I could see labor classification being a major stumbling block for them however, and I'm curious as to your thoughts on this. Profitability may be attainable at $20/hr given sufficient scale, but it would be completely impossible with an employee based workforce.
I know SV has a culture of moving fast and breaking things, and when you look at companies like Uber and AirBNB you can see them facing a number of legal challenges around established regulations, many of which are protectionist in nature.
However, worker classification seems to be an altogether different issue, as it's much broader than the relatively obscure hotel or livery laws that those companies are facing, and which vary from city to city. Worker classification impacts nearly every service-based business in the country, and is mandated on both the state and federal level.
I know smart people don't invest in things that have fundamental, life-threatening flaws, so I'm curious to know how they expect to get around this issue.
It makes sense that it would be easier to raise some angel money than to raise venture capital, but is it typically much easier to raise millions in angel money than it is to raise an A round? Is social proof helping in the former and non-existent in the latter?
Separately, have you seen a case where investors completely failed to pay attention to a growing company due to some attribute of the founder?
They tried a bunch of different ideas. I don't remember the exact order or how they ended up doing cleaning. I remember it was a close shave though, and that they almost ran out of money.
I love hearing the real stories of struggle and then success. Often the long road to success is rewritten as overnight success. Even in PathJoy's case. Founded in 2012 while technically correct, really masks the true story. http://www.crunchbase.com/company/homejoy
