Nearly a year after quietly raising $3.6 million in seed funding, home repair subscription service Super is launching today in the Maryland / Washington area.
The company originally secured its seed round in January from Lux Capital, Founder Collective, Formation 8, General Catalyst, Montage Ventures, Maiden Lane Ventures, and more.
Super’s founder and CEO, Jorey Ramer, previously founded Jumptap, a mobile ad network acquired in 2013 by Millennial Media for about $225 million in stock.
Ramer sees Super as the next evolution of two decades’ worth of companies trying to solve the pain points in homeownership: maintenance and repairs are time-consuming, expensive, and unpredictable.
“Before digital, you had Yellow Pages,” he explained over the phone, but the model was lacking because whichever repairman paid for the biggest ad earned the most business.
The next wave came in the form of early Internet ratings sites (e.g. Angie’s List), which at least empower you to review quality ratings for service providers. But these lacked any pricing component, which was solved in the next generation of websites or, perhaps more accurately, marketplaces (e.g. HouseCall).
This is the iteration today that fits most squarely into the sharing economy: Jill owns a home, Jack is a plumber. If Jill needs plumbing work done, she posts it online, Jack and his competitors bid on the job, and then the work gets done. While a boon for freelancers and homeowners willing to do the research, Ramer thinks it’s too time-consuming and argues that the lowest-bidding work may not be the quality you’re looking for.
That’s where Super comes in.
The company aims to make homeowning expenses more predictable (through a monthly subscription model), prevent things from going wrong (with regular maintenance work), and offer “the right guy for the right job at the right time.”
“We’re engaging skilled, licensed, and incorporated service providers,” says Ramer, so the homeowner doesn’t have to do any of the research or decision-making. He argues they’re compelled to choose high-quality workers because they’re the only company on the market where on the hook for the cost.”
For the past several months, Super has focused on readying its service for its debut. With today's launch, the company is now offering three subscription plans for prospective customers.
The middle-tier “Whole Home” plan ($75 per month plus $50 co-pay per repair) is expected to prove the most popular, as it covers repairs and replacement for appliances for a single-family home. There’s also a "Premium Home" tier ($150 per month and no co-pays) targeting busy professionals and an entry-level "Appliance" tier ($25 per month plus $50 co-pays) designed for someone living in a condo.
“We want to design a product that works for every consumer, not just the Bay Area,” says Ramer, which partly explains why--after looking at population densities, climate, and demographics--his team ultimately decided on launching the service in the Maryland / Washington area.
After they monitor the service’s performance, the plan is to scale the business and expand to additional markets across the U.S. in 2016.
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