Houseace is averaging 50% month-on-month growth, achieving an average of 50k in monthly projects through the marketplace, with the company seeking to raise venture capital.
Choosing a home improvement contractor is a time consuming and confusing process. The majority of businesses in the field lack customer service, gathering quotes can be tricky, and knowing what to look for in a competent contractor can prove difficult.
Finding a quote in real-time can be challenging since contractors typically given that prices that vary. When people are dealing with their most expensive asset (their home), things like choosing the wrong contractor can have devastating consequences.
Houseace is a new on-demand marketplace for home improvement projects like painting, renovations, and carpentry. Through the platform, users can quickly quote and book home improvement services through a user-friendly interface.
Once a user selects a project that they need to be done, then they answer basic questions about the project / space to be renovated. Houseace takes this data and plugs it into their pricing algorithms, providing a user with a fixed quote in seconds. This is all tailored to granular details like the size and complexity of the job, the location or suburb, all matched to suit different types of budgets.
The platform then automatically matches a user with a dedicated project manager who will finalize the scope and work for things like scheduling, product selection, and hand-picking a licensed insured contractor to do the work. The entire process uses a combination of big data and machine learning.
According to Jonny Sommers, the Founder of Houseace, “We’ve used technology to re-invent the home improvement process altogether while our competitors like Hipages or service seeking have used it to simplify just parts of the process.”
Sommers has had over 10 years of experience within the construction and architectural industries and has a technical background in front-end web development and search engine marketing (SEM). His interest in these markets stemmed largely from his father.
“My father ran a construction business so I was exposed to both residential and commercial construction my whole life, at 18 I left school and started in the family business working from the ground up, this gave me a full view of all facets of the business,” says Sommers.
Sommers further adds that “On the side to earn a bit of cash I would build websites and apps for local business, this was more of a hobby if anything. I knew that one day I would start a business in the construction industry myself and when I did I would use technology as a tool to solve the many problems clients and contractors face.”
Recent Australian media reports auggest residential alterations and additions rose to $8.5 billion last year. In 2017, the strata service sector was worth a total of $5.7 billion with more than 2.2 million Australians living in apartments (equating to approximately 10% of the entire population of Australia).
With that being said, it will be interesting to see what new developments arise from Houseace and if they’re able to capture the Australian market to compete with major players like Hipages, Airtasker, and ServiceSeeking.
