Why does my handyman living next door pull up in a Car?!
A bunch of researchers had been trying to teach and train people to become handymen for decades. These trained handymen were experts about inside, outside and everything around a home. But there was no product built around their expertise.
Until one company cracked the delivery and distribution of handymen beyond just their training.
They put these handymen in Cars.
It was something simple, familiar and the world already knew how to use it. It turned out to be a brilliant idea.
Handymen as chauffeurs was a masterstroke.
The company started sending these experts to all the households who summoned them. All the users had to do was get in the Car.
Then they could ride in the Car and brainstorm, learn, share anything with these chauffeurs regarding their home projects. Show the chauffeurs real examples of something they wanted done in their own homes. Anything from kitchen remodeling, landscaping, ideas about converting attic space into something for kids or questions about licenses and permits for fire hazards. Everything was just a ride away.
Users summoned these Cars and took long drives to iterate and tinker on their ideas with the chauffeur.
Gradually the training got better and so did the chauffeurs. Soon they were not just talking but also doing the work for their users. They were mowing the lawn, executing the ideas and plans of the homeowners, shopping for the tools, doing whatever the user told them during the ride.
Rides paused for work but the Car was always on and idling.
This enabled users and handymen to quickly get back into the Car when needed. It also stored all the logs and notes about the ongoing projects of the chauffeur. And the frequently used tools and appliances all got stored in the Car the chauffeur used to get to a home. It stood there in the driveway ready to be used!
These Cars became the place where continuity accumulated.
Handymen also got better at remembering more. Every ride, the concerned household and all their ongoing projects.
Users happily bought subscriptions to summon their rides at will. The fee covered everything. You got the handyman, all their tools, and their Car. All bundled.
The success of handymen in Cars opened up the market.
Soon there were different handymen for different kinds of work. And different Cars too. Some started quicker. Some had more room for notes and tools. Users picked what worked for them and what fit in their driveway.
The next revolution was the rise of free handymen. Users could even learn how these handymen were trained, and tune and train them for specific tasks around their home.
Then came a subset of these who were local. These handymen lived in your neighborhood. Some were right next door, and available to work.
A few companies working with these free, local handymen worked out a nice trick to ensure compatibility.
They put the next door handyman in a Car too!
It meant users could reach their local handyman exactly the same way they reached every other handyman. No new arrangement. No changes to the driveway. Every handyman fit right in.
Seamless.
This was pretty much the world as it stands. Subscribed, free and local handymen, all in their Cars waiting in the driveway, ready to serve. Users moving between them, with all their projects, conversations, notes and tools accumulating along the way.
But. Wait.
I had a similar arrangement going for me until I started increasingly using my local handyman for household chores.
A lot of it was repetitive. I wanted the same work done reliably, as often as needed with minimal interaction. These chores were already approved with iterative rides and I was sure what I wanted done by whom and where. So now I just wanted the handyman to do the work.
But remember my local handyman who lived right next door also sat in the Car. So walking back and forth to the Car for these standard chores was becoming tedious.
For some of the jobs, getting to the Car was more work than the work.
That's when I started wondering.
Can I get my handyman out of the Car? Directly into my living room? So I can skip shuttling to my driveway for certain kinds of work?
Hear me out.
The Car did two things.
It made every handyman compatible, so you could reach any of them the same way. And it carried the continuity, holding everything you had worked on together.
For jobs that are long running and need a lot of riding around to shop and look for inspiration, both are worth it.
But some jobs need neither. Especially when they are assigned to the handyman who lives right next door.
I can have clear instructions written down about what I want done. Then I can just call the handyman from across the street and they can get to it anytime.
So you see I don't mind my handymen pulling up in Cars. Just not all of them. At least not by default.