DBAM Inc.

Our prelaunch page is live at GoHomeify.com. Both homeowners and tradespeople can now register for free. Check us out and let us know what you think. And don't forget to follow us @GoHomeify :)

I went for lunch on Monday with my colleague Altaf from Baycrest's Finance department to pick his brain re. Homeify. Altaf graduated from the Rotman program several years ago and similar to the 'MBA grads hire other MBAs to validate their degree' motto, the same prophecy applies to Rotman Alumni - they are eager to unpack cases and talk strategy because it makes them feel like they learned something. The following is a summary of our conversation:

Altaf bought a home in 2006

He had no idea how to repair it

Has a friend who is a master carpenter

Bought a fix up - claims that every house in Toronto worth buying is a fix up

It took him 4-5 years to forge a network of reliable sources:

Roofer – friend referral

Electric – called Mike Homes show and got a referral (interesting - and leading me to believe Mike Homes should be our spokesman, principal adviser, who knew you could do that?!)

Dry wall – referral from Mike Homes show

Plumber – referral from a store called Penmare

He approaches trades that he sees in the neighborhood, ie. He observes their work, if he sees quality, approaches them, sees if they are forthcoming and studies their mannerisms

He keeps records of people by:

Business cards

Electronic contact list – seldom

Fridge magnets

WOM

If he doesn't know the proper trade:

Calls people in his network

Is willing to spend ½ a day searching

Doesn't check homestars, never heard of Angie's list

Looks in to the Better Business Bureau to see if they are accredited - *this is great advice as we too should be approved by the BBB as should our trade hires

Altaf has a fear of being hoodwinked

His brother in law has had problems because he does not go through the proper referral process and often goes for the cheapest offer – not in a good position currently

 Altaf’s fears re. Homeify:

Good contractors are never out of work – booked through WOM

Are we getting crappy people?

He doesn't care about taking inventory of light bulbs

He doesn't want to do any additional work to keep an inventory of goods he purchases

Thinks immigrant community will use their own people

Companies like Sears and Home Depot already have their own crew of tradesmen – how are we different?

We then spoke about possible ideas for ameliorating Homeify based on his fears and came up with a couple of juicy ideas that the Homeify Team will dissect on Saturday.

We spent a lot of time arriving at a name for our venture. It wasn't easy. We wanted a name that spoke to what our company is all about, but in the fewest words possible. In particular, we had the following 3 aspects of our business that we wanted to communicate:

That people to come to us to complete some form of job, task, project, gig, or work. We help them get jobs, done.

We're related to the home.

And we're about making homeowner's lives easier through the power of outsourcing.

We cycled through a bunch of different ideas: OotSource, OotSourceIt, OotHires, Werkify, HomeHire, Rebuild, Fixify, FixUp, etc. In the end, we settled on one word that we felt described what we're all about:

Homeify (gohomeify.com)

In addition to the 3 criteria above, we also wanted our name to be an action. We wanted our name to symbolize the act of getting a job done. It's not about finding the right tradesperson (like, say, Angie's List). It's about getting the job done and improving people's homes.

As part of this, the quality of the trades we choose to work with will be paramount. When a job is setup through our platform, that trade becomes a reflection on us. Our business. Our brand.

A few weeks ago the team really focused in on property valuation as something of critical value to homeowners. After doing some preliminary user interviews and sharing our idea, it's become apparent that this is not enough to grab and acquire users. Comments that we kept hearing were things like "Why would I care about this unless I want to sell?", "Why would I trust you over my real estate agent (or other trusted source)?"

Not what we want to hear, but definitely what we needed to hear at this point. We want to make sure that we create something that our audience recognizes as truly solving some kind of problem or need that they have. We've sort of been trained to think of valuation as something that's only relevant at certain times in your home ownership lifecycle, and validated only by certain experts. This makes it something ripe for disruption, but it also makes it really hard to connect with end users.

Back to the original question, which is what can we create that truly solves a problem or need? After a lot of discussion at last night's meetup, and based on things we keep hearing from people we talk to, we keep coming back to the homeowners biggest pain point: that seemingly neverending list of jobs that need to get done around the house. Some are big, some are small, but they're all a big pain to manage. We need to create a system that helps these homeowners get their jobs done so they can focus more on actually enjoying their home. This is the heart of the concept and where we're going to start blowing the idea out. It also becomes the big hook in starting to build an inventory of what's in your individual home, and starting to digitize and aggregate some critical information for a user. 

Building on our meeting of last week, there's 1 very important hypothesis that needs to be tested. It's about whether or not people even give a damn, on an ongoing basis, about the value of their property. By ongoing basis, we're specifically thinking about periods of time when they're not considering selling.

This is critical to our current concept. If people want to track the value of their home--like they do stocks--then we could probably build a large network of engaged users with this concept. However, if people only care about the value of their home during brief moments in time while they're preparing or thinking about selling, then it'll be significantly more difficult for us to build this large network of engaged users. The frequency will be way lower.

So given the importance of this assumption, how do we test it simply, cheaply and quickly? Manually, of course, doing things that don't scale.

I want to talk a closer look at one of the criticisms that our idea has received as a result of "getting outside of the building" and talking to potential users/customers:

"The argument made was the following - images alone will not be able to provide enough material for a realtor to make a proper assessment on the spot as well as if a seller is truly serious about getting an assessment, then why not have the realtor assess the home in person if they would do it anyway?"

The criticism, essentially, is about accuracy. The concern is that a platform offering decentralized home valuations will not be able to compete with the accuracy of an actual home appraisal, offered by the likes of realtors and professional appraisals.

And while accuracy will certainly be a concern, there are a couple of things to consider.

The first is that sites such Zillow.com already offer home valuations and they do it using even less information. It's done through a proprietary algorithm that analyzes nearby comparable properties and so on. This means that a computer is generating the valuations. And, unless the home has been "claimed" by its owner, the system has no knowledge of any improvements that could affect the value of the property. Of course, Zillow also receives similar criticisms around accuracy.

The second important point is that of scale. The criticism above assumes that in order to develop a "proper assessment" you need a physical assessment. But that's just because it's the way it's always been done. But what if scale and volume trumped the thorough analysis of one?

If you've ever read the Wisdom of Crowds, you'll recognize the argument I'm about to make. It's the idea that large numbers of people, when organized properly, can be more accurate and more predictive than if you just relied on the knowledge of a select few "experts."

I think this is particularly relevant to questions of market pricing because, at the end of the day, the price of something is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. So in a way, it almost doesn't matter what some appraiser thinks about your dying furnace. If the market is hot, the market is hot. And that's something we'd love to be able to capture with this product: market sentiment.

As I left our meeting on Sunday night I was excited and in need of sharing - jumping in to a friends car I began divulging our concept.. However, much to my chagrin, my friend did not appreciate our idea. We then launched in to a debate - is it a good or a bad idea and in reality, is there a willingness to pay among consumers. The argument made was the following - images alone will not be able to provide enough material for a realtor to make a proper assessment on the spot as well as if a seller is truly serious about getting an assessment, then why not have the realtor assess the home in person if they would do it anyway?  In rebuttal I began to stress the value of being able to have a valuation of a home - typically ones' biggest asset - in real time. I expanded upon the idea of instant gratification, the features we had envisioned, the disruption we would cause... he took the bait, albeit only a quarter of an inch from his original stance. The conversation ended on a positive - he suggested he was going to speak with his friend who is a realtor to solicit feedback and share insights. 

One of the conversations we've been having around Polly Pocket is the challenge of creating value immediately for new users and then repeatedly delivering value over a sustained period of time.

We're running with the notion that Polly Pocket could serve as your very own private property manager and that she'll take care of all the hassles that come along with owning/managing a home. This could include remembering to change your furnace filter or getting help to find the right trades person (potentially a later phase).

However are these events high frequency enough? We've been using Mint.com as a comparison. It immediately spits out information about your finances (once you sync up your bank accounts) and then helps you proactively manage your spending. 

What's the equivalent for a home?

Following an intense and rigorous team meeting on Google Hangout (see photo below), we've decided to code name our project Polly Pocket. 

The name came about as we were discussing the idea that our platform could serve as "everyone's private property manager" - similar to how Uber is everyone's private driver.

We then started talking about the idea of having a property manager on your smartphone, in your pocket. We then decided that Polly was a pretty damn good name for a property manager - hence Polly Pocket. Some of us (Brandon) didn't even know it was a child's toy from the 80s.