When we first moved into the house, we had an one-off insurance policy to fix plumbing, appliances, roof, etc. I called them once, they sent over a fantastic plumber, and I never called them again. You see, they found a way to not cover anything, and all I really needed was access to a good plumber.<\/p>\n
Why isn’t this exact same thing happening, or going to happen, to Uber, Handy, Munchery, etc.?<\/p>\n
All of these applications are marketplaces. However, none of them (and I haven’t power used Handy yet so I don’t know how true this is for them) create a relationship between me and my service provider.<\/p>\n
I know my plumber, and so I trust him to come to the house and fix things.<\/p>\n
Same with my contractor (because houses break).<\/p>\n
Same with my gardener (because Micky loves the backyard).<\/p>\n
In a similar vein, I know my doctor, my dentist, and I trust that they will be there when I go in for an appointment.<\/p>\n
Why then wouldn’t I want to know my chef? Or my driver? Or the painters I’ve hired?<\/p>\n
And if the apps don’t build this in for me (e.g. allowing me to request favorites when they’re available, creating relationships with the service providers before they come to me, etc.), then why wouldn’t I just do it myself?<\/p>\n
I’ve never asked an Uber driver for their card so I could just call them directly next time… but I could. It would let me pay them without having to pay Uber. I could give them the tip they deserve, and not the one that Uber splits with them. All of the incentives are there for this business owner to branch out and create his own clientele list.<\/p>\n
It’s the kind of thing my grandfather would definitely have done by now.<\/p>\n
Our Handy tryout today wrote us a nice note about the work that she did, and suggested at the end that we create a one-on-one relationship without Handy as an intermediary. She’s already thinking that way.<\/p>\n
I’m really curious how… on a long enough time horizon… these services expect to keep the talent. I know agencies have these problems because my favorite contractor (one Garret Riddle) tends to freelance out whenever he wants to, and then come back when he’s tired of doing BD.<\/p>\n
Get enough clients and word of mouth, and you don’t need the marketplace anymore. And then what happens to Uber’s valuation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When we first moved into the house, we had an one-off insurance policy to fix plumbing, appliances, roof, etc. I called them once, they sent over a fantastic plumber, and I never called them again. You see, they found a way to not cover anything, and all I really needed was access to a good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-nX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1558,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/04\/27\/bringing-amplifize-back-from-the-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":1485,"position":0},"title":"Bringing amplifize back from the dead","date":"April 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I've built a website called amplifize. It's a small community of 10-12 folks who share articles, and talk about them together. It started as a Google Reader replacement at scale, and has downsized\u00c2\u00a0into my own, small Internet water cooler shared by some really fun, random, and interesting folks. Last week,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1720,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/09\/01\/fixing-the-elephant-chart-is-our-generations-imperative\/","url_meta":{"origin":1485,"position":1},"title":"Fixing the elephant chart is our generation's imperative","date":"September 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"First, go read this blog post. Or if you're not going to do that, then just refer to this chart here: It's called the \"Elephant Chart\" because of its shape. And there's a big problem there that we need to fix. 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One girl walked across the street wearing bright green Ninja Turtle pajama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fatherhood"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1328,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/11\/10\/10-days-til-30\/","url_meta":{"origin":1485,"position":3},"title":"10 days til 30","date":"November 10, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend we headed back to Asheville, and got to spend time with some of my closest, oldest friends. I really miss NC. I haven't made the kinds of friendships out here that I thought I would mainly because I haven't found a way to make everything work. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1741,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/11\/07\/ballot-for-2016-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":1485,"position":4},"title":"Ballot for 2016 Election","date":"November 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Things I've learned this year: (1) Direct democracy is an AWFUL idea. If you don't have 2 hours, and access to the right resources, then you have no idea what you're voting for. It's just awful. (2) Our current two party system is broken, and there's really no solution in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1540,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/04\/16\/doing-it-right-is-hard\/","url_meta":{"origin":1485,"position":5},"title":"Doing it right is hard","date":"April 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"There is a ton of DIY that I hate doing. And laundry. And in general most house hold chores. It's just not my thing.\u00a0But Micky is the exact opposite (except with the laundry). She loves DIY, and she does it well.\u00a0Building the bee stand, and hives got me back in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}