The demand for domestic housekeeping service is on a constant rise. Though an increasing number of customers are now relying on online portals for such services, fulfilling this demand in an organised manner is still a distant dream. A small company with a big vision, TownLabour is a highly enterprising platform that helps users hire the nearest available handyman services like electrician, carpenter, painter, AC repair & maintenance, home cleaning, and several others.

Customers are offered with three months and six months subscriptions that help them avail top quality AC services, housekeeping, 12 handymen visits and other services at 20 percent discount. Additionally, the flexibility of booking services as per the customer’s requirements and preferred time makes housekeeping servicing a breeze. “All our services are insured and come with a ten day satisfaction guarantee,” states Vivek Kapoor, MD, TownLabour.

Understanding the Market

This bootstrapped organization set up its operations in Mumbai and Chandigarh to understand the

experience taught them that a mere tech platform and in-house operations is not going to help achieve a large scale result. Vivek explains, “We morphed our strategy, took a middle ground and moved towards a partner model so that we can scale and fulfil operations. We decided to create a complete ecosystem to support our partners and market place, which is not just limited to technology but encapsulates training nuances of the market. The centres, govt. support and many more”.

This self-created eco-system and a thorough training offered to the employees not only maintains the quality of the work but refines it consistently as well

This self-created eco-system and a thorough training offered to the employees not only maintains the quality of the work but refines it consistently as well. All the workers are local and handpicked by the partners (in Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Delhi) who are later subject to police verification and other necessary background checks before enrolment. Some of the partners have also tie-ups with multiple societies in Pune and Mumbai, couple of which are townships themselves.

Incorporating Quuno Founders into Core Team

Vivek and Tejas (founder of Quuno) met early this year and decided to join teams after discussing for over three months

on how can they work together to solve the home service space in India. Quuno was founded by IITians and ex-Flipkart employees and was purely into residential housekeeping.

Vivek says, “Quuno founders have studied the home services space well. They have strong background of technology and Indian e-Commerce, making it easier for us to build it right and grow across India with them in our core team”. Tejas adds, “When we met, we saw the right approach towards solving the home service space in TownLabour’s business model. Their efforts in building the ecosystem by having the training institutes, the Govt. and the right kind of advisors and partners on their side are remarkable; this multiplied our confidence and we decided to join them”.

Moving Ahead

TownLabour has signed an MOU with the NSDA, Govt. of India to support jobs for the labour market through home service industry. It has also raised angel money from Asian Group of Industries and Silverline Realty; the later is also a partner for Bangalore and the South. The team is highly focused on propagating customer empathy and is mulling over demands made by its clientele regarding personal services in addition to the company’s home services. Furthermore, the team is currently focusing on growing partners in multiple cities and strengthening its technology to support their operations and needs. “We believe fulfilment is the key to the home service space and still has a lot of scope to solve for to cater to this increasing demand,” concludes Vivek.