The digital influence in every aspect of our lives has never been as profound as it is today. From retail and transportation to financial services, digital disruption has laid the foundation for an entirely new generation of companies. Leveraging the benefits of technology, the home care services sector has witnessed considerable growth over the past few years. In an attempt to organize this highly fragmented sector, startups are offering a plethora of home care services at the click of a button.
MyChores, a Mumbai, India-based home care services company, is making the most of this increased demand by delivering full-stack homecare and lifestyle support services to urban households in India. Incepted in 2015, the company is on a mission to make it easier for households and domestic helps to seek out each other for the purpose of employment. It envisions becoming the most preferred choice for households across Metro cities for all the care needs and upkeep needs of the household.
Partner and Solution Provider
Today, as more people are coming online and preferring to go with agencies/platforms to hire the personal staff needed for their homes, the home care industry is witnessing a rapid shift. Catering to these needs, MyChores is helping customers with hiring domestic help for various tasks needed to be done inside and outside the house. However, the company is not a consultancy. Rather it is a “Partner and solution provider” for the home care needs of its customers.
Home Care and Lifestyle Support Services
MyChores is a team of experienced professionals who listen to customers, understand their needs, and then offer the appropriate solution for the problem. The company believes that every household is unique, so only recruiting might not work. Thus, it has set up processes and dedicated Relationship Managers who spend time to understand the customer requirements and then quickly turn around to find the right help for the household.
The company is more than a recruitment platform; it is a home care services provider that helps households to function smoothly thereby enhancing the quality of life. Besides hiring services, MyChores offers best-in-class professional cleaning services such as Home Cleaning, Office Cleaning, Sofa Cleaning, Carpet Cleaning, Kitchen Cleaning, Bathroom Cleaning, Balcony Cleaning, etc. The company provides background verification services as well.
Concurring the Challenges
Being a 6-year old enterprise that is largely bootstrapped, the going has been tough for MyChores as it faces numerous challenges on multiple fronts. One of the biggest challenges faced by the company is related to the building of supply. Workers/ service providers are important stakeholders in the home care business, however, they are largely semi-literate women who are absent from any kind of media contact—making it a difficult, time-consuming, and resource-guzzling activity for the company to build supply.
Additionally, funding is also a challenge as a majority of investors overlook the challenges in the segment and want quick results as well as profits which companies such as MyChores have not been able to achieve so far. “Most people are looking backward while assessing us rather than looking ahead,” says Andrew Vazhakkall (Founder and CEO of MyChores).
Andrew, however, is confident that the company will achieve scale and profitability in the coming years as it is well-placed technologically and ready with fine-tuned processes and insights from past experiences. He further mentions that the market is also getting ripe with most domestic helps to own smartphones with internet connectivity, which will significantly change things in the sector.
A Veteran Driving the Growth
Being the CEO, Andrew is responsible for driving the growth of MyChores and achieving the objectives that are set by the company to help all its stakeholders. Andrew believes that surviving six years and establishing itself as a leading homecare brand in Mumbai is an achievement for MyChores.
Under his auspices, the company has built good traction on its website with traffic increasing steadily month on month. MyChores currently has a customer base of over 40,000 who have registered with it since its inception with around 8% paid customers. “Besides this being called for discussions by central govt. agencies when planning for policies for this segment is a big recognition which gives us a sense that we are among the significant players in this space in India,” asserts Andrew.
Impacts of the Pandemic
Being among the high contact services, the domestic help segment was one of the hardest-hit sectors due to the pandemic. The recovery post lockdown is also slow as there is fear among households and mobility is affected due to the restrictions on train travel. Moreover, many workers are yet to come back from their hometowns. However, customers are becoming more understanding and are appreciating the services, and willing to pay for the value provided by MyChores’ services in the smooth functioning of households.
Expanding the Customer Base
Any family in need of domestic help is the potential customer for MyChores and the company is always focused on coming up with affordable solutions in a quick time. Most of its customers come back for repeated services due to the experience it provides. “We are rated 4 stars out of 5 stars on Google review for local businesses. This is a testimony of the customer confidence and the trust they place on us,” comments Andrew.
In the near future, MyChores is looking to offer a more affordable service to its customers by providing services at almost 80% discount to average hiring costs prevailing in the industry. This would help the company expand its customer base and more people will start using a tech platform to hire domestic help rather than using other inefficient ways to hire.
A big change brought by the pandemic is that people are buying products and services online now than ever before. MyChores expects to benefit from this trend which it believes is here to stay.
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