Startup of the Week: Alameda, CA based Nana.io 1

This week we feature Nana.io, $5M Startup that was inspired by mom to go live on Mother’s Day

Nana is disrupting appliance repair and domestic cleaning services, but it isn’t just another chore app. The Nana difference: Its founder has worked in the very industry that he’s disrupting, taking the time to understand the fundamentals and nuances of the home appliance repair and domestic cleaning industry and bootstrapping his business before taking it tech.

David Zamir understood that the only way to solve home services is from the bottom up. He started with a team of just two: Zamir repairing appliances and his wife booking appointments. In less than five years, he scaled his business to 45 employees and $5M a year in revenue by hiring good people, training them himself, and treating them right.

With Nana—named after his hard-working mother who taught him to value hard work and treat people right—Zamir uses this formula to bring more clients excellent service and give more workers the opportunity to learn a trade and turn it into a fulfilling career.

 

Nana succeeds where other chore start-ups have failed for two reasons, both inspired by Zamir’s mom:

1. KNOW THE BUSINESS
Zamir worked as a home appliance repair technician and grew his business organically in the San Francisco Bay area before building an app to take his people-centered appliance repair, home cleaning, and chore service national.

2. TREAT WORKERS RIGHT
Nana features two tiers of service providers: contract workers and full-time employees. With this hybrid model, customers choose the level of service (and price-point), and workers choose flexibility of contract work or the stability of eventually becoming a full-time employee.

David Zamir, Founder / CEO

Startup Bytes

nana.io  –Converting home services to high-end hotel like services by providing a unique marketplace with an option to use different types of experiences: Deluxe which includes Nana.io employees that us Smart-glass technology, or Standard, which is done by background checked vetted professionals.
Founders:  David Zamir (CEO and Founder), Vageesh Setty (CTO and CO-Founder)
Startup Focus:  Enabling Services with technology
Future Plans: Nana has a unique Hybrid model—we accept all contractors to our platform and then offer the best of them the opportunity to be a part of Nana.io and reap the benefits having us as an employer.

Competitors:  local service businesses

Startup stage and funding: Generating $5 million in revenue

Q&A: Interview with David Zamir, Founder, CEO – San Jose, California

How did you get started with the idea? 
Originally from Israel, I had a friend in Canada who fixed home appliances and was interested in expanding my skill set in hopes of one day starting my own home service business in the United States. I hoped on a flight to Toronto and spent a week my friend, who taught me all he knew about fixing appliances. Six months later, I was in San Francisco fixing washers, dryers, refrigerators, you name it!
The idea sounds unique. Who are your main competitors? 
Sears, Taskrabbit, Handy
Who are the main customers of Nana.io? (Please describe the customer demographics and cities covered)
Our main customers are busy professionals, specifically busy parents who would like to spend more time with their family and less time dealing with broken home appliances. As an appreciation to our local community, we first launched Nana.io in Alameda, CA ,where we are headquartered  in and, where we started our journey.
How do you plan to address practical challenges. For example, marketing and outreach is a challenge most startups face? Are there other challenges you plan to address? 
We know our customers would like to be serviced by someone that get out they need, we care about them, we care about their peace of mind. We will make sure that our quality of services is high which will lead to high customer satisfaction and then good reviews on different platforms. We also plan to optimize our SEM campaigns to fit our business needs while keeping it close to our CAC
What are your plans to go global?
We recently launched in the Bay Area, and are quickly expanding to major cities throughout the United States. Our next international market will be China—where we think many families could benefit from our services.
Tell us about your business model. Where do you see yourselves in a year? 
At the end of a year, we plan on having over 100 employees and 900 service providers on the platform.  Our goal is to have 16 million dollars in revenue as well.

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