Online platforms for home services are plentiful ”“ from forums on social media sites to apps including Angi, Porch or Thumbtack, it would seem homeowners and contractors are not lacking in digital settings for potential connection.
But Ridgefield-based app developer James Albis, who gained attention a few years ago with his on-demand snow-clearing service app SnoHub, the quantity of home service forums and apps does not necessarily result in quality environments.
“From a contractor or a gig worker”™s perspective, what I found was these guys wanted an easier platform for them to take a quick look at a job,” he explained. “It could be anything from a snow blowing job to a lawn cut or remodeling job ”“ just to be able to look at a few photos, see how much exactly the customer is willing to spend, get an estimated a date and time of when the job needs to get done, and then quickly connect directly with a customer.”
From the homeowner”™s perspective, he continued, the typical request for input would come in a social media forum, often with vague or unreliable results.
“If I was a homeowner, I would post, ”˜Hey, I’m looking for this and that,”™ and there would be 20 or 30 peoples”™ opinions to use Fred or use Tom or whatever,” he said. “And their posts didn’t really describe anything meaningful about the job itself. And I was like, ”˜Well, why not create a mobile application to quickly connect the two sides of the market without interfering in the payment gateway ”“ just focus mainly on the mechanics of the job itself?”™”
Albis”™ solution is JobSnap, and a key difference in this app involves how contractors pay for the service. Albis explained that one complaint he received from contractors was that they were being overcharged by other services for “communications and leads,” but not for jobs. With JobSnap, he added, an annual subscription of $365 ”“ literally one dollar per day ”“ is offered, regardless of how many jobs the contractors obtain through the app.
“Those other platforms overcharge when it comes to advertising for service contractors,” he said.
For homeowners who use JobSnap, Albis guaranteed that their personal data will not be sold and distributed to third parties. He also pointed out that homeowners can now offer specifics on their projects, thus improving their chances on getting the right contractors for their distinctive project needs.
“For the homeowners, they take three or four different photos of exactly what they need to get done, when they needed to get done, how much they’re willing to spend, and then post that to the general service provider community or, in a lot of instances, to gig economy workers who have the skill sets and the equipment to facilitate jobs,” he said. “And in this economy, a lot of people have those skill sets and equipment. What we’re doing is we’re filling in the gap between the two sides.”
Albis launched JobSnap earlier this summer and predicted that within a year he will have 50,000 people using the app on the service provider side and roughly half-a-million from the general consumer market. He added that positioning JobSnap as an app rather than a website will further enhance its popularity.
“There are 5 million service providers out there and over 15 million gig workers, and a lot of these people don’t need to set up a website,” he said. “Everyone lives on their phones. Everything that you need to get done, for finding a job and getting a job, can be done through an app. And that’s what we’ve done it successfully before, and that’s the way we’re going to do it with this app, too.”
