UrbanClap - AVP - Growth - Home Maintenance & Repairs Categories

About Urbanclap : 

- Home services is a large, unorganized industry in India. Indian consumers spend ~ USD 30 Billion annually on home services. They largely rely on word of mouth and friends-family recommendations for search and discovery. There is no large, well run, billion-dollar company in this category today. The industry lacks scale benefits - standardization, transparency and trust.

- In the absence of organized players, the current market architecture is froth with middle-men and aggregators, who control market access and keep a lion's share of the margins. As a result, experiences are broken for both customers and end service professionals. The industry could easily be 1.5-2x larger than it is today, if frictions in transaction journeys are removed - and experiences made more meaningful and memorable.

- UrbanClap is building a fulfilment-led services platform to reimagine and organize the key verticals of this industry. At scale, this platform will enable multiple billions of dollars in commerce annually, and create jobs for 1 million+ service professionals.

- Each service involves an individual professional visiting the customer's home, and rendering the service. While seemingly disparate, these services have much in common. At the highest level, it takes the same business principles and elements to make service professionals successful, be it in beauty, repairs, cleaning or painting. These elements include training, pricing transparency, technology led standardization, bulk buying of consumables, credit & insurance for partners, SOP compliance, payment and rating systems etc. We believe that by establishing transparency and standardization across all these household service categories, a singular platform has the opportunity to serve these needs for consumers in India, and other trust deficit emerging markets.

- In the end state, UrbanClap will play and win across all household service categories. However, in Phase 1 of our marketplace built-up, which will last for the next 2-3 years, we will focus on winning in basic household services.

- For any horizontal commerce platform to be successful, it has to start with winning the user's trust in simple, low ticket categories. For E-Bay, this was collectables, books for Amazon, and books + electronics for Flipkart.

- For UrbanClap, the high priority categories are beauty services at home, and home repairs & maintenance. These two categories represent the opportunity to touch-base with the household 10-15 times a year, across a plethora of basic, low ticket needs. UrbanClap will sharply focus on these categories for the next 2-3 years. At the same time, we will also invest in more involved categories like painting, fitness and tutors, which will give results in the medium to long run.

I. Beauty services at home:

Beauty services is a USD 3 Bn+ market in India, currently served by a fragmented base of mom & pop stores. Given the under-penetration of the category, it will see strong secular growth 20-30% CAGR for the next few years. The sub-categories within this segment are -

a. Skin-care services: Waxing, Pedicure, Manicure, Facial etc.

b. Hair-care services: Hair-spa, coloring, hair-cuts etc.

c. Spa and Massage services for men and women

d. Party and bridal make-up services

e. Male grooming and hair-cut services

As the household income approaches USD 10,000 per annum, women typically start consuming basic skin-care services. With further increase in household income, spending on more discretionary services beyond the basic skin-care increases.

This category represents the opportunity to touch-base with a consumer atleast 6-8 times a year. Given high frequency and low-medium ticket size, this was the first category to be fully standardized by UrbanClap. Today, UrbanClap has > 4000 beauty partners who work exclusively on the platform, and by any yard-stick (# of customers served, revenues or # of partners), we are India's largest beauty chain, without owning a single physical outlet. However, we believe we are just getting started in this category. This is a very strategic category to UrbanClap, and we will continue to invest and grow it further. We would like this category to grow 5x by end of CY2019, and 15x by the end of CY2020.

II. Home and Appliance Repairs:

Appliance & Electronics repair, together with handymen (Electricians, Plumbers and Carpenters - or EPC for short), is a USD 2 Bn+ market in India. This category is expected to grow at a healthy 10-15% CAGR for the next few years, as white good penetration and household income increases. The sub-categories within this segment are -

a. Appliance Repair: AC, Refrigerator, Washing Machine, Water Purifier, Geyser, Microwave etc.

b. Electricians, Plumbers and Carpenters

c. Mobile, Laptop and Tablet repair services

d. On-demand Cleaning services

The approximate stock of all home appliances in the Top 30 cities in India exceeds 100 Million, while that of smart-phones exceeds 400 Million. More than 80% of this repair market is served by freelancer technicians. Given price sensitivity, customers opt for this freelance grey market. UrbanClap has the opportunity to create a branded service network in this category, which stands for trust and affordability.

III. Home Cleaning and Pest Control:

Professional cleaning and pest control services, at USD 500 Million, is a small, but fast growing market in India. Most middle class Indian households either have a part-time or full-time domestic help for basic household cleaning. However, with increasing wages, particularly in metropolitan India, there is a growing trend to opt for professional deep-cleaning services. The tropical climate of India, and apartment centered urban dwellings are also increasing the infestation of homes by pests, leading to consumption of pest control services. Both these categories are important for UrbanClap. This market is extremely froth with middle-men or aggregators who add no value whatsoever. UrbanClap has already initiated efforts to work with individuals in the cleaning segment, and early results are very promising. Our cleaning partners see an average of 4-5x jump in their earnings (USD 200 to USD 800-1000 per month). We are also at the cusp of disintermediating the middle-men in Pest Control Services.

IV. Home Painting Services:

Home Painting is a large, USD 4 Bn+ market opportunity which has no organized players in India. Indian homes are typically painted once every 4-5 years, given the tropical climate, monsoons, and the tradition of painting for festivals, family functions like marriages etc. UrbanClap has recently started building this category deeply, by partnering with both individual painters, and SMBs, standardizing the survey process, pricing, deliverables, SOPs and paint used. We are confident of this category growing to become one of the leading services on the UC platform in the next 2-3 years. Over-time, beyond painting, UC will play in many related categories like wall papers, wood finishes, water proofing etc.

V. Other relevant service categories:

Beyond the above mentioned categories, a few other categories are of medium to long-term relevance to UrbanClap. These include -

a. Fitness and Yoga services at home

b. Packers and Movers

c. Academic Tutors

d. Elderly Care Services

e. Home Improvement Services

At the end state, our vision is to create a Million+ jobs in India.

About the roles : 

We are shoring up our team and capabilities and are looking for some strong individuals to join us in this journey. Three core values personify the culture at UrbanClap - HUSTLE, INNOVATION and keeping things BASIC. We are a fast-paced, result-oriented organisation where a very high level of ownership is expected from each individual.

Growth is our foremost priority and as such, following role is mission critical in the current scheme of things:

AVP - Growth (Home Repairs and Maintenance)

- The candidate will lead the growth of all home repairs and maintenance categories - Appliance Repairs, Home Cleaning, Plumbers, Electricians and Carpenters.

- Lead growth through Hyperlocal marketing for all of these categories - be extremely granular in his/her approach to growth and be able to drive BTL marketing end-to-end this includes, but is not limited to:

a. Identifying all local watering holes where the Target audience lies

b. Attacking them with the right messaging, right medium, at the right time

c. Not be averse to working on certain weekends - as that's when Hyperlocal marketing can be the most effective

d. Have an iron grip on execution, and ears firmly on the ground - as there is tremendous scope for leakages in BTL Marketing

- This person will not have a team reporting into him/her to start with. There will be openness to building a team in future.

- We are looking for a street-smart, heavy-duty number cruncher. Data savviness and depth in analysis is a must-have trait

Ideal Candidate profile:

- 6-7 years of total work experience, start-up experience will be preferred

- Experience in marketing is not a must. But a proven track record of excellence is. 

- Strong, result oriented individual. Open to getting his/her hands dirty.

Other information:

- The location will be Gurgaon, the compensation will be market competitive and would have an ESOP component as well, depending on the candidate.

- We would prefer candidates who have 5 to 8 years of total work experience. Please avoid applying In case your total work experience is under 4 years

- If your resume is shortlisted, we will reach out to you to set up the first round of discussions. We might not be able to respond to all applicants.

- The first round of discussions will be held on Saturday, the 27th of October on Video Call / in person depending on the current location of the candidate

- Please send us a short note on why you think you are a fit for the respective role. This is important. Please keep it under 100 words.

- The candidate will be reporting in to the respective VP of Marketing for the business vertical.

- Apply only if you are a 100% sure - we are looking to close these positions quickly & would like to avoid moving ahead if the candidate intent is not strong from day 1

- Please feel free to refer any other candidates in your network who might be a fit.