HanDIY was my first attempt at building a truly new technology.
The simple summary is: HanDIY was designed to fill a market gap in seeking and providing real-time 1:1 virtual assistance for DIY enthusiasts and homeowners alike.
How HanDIY came to be:
- I grew up with a father who mentored me actively in how to plan, design and build everything in our lives effectively. This enabled us to build an impressive home and lifestyle well beyond our financial reach by doing it ourselves from the ground-up.
- I grew up with a teacher and therapist mother that exposed me to the realities of the working world and the value of education. This inspired me to find new ways to use technology to solve problems; specifically in how we can work better together.
- During my final year in a Business + Computer Science university double major program I got the opportunity to run a team of researchers. We focused on what biggest problems existed at the highest level in DIY and home improvement.
- The outcome of this research group was a compelling problem statement and the birth of a new idea:
- Problem statement: People often lack the confidence and tools to start and finish projects confidently
- The idea: Build a simple peer network with 1:1 interactions to match enthusiasts with specialists for per-minute wages
- This initial problem set pivoted, evolved and iterated bringing me to enter, compete and win various business competitions.
- I took an opportunity to be part of the EPICentre incubator/accelerator in Windsor, then winning a place at the Velocity Garage tech accelerator in Waterloo Ontario with funding, office space, and resources.
The final iteration:
- HanDIY evolved to be a simple and easy-to-use mobile application that allowed enthusiasts to post PROject requests and for experienced experts and teachers to be able to earn per-minute and per-hour wages equal or greater to their professional rates by accepting and assisting to guide these PROjects to completion via virtual interaction.
- Why it worked:
- Mobile application interface allowed us to be “on-the-job” and show the progress and situation live
- Early users saw the immediate benefit and were encouraged to seek help given the low initial commitment and ease of use
- Early versions were “black-boxed” to stay LEAN and AGILE with users only seeing the initial setup and outcomes with manual labour filling in the blanks where expensive technologies would be needed for automation
- Why I walked away:
- The technology was notably complex and expensive to build and host
- Attracting and retaining experts and teachers was a great challenge that created a “chicken-or-the-egg” situation
- Being mainly self-funded out of university with a few grants I experienced notable financial strain
- Investment opportunities required giving away notable control or committing to goals I was not confident in achieving
- Investors were not willing to take a bigger risk due to my limited financials, industry experience, and team size
- Mentors pointed me to walking away to start addressing the experience and financial issues before retrying
- Ultimately I decided I did not want to sacrifice the vision for speed and entered the EdTech space taking a role at D2L Inc.
What I learned:
- The problem set and evolved idea facilitated a great and very obvious product:market fit (supported by countless interviews and feedback rounds with various diverse stakeholders from local enthusiasts to Home Depot)
- The more technology you can build before funding the better funding options will become available to you
- Industry experience and financial stake make a major difference in building investor and adopter confidence in founders
- This technology was ambitious for the years it was attempted and a different approach would be needed
- Building a more simple product first that can build a network of users FIRST could setup future HanDIY iterations to succeed
- The focus feature for a simple “offshoot” product was the focus on PROject planning itself (read more in my other posts)
Jesse Dennis Sheather 