We realized we needed to learn how to clean properly before bringing professional cleaners onto our platform, so I decided to get a job at a cleaning company to gain firsthand experience.

I spent two weeks finding a job at a cleaning company in San Francisco, where I had to deal with long commutes and a taxing schedule, but it was essential for learning about the cleaning industry.

After a few weeks, I quit the cleaning job because I wasn't learning anything new, but it gave us confidence that we were on the right track with our platform.

Over time, we learned that certain questions we asked were indicators of whether a cleaning professional would be a good or bad performer on the platform. This insight came from data collection and analyzing responses.

Cleaning is much harder than it seems; during our first job, we struggled with a large post-construction home, realizing that cleaning requires significant effort and skill. It took us five days to clean the house, which was a terrible experience for the customer because I had to return the next day and apologize for the lack of progress.

After exploring various ideas, we realized that booking a cleaning service was inconvenient and the industry hadn't changed in over 60 years, leading us to create Homejoy.

After a week of working in cleaning, I noticed I was spending too much time in traffic, so I started sleeping in my car to save time before my cleaning gigs.

As your company matures, your role will change significantly. In the beginning, I saw myself as the janitor, fixing things and cleaning up, which is essential when things are moving fast.

Manually doing processes yourself in the early stages of building a marketplace is crucial to understanding what needs to be built, rather than automating everything too soon. When we started onboarding cleaning professionals, we asked them numerous questions over the phone and in person, followed by a test clean. This process led to an acceptance rate of only three to five percent, meaning many candidates never made it onto the platform.