An Urban Solution for Urban Problems: Nakoda Urban Services

In the recent scenario where almost everyone in the family is a working professional, giving attention to house cleaning or getting the electronic devices serviced becomes a task. It's no secret that moving to a new place or cleaning the house during festivals can be a herculean task unless someone is a minimalist. While the world looked for a solution with different apps and local vendors Romica Jain understood the problem and came up with a great idea.

In Oct 2020, she came up with the idea of building the first-ever platform in India focused on the digitally innovative working class- “Nakoda Urban Services”. It is the first-ever platform/marketplace in India where one can compare (multiple service providers under one roof and can select the best service based on their availability and individual offers rolled out by them) and book their home and commercial services online.

Although Indiamart, Sulekha, Justdial, Quickr are majorly enquiry platforms, and Urban company provides fixed-price bookings. But on Nakoda one can compare the prices and quality to book the services online. Nakoda also acts as an aggregator to ensure quality and timeliness by maintaining the rating of professionals.

Nakoda is one platform for all home and commercial services. When a person is online all he/she has to do is look for the services and the app/ website offers the excellent capability of comparison, to ensure the money spend is wise. Customer privacy is respected all the time. Personal information of customers has never circulated anywhere. The user simply needs to compare prices/ratings of the best professionals and Book the service online.

Nakoda also provides Packers & Movers if someone plans to shift to a new place and one can avail of all other services at the new place. The company specialises in making windows shine with window cleaning services, sparkling up the corners of the home, and upkeep the condition of the mattresses, and carpets. The company offers kitchen cleaning services, chair cleaning, and sofa dry cleaning services, providing professional sanitization services.

Revamp the overall look of the home with the help of a skilled house painting expert and carpenter in India by booking on Nakoda. Nakoda offers services like Home Painting, Deep Cleaning, Pest Control, Carpenter, Plumber, Electrician, All Appliance Repair, AC Service, Balloon Decoration, Photoshoot Services and Packers & Movers.

Traditionally, people were registered on multiple platforms because listing fees were charged. They were able to do so because they had the resources. Then, they would pass the job for a commission to an aggregator with a list of handymen. In many cases, such aggregators pay only a nominal amount to professionals, keeping the larger fee for themselves. By cutting out the middlemen, Nakoda enabled these people with the skill set to register directly with them. It allows the technicians to keep the majority of their earnings for themselves, while the company receives anywhere from 5% to 25% commission, depending on which services they use.

According to Vidushi Sharma, Head of Customer Support and Geetanjali Kataria, Customer Support Executive, Nakoda, there have been challenges in the home-services market. The sector has been an unorganized one. JustDial and Sulekha were among the early movers in the sector, but by 2015 companies such as Urban Company and Housejoy took things a step further by controlling the entire experience. TaskBob and Doormint, other startups emerged at the same time, but they closed down or moved on. But Nakoda is here to rule. It has bought all the services under one roof. The company ensures that they will provide service in a much better way and with not one but many options to compare. A customer can select the service by comparing prices and ranking of the service provider.