – like paying employers’ PRSI or providing sick pay, holidays or maternity leave – and without the workers, who are effectively their employees having any of the rights, given that the website states it’s an ‘introduction service’ for self-employed cleaners. Despite this, its owners have no problem with indefinitely scalping at least a sixth of the value of these workers’ labour off them.
wtf are u talking about.. Are you trying to debate the business strategy of affliates ??
Its capitolism, a simple finders fee.. whats wrong with that. €10 an hour is more than what some people have at the moment so quite literally the market will dictate whether they will have customers or not !
You miss the point of this company completely…. the cleaners aren’t employees anymore than the properties advertised on daft belong to daft.
This isn’t just an ad for a business, there is actually an extremely valid business message there. Pick a niche and do it really well. This is one of the most increasingly important lessons that all businesses and especially start -ups can learn from.
I love the way some people immediately can be so critical of anyone in business and the idea that if they run a business, they must be making loads of money for themselves simply through the exploitation of “the workers”. What about the ongoing time, effort and investment that the owners have put it in to get the business started and keep it going? As a business owner you don’t just wake up one day and magically have money coming into your bank account for zero time and effort.
What exactly should The Journal have been more critical of? If there is a market for the service, then it will take off and many of the cleaners I’m sure will be making more than they are now, as Rob says. Presumably anyone already earning a good, “secure” living if such a thing exists anymore might not be inclined to sign up as a cleaner of the service, no one is forcing them. Unless of course they prefer the flexibility that this type of working arrangement may possibly bring them compared to other employment options they may have. Many people may actually be pretty happy to have this option open to them.
In fairness, the article tells us nothing about how the cleaners earn their money and what sort of rights they have. It would be interesting to know, given that more and more people these days have to rely on precarious work. I have to agree with the original poster that the article does read rather like an ad for the company.
They earn their money by cleaning at an agreed rate per hour. They are self employed not employees. They have the same rights as any other sole trader.
Well did Cian. Pretty sure Hailo doesn’t pay PRSI for their drivers, dictate annual leave etc. Some people really just love having a moan at any good news story. Ok cleaners aren’t millionaires but they choose to get into the game. It’s generally a very flexible form of self employment, very suitable for people with children in school and if anything, Hassle are bringing these people into the tax net (doing us all a favour). The modern young professional is much more comfortable using apps than yellow pages or even poorly laid out websites. This is simply supply meeting demand in a niche. Fair play and best of luck to them! This could be a European wide success story with a talented young Irish Woman at it’s heart.
Ian, they can choose which jobs to accept and which not to. Therefore they can pick their own hours, their own work locations. The website provides a platform for them to advertise their own services. Interested customers can decide whether to avail of those services and the cleaners themselves can choose whether to provide services to particular customers or not.
And in fairness, the article doesn’t look like it is meant to be about the rights and arrangements that the cleaners have with the company so why should The Journal focus on it? It seems like a pretty straight forward arrangement in any case, the details of which are not hard to find on the website for anyone who is interested. I personally clicked to read the article because of the business lessons alluded to in the headline. Fair enough the company will be getting a bit of publicity from having their name featured on here, but reading about other people’s business successes and failures is always a lot more interesting and meaningful when you know the name and details of the business itself.
Do landlords advertising properties on daft have to continue to pay daft at least a sixth of their monthly rent? that’s what the workers in this case will have to do. It’s not just a ‘finder’s fee’, it’s continuing exploitation.
Well estate agents do.. ? whats your point !!
It’s a really good idea suiting both people who want to work as a cleaner doing whatever hours best suits them and people who want to have their home cleaned on an irregular basis, perhaps when ill and unable to do it themselves. Wishing them well.
Not a bad idea, hope it comes to cork soon!
Fleetingwhim, they are providing an ongoing service. Regular matching of customers to cleaners for ongoing jobs that come up.
Is it just the fact that the company charge any fee at all that you have a problem with? If the cleaners received €12 per hour and the customers paid €14 per hour, would this still be exploitation to you? Should the website instead become a free community service?
Although I would imagine it to be against their T&Cs I can imagine that over time people engaging the services of cleaners may well end up making arrangements directly with the cleaners. If the arrangement was for the cleaner to earn €10 directly from the home owner, or even if they split the difference and agreed €11 per hour, is that exploitation because the customer has knocked money off the “value” of the worker’s labour?
The website provides a particular type of service which both customers and cleaners can choose to avail of or not. There are alternatives open to cleaners which are a whole range of marketing and advertising options such as their own website, leaflet drops, advertising in local newspapers etc. That all costs money too. This service provides them with a new option to access a steady stream of customers (assuming of course that it takes off) in what seems to be a fairly convenient way.
Garglebin is an even better app if I’d ever get around to doing it. After the World Cup now I’ll make a burst.
and what would gargle bin be (now that you’ve mentioned it) ?
I presume it will let me summon a cleaner to discreetly dispose of the stash of empty vodka bottles in my wardrobe?
A crap ‘article’ if it even deserves that description. Author must have had an IOU to this business that he repaid with a lazy Sunday fill the gap piece. Good luck with the business guys but this is an advert disguised as business journalism, simple as.
Well I was interested to read a short summary of what seems like an interesting business. Ok, it’s clearly useful for this company to get the publicity, but I still regard this as a valid business article. When a company comes up with an innovative business model that may have a major impact on some industry, it’s perfectly reasonable for the business media to publish articles about it. Just think of Ryanair, Amazon.com, Hailo, etc.
Do you not cover lusk? I need a cleaner….
Interesting idea. I like it as a would be customer, however as it’s only available in Dublin it is useless to me
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