I have always been intrigued – why doing house hold chores is just too hard in India. Especially if you are like me – (PS: My wife always have a long “task list”) and I dream of just having it vanish away – but the list grows longer and longer!!
And these are pretty simple things to do:
– My Task List Item 1: My wife wanted me to get dining chairs repaired. I looked for a vendor on a famous online yellow pages company. I got the work done. But the guy goofed up. It was a complete mess and a task that should have taken one day spanned over a week. I had to grab all my chairs and give it to another vendor (who did the same for half the price and double the quality). I left a very genuine review on the site for the first vendor and after a week, my review was removed.
– My Task List Item 2: My 1.5 year old son spilled water on my wife’s iPhone. My wife panicked, went to a nearby mobile shop. The repair guy looked at it, did some work and then demanded Rs 5000 for battery. My wife got the phone back and then gave phone to another shop. The second vendor told that the phone has already been opened and some one already took parts out of it. And you are left confused – whom do you trust – the first vendor or the second vendor?
– My Task List Item 3: My father came from my home town to live with us for a few days. He had a very bad back-ache problem. We needed a physiotherapist at home. It was calling 10 friends, before we figured out whom we should get at home?
And there are numerous simple problems like these, that we encounter every other day.
As an entrepreneur I felt that finding good, trusted and reliable service providers shouldn’t be that hard. What about a service/company that is solving these seemingly basic problems faced by millions of people everyday. One thing is clear in my mind; we definitely cannot live next 10 years the same way as we do today!!
Give Near (www.near.in) a try and let me know what you think.
Near - Building Buy Button for Services 
I agree to your point that finding a good repair person or carpenter or doctor is not easy in India.
But i dont think you guys are solving the problem by just giving me a JustDial like platform with somewhat better looks. There are no reviews or ratings, and of I want to hire someone, I still have to call them and do the whole rigmarole. When I can book a cab at a finger tip on Ola in 2014, why are you offering me a 2008 solution
LikeLike
You are right, just mere giving a phone number is not sufficient. And that’s not what our intent is. Services is a huge pain area and there are different things that would work based on different categories. For some thing like carpenter/electrician – one needs a quick reliable booking. For electrician/carpenter/plumber – we provide a one click booking at http://www.near.in/book in Gurgaon.
The ola model works good for blue collar services but for professionals, everyone wants to decide based on his custom requirement what works well. If I want a doctor, dietician, event planner – you would not like someone else making a decision on your behalf. But even here, there are lot other exciting things that can be done – apart from phone number or Request a Quote.
Social Reputation is very important and it takes time to build. We have just launched and going forward this is what we want to accomplish. This is key to solve this puzzle. Just having good/excellent/bad does not cut it.
This is just a beginning and there are more exciting things that are going to come out in 2015. Our sole focus is to make the whole process between service providers and users seamless!
LikeLike