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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

It's neat, but I'd be worried about market size. This is a problem that not a lot of people have. Sorry, but for most people, it's not a big deal to call a plumber, and the vast, vast majority of people (at least in the US) clean their own homes.

EDITing my comment to be more constructive:

There could be money in a cloud- or app-based Personal Assistant, but you would really have to focus razor sharp on your target market. Rich people already have PAs and middle class people's time is not scarce enough to justify paying to get chores scheduled. You'd have to zero in on upper-middle folks like doctors and lawyers who aren't particularly rich, but tend to not have time to manage their lives. I still say it's a small market, but if you hit them and your price is right, it might work.

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Market size is definitely something that would need to be considered. I agree that the bread and butter would be the upper middle class, but I think you may be underestimating how large of a market that is. There are 115 million homes in the US, with 20% of them earning 100k or more [0]. Only a negligibly small percentage of those make over a million which is the lowest I think you'd have to make to justify the cost of a personal assistant. I also think you're oversimplifying the problem and making an unsafe assumption about how many people have this problem, but I could be wrong about that. It would need to be tested.

House cleaning should probably be an optional add-on, but I think you're underestimating how big of a market that is too. Approximately 10% of households seek outside help with at least some of their household cleaning chores.

[0] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/16/156688596/what-ame... [1] http://www.housecleaningbiz101.com/CleaningIndustryFacts.htm

Age is more important than economic class when we're talking about potential markets for this idea.

Empty Nesters in their 50's and 60's is where this product needs to be focused. These people usually still work, tend to have more house than they need, have fewer monthly expenses, and aren't able to do run-o-the-mill house maintenance (even if they have the time). They could range anywhere between middle class and upwards.

My parents are firmly middle class, and I could see them wanting something like this.

Empty Nesters are your customers. And it's a growing market (in the US at least).

EDIT: Spelling and grammar.

> It's neat, but I'd be worried about market size. This is a problem that not a lot of people have. Sorry, but for most people, it's not a big deal to call a plumber, and the vast, vast majority of people (at least in the US) clean their own homes.

I think it would do pretty well throughout West LA. It's not a big deal to call a plumber, but it is a big deal to find a good plumber that you can trust.

Likewise, it's a non-trivial task to simply be aware of the maintenance that should be done around the house, let alone finding time to do it (or, again, finding someone you trust).

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