Launching at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last month was a startup called HouseFix. As you might be able to guess by its name, HouseFix is a startup and service that aims to help you find the right people to fix up your house. Started by homeowners and contractors, the startup is trying to make the process of finding skilled labor for home repairs better for both parties. To do this, HouseFix wants to give homeowners a CARFAX report for their house — a complete history of facts about their house that includes a list of improvement projects or anything that future homeowners would find relevant.
To differentiate itself from other providers like Angie’s List or ServiceMagic, HouseFix is bringing social and local contexts to homeowners in a simple and intuitive way, so that they can quickly identify local contractors that fit their personal criteria for what kind of labor they’re looking for, pricing, etc. The startup wants you to be able to find contractors you can trust in a matter of minutes, not days or weeks.
HouseFix is thus hoping to become a comprehensive directory of contractors, complete with reviews and profiles of each, that can be easily searched by homeowners. Users will be able to see which of their neighbors are using the site, which contractors they’ve recently used, and beyond social recommendations, to help homeowners wade through the noise, HouseFix takes a range of different factors, including performance, reliability, etc. to generate. a score for each contractor — like a credit score — so that owners know who they can trust. (You can read Jason’s previous coverage of HouseFix here.)
And on the flip side, HouseFix wants to be a resource for these contractors as well, providing them with platform on which they can keep track of their own projects and bring their offline business online. With HouseFix, contractors can manage their jobs, viewing which jobs are on time and within the quoted budget, store notes and before and after photos, and finally allowing them to build an online profile that they can use to create and manage their own web presence.
In comparison to ServiceMagic, which charges contractors for the list of contractors homeowners receive, HouseFix is currently free in beta, and doesn’t charge. ServiceMagic serves homeowners with suggestions — three phone numbers — but there’s very little information on the contractors provided. HouseFix President and CEO Adrian Talapan says that, as a homeowner, one wants to find a contractor that has worked on a house similar to theirs, in their neighborhood, and has worked on projects similar to what they’re looking for and has done great work.
For contractors, generally speaking, they end up being the ninth or tenth service provider to contact a homeowner about their job request, and by that point, the homeowner isn’t taking calls or has already found the person they want to use. This makes it a waste of time for contractors, and few services give them the opportunity to effectively sell themselves and share the kind of work they do best to find the right jobs.
On stage at Disrupt, HouseFix was the victim of some technical difficulties, and the startup did not have the opportunity to share their entire presentation. So, without further ado, here is video of that explains in depth what HouseFix is all about, and its value proposition for homeowners and contractors alike: