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WHEN IT COMES to keeping their homes clean, many Dubliners are easy to please: just make it as simple as possible to get someone else to do it.
A little over a year after its launch in the Irish capital, the Kildare-raised co-founder of Hassle, Jules Coleman, said the take-up of its online booking service for cleaners had been “more than we ever thought we would get”.
In about two weeks the UK-based company, which was taken over for a reported €32 million by German rival Helpling in July, will unveil the next stage of its development in Ireland with an app it hopes will further streamline the booking process.
It’s a mobile-first kind of design, it’s all about being easy to use on the go and being able to manage your relationship with your cleaner” Coleman told TheJournal.ie. ”We are constantly trying to remove friction points in the process.”
The site, which has been dubbed “Hailo for cleaners”, acts as a platform for people to book self-employed cleaners.
Customers are charged a flat €12 per hour with the company keeping €2 out of the hourly rate and paying the rest to those doing the work.
Coleman said a few weeks ago Hassle passed 100,000 hours of cleaning in Dublin and it now had 10,000 customers in the region.
The competition
However, like any successful business model, Hassle has plenty of competitors. In Ireland there is home-grown rival UpChore, which offers both painters and cleaners booked online, while internationally the market is getting even more crowded.
US-based Handy has set itself up as a major rival to Helpling, which operates in 11 territories including Australia, Brazil and Singapore, offering services in its home country, Canada and the UK.
Meanwhile, the well-funded Homejoy shut down in July after four workers filed lawsuits over whether they should be classified as employees or contractors.
Coleman, who is now chief product officer of the combined Helpling-Hassle group, said there were no plans in the immediate future to launch elsewhere in Ireland, with the company focussed on growing its existing business in Dublin, the UK and France.
With a business like ours you need to have a physical presence in each of those cities because we meet each cleaner in person,” she said.
Coleman, a UCD graduate who moved to London nearly 10 years ago, and her two co-founders launched Hassle in 2012 as a booking site for 27 different local services.
Its focus was later narrowed to cleaning alone after the trio found that was the most in-demand of their offerings.
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18 months later and they are still discussing antigen testing. This Country never fails to amaze me
@Maurice O Neill: more money in PCR tests
@potnoodle: more accuracy in PCR tests.
@Tommy Roche: they are not supposed to replace PCR tests. They are another measure to help catch cases that may not otherwise be caught. A strategy for using them should have been in place months ago.
Why not use both ? Denmark does this and are managing it quite well. Or does hiqa think antigen testing is just snake oil.
Glad to see that HIQA intend to review advice around masks in a few weeks. With our overcrowded classrooms making distancing impossible, and the fact that this is an airborne virus, masks are a cheap, simple and effective mitigation strategy.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
@Mac Muinteoir: Not for primary schools and rightly so.
@Franny Ando: not for the schools themselves, no. Just the kids.
@Mac Muinteoir: Not for use on primary school children if you want to be pedantic. They are not being recommended and won’t be getting children under 12 to wear them.
@Franny Ando: as things stand. But to be reviewed in a few weeks. Hopefully they will recommend that for all children that can manage them. Especially if other mitigation strategies are removed.
@Mac Muinteoir: Maybe re-read the article and listen to the news. It is not going to be reviewed. They are quite satisfied with the status quo. Masks will not be required for under 13′s.
@Franny Ando: “Given the evolving epidemiological situation it was considered prudent that the potential requirement for face masks in primary school-aged children should be kept under review. It was suggested that the evidence be reviewed six to eight weeks after the schools have fully reopened.” – p23 of the report. https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=https://www.hiqa.ie/sites/default/files/2021-09/Advice-to-NPHET-Facemasks.pdf
@Mac Muinteoir: Yet they announced today they have decided against it.
@Franny Ando: no, the report was published today, so it’s being reported on today. They decided against recommending masks for primary school kids back in August, wrongly in my view, but said they would review that advice six to eight weeks after schools reopened. It’s OK to be wrong Franny, everyone makes mistakes.
@Mac Muinteoir: I’ll forgive you this time though its not your first time getting confused. When questioned today regarding masks for under 13′s they categorically stated the would not be mandating them.
@Franny Ando: imagine you want to go for a walk after lunch. It’s dry out now, but pretty cloudy. It looks like it might rain later. Should you a) decide that you don’t wouldn’t need an umbrella right now, but you might need one later, so you go and get it from the boot of the car before your wife takes it to go shopping, or b) see that it’s dry right now, and so dig a really deep hole in your garden, set your umbrella on fire and bury the ashes? If you chose option b), congrats, you’ve chosen the HIQA approach. Make a decision now, but review it later when you have more information.
Thanks Journal…this is good to nose…will saves money an alls.
What is HIQA involved in this for?
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