Founder's Story - Adam Graham: Redefining Home Maintenance with JustFix | S2: E47

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers. Their MAGNESIUM BREAKTHROUGH product has helped me sleep better, stay focused, and feel all-around healthier. Check out their products at [BiOptimizers](http://bioptimizers.com/danrobbins) and use promo code FOUNDERS for 10% off any order.In this episode, Daniel Robbins interviews Adam Graham, the founder and CEO of JustFix. Adam's journey into the home maintenance industry began after experiencing the outdated processes firsthand. With a background in technology and marketing, he saw an opportunity to create a streamlined solution for home repair and maintenance services. JustFix is revolutionizing the industry by providing an easy-to-use platform that connects customers with reliable tradespeople.Adam discusses the importance of customer experience and the need for technological disruption in the home maintenance industry. JustFix aims to make finding and booking a tradesperson as easy as ordering a product online, ensuring speed, convenience, and trust for both customers and service providers.Key Points Discussed:1. Adam's background in technology and marketing.2. The inspiration behind creating JustFix.3. Challenges in the home maintenance industry and the need for technological disruption.4. Importance of customer experience in service design.5. Features and benefits of the JustFix platform.6. How JustFix simplifies the process of finding and booking tradespeople.7. The impact of JustFix on customers and service providers.8. Expansion plans for JustFix in the UK, Europe, and North America.9. Future goals and potential acquisitions for growth.10. How to learn more about JustFix and connect with Adam Graham.Relevant Links:Adam GrahamJustFixOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founders Story. Today, we have Adam Graham, who's the founder and CEO of JustFix, the app JustFix, which is a game changer for home maintenance, home repair. And I want to dive in today, Adam. I want to learn about this industry, but it's an older industry that I don't think has had a lot of technological disruption. And it's ripe for that because I've had my own personal experiences. But Adam, I also want to dive into your experience because I know you've taken multiple companies public already and you've had all this experience. And we're going to get into that today. But welcome to Founders Story. Thank you, thank you for having me. So let's start with you. Adam Graham, where were you when you started up to this point? What experiences have changed you? Well I've kind of

I've always been in technology and marketing, done a few things over the course of my career, run several marketing agencies, built other digital platforms and apps for other people, such as Headspace, for example. One of my agencies built the Headspace app and launched Headspace back in the early days. I was looking for something to get my teeth sunk into and start a new business myself. One day I found myself locked out of home.

And I just couldn't believe how old fashioned the process of trying to find a locksmith was. In my mind, there should have been an easy to use Uber style application that I can just press a button and get someone round. And to my utter amazement, didn't exist and that was the kind of classic light bulb moment for me you know i just became obsessed with this challenge and uh and researched it and researched it and the thing that i thought should have existed turned out didn't exist so i thought right let's make it i needed your app yesterday because i i locked myself out yesterday and i went through this process i was just calling friends and asking for recommendations because I couldn't figure out a locksmith

or who to even get. So I appreciate that. So what are you seeing in terms of what people are saying about this app? I mean, literally every customer I speak to says the same thing, which is I needed this, maybe not always yesterday, but certainly I needed this recently.

I think from a customer perspective, it's a no-brainer. Everyone gets it. Everyone understands the need for it. It's worth saying we're not just dealing with locksmiths at JustFix. That was just the kind of going in point for me. But JustFix covers all reactive maintenance, all home maintenance jobs that need doing. You can get done under one app.

So there's only one name you need to remember. If anything needs fixing around the home just fix and and what we're trying to do is just bring a fairly old-fashioned industry into the modern era using a paradigm we're all very very used to in so many other aspects of our lives we use apps to order our shopping order our taxis order our takeaways. So we're pushing on an open door from a customer experience perspective. We're just trying to make it as easy as that to get a tradesperson around your home to do all those niggling jobs. And my view is if we can make it as easy as buying something on Amazon, we can change behavior and we can actually unlock new demands.

There's already an absolutely huge market in the home services sector. But, you know, I'm sure you're the same as me. There's probably half a dozen things around my home that need fixing. And I just put them off because I can't be bothered. And I perceive it to be a bit of a pain. But if I can make it as easy as Amazon made buying things, if I could just rock back on my chair, click a button and have someone coming around my home to get it fixed, I think I'd get even more things done. We will return to our show shortly. But first, let's talk about today's sponsor, Magnesium Breakthrough by BioOptimizers. Did you know

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And back to the show. So that's the kind of vision for the product to be the first name on people's lips when someone needs fixing around the home. There's always an unlimited supply of things that need to get done, but I am also one to put everything off. And it's quite annoying. And so I can, I can see the value in having something like this.

I'm curious, because you are from the marketing industry, home services, people don't typically, I think, do well at marketing, they're kind of stuck to these old school tactics. So coming from the side of the service providers, what feedback are you getting from them? So by and large, equally, this is something that they've all been waiting for. And they've said, you know, this is this is fantastic. It's not right for everyone have to have to be completely candid there. You know, certain people maybe are quite stuck in their ways. Maybe, you know, they're getting towards the end of their careers. They don't need more work. They've got, you know, a black maybe are quite stuck in their ways. Maybe, you know, they're getting towards the end of their careers. They don't need more work. They've got, you know, a black book full of customers that phones them up all the time.

And they do things the same way they've always done them. Possibly don't even use a computer to generate their invoices or anything. So obviously, you know, those people, it's maybe not rightful. But the vast majority of the trades people we speak to love love our offering because most of them are spending money on forms of marketing um be that you know trying their hand at digital marketing or paying for lead generation services or paying to be part of directories and and subscription services aggreg aggregator platforms. And all of those things are speculative costs which may or may not give a good return.

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core strength and certainly even if people are good at it a lot of the trades people we speak to they don't like the admin side. They like to apply their trade. They're never happier than when, you know, sawing a bit of wood or fixing a boiler or doing some electrics, you know, and anything else that detracts from that, they find a frustration. is we remove the admin, massively reduce the need for them to do other things and also remove the speculative cost associated with getting jobs. Because unlike our competitor set, if you're a tradesperson or a fixer, as we call them, it's free to be on the platform. We don't charge them for leads. We only make money when they're making money so our interests are truly aligned so it really is a no-brainer for those guys why wouldn't they join a platform that's going to send them jobs they can pick and choose which jobs they want and you know we just simply

clip the ticket when when they're earning money it sounds like a win-win for them it's a win-win for the customer it's a win-win for the tradesperson I mean like you had just said the lead generation having your admin or office there's a lot of different positions you'd have to hire normally but this eliminates the need for things so you can focus on the one thing that you're good at which is the trade so when it comes to the technology side what what was it that you said, okay, we need to get this type of technology in this app in order for it to work this way? So for me, all of these things, you've got to start with the customer experience. And my guiding light for all of these decisions is how do we make it as easy as possible for the customer? And I think if that's always the kind of guiding light, then ultimately you're going to keep making the right decisions.

There's lots of things we could have done technically or from a service design perspective that might have been more scalable or more technical or cooler. I just kept bringing it back to how do we make it as easy as possible for the customer and just remove any unnecessary clutter, remove unnecessary decisions, and time that it takes to get the booking done. And so because of that, what we've developed is a managed marketplace. So a lot of our competitors are unmanaged marketplaces, which means that a customer comes in and if they need something they've then got a they're presented with a long list of people and they've got to check each person check their ratings somehow make a decision on who's good who's not good contact that person see if they're available you know and if not go again and all of this stuff is

is quite time consuming and it's certainly no good if you've got an urgent need if you've got water pouring in through your ceiling you need need someone now, you don't want to be going through this process. So JustFix takes care of all of that. Our matching algorithm at the center will find you the most appropriate fixer in that moment. We do the booking, we send the person who we choose as the best person to do the job. So from a customer's perspective, they simply come in, they say, I need a plumber now. We run a query, we ping the fixers in the local area that are relevant for that person's requirements. When one accepts, we confirm the booking, we send them around. A customer can go from problem to solution in less than 30 seconds using our platform, which is definitely faster than all of the other options that are out there at the moment so our guiding light's always been speed

convenience trust trying to remove the stress from the situation because a lot of these things can become quite stressful for people especially if you've got a miniature emergency you've got something that's gone wrong around the home the time it takes you from discovering you've got something that's gone wrong around the home, the time it takes you from discovering you've got a problem to having a solution in place, anxiety is increasing. And so if we can shorten that time, anxiety starts to decrease again once you've got the solution in place. Even if the solution is not coming for an hour, two hours tomorrow, you know that you've done everything you can. And now it's just a case of sitting back and waiting for it to happen as long as you've got trust that the the person you've booked with the brand that

you've booked with um is going to deliver then you can you can allow those stress levels to come back down to earth again so that's been the guiding light how to make it easy how to reduce the stress reduce the perceived aggravation in trying to find a tradesperson. Wow. Ease of use, trust, speed. These are the things that make you so stressed out. Last time I had a big problem in my house, I had to run around calling like 50 different people and then everyone wanted to tell me somebody else. And then I called that person.

It was a week of my time spending. And like you said, the situation gets even worse. Many times it's dire need and it needs to be now. So where do you see the future of this going? So we've got big, big plans for JustFix. You know, we're an early stage company. We're still, you know, still so many things we want to do from a features perspective. We're shipping features every couple of weeks we're you know we've got a great um roadmap of stuff that's coming down the line as a business we're very ambitious um and we're looking to expand rapidly so currently we're based in the uk we're looking now at european expansion and then expansion to northern america and beyond. We're looking to do some acquisitions to help create step changes in growth

and unlock areas at a more rapid pace than purely growing through organic growth. And we're looking at floating the company later this year. So we'll be making some more announcements about that soon. But that should be really, really exciting for all our existing shareholders. But obviously, that's just the start of the journey, really. It's just another step on the journey.

So we're hoping to bring on board some new investors and take people on the journey with us. Wow, Adam, this is amazing. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to find out more information about the app in the future. How can they do so? Probably the best thing to do is to find me on LinkedIn. Adam Graham Just Fix. If you search for best thing to do is to find me on linkedin adam graham just fix if you search for that on linkedin uh you'll find me the website is just fix dot app um so you know one of those two things you can certainly track me down well adam as founders finding the

pain point figuring out the fix is what we live for it's why we do this. So I'm super excited to see how this app continues. I can't wait to even use it myself because I need it right now. So I'm super excited to follow along in the future. And thank you for joining us today on Founders Story. Thanks for having me. It's been great. Thank you for tuning in to Founders Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.