The so-called Uber of lawn care has arrived in Falls Church and Northern Virginia.
Lawn Love is a new service which enables customers to remotely schedule yard work by using a mobile app or website to connect to local lawn care specialists.
Users just need to enter an address, check off desired work from a menu, select frequency and up pops a price within two minutes.
Is that tree and bush trimming you want or just mowing? Gutter cleanup? Snow removal or Christmas lights? These services and more are available.
Lawn Love’s founder and CEO, Jeremy Yamuguchi, explains in a press release that software application of high-resolution satellite imaging, data sets and human assessment generates a fast quote with payment, scheduling and service reviewing all on the company’s platform.
No work is scheduled until the customer agrees to the price though based on a trial order, service in the immediate week following an order is not promised “due to high demand.”
But all work is guaranteed, Yamaguchi told the News-Press in an interview. He says Lawn Love has partnered with 2,500 local vendors throughout the U.S. to bring customers quickly together with lawn specialists who have had background checks and will supply proof of experience and their available equipment. In Falls Church, around 80 vendors are available for work through the app.
Unlike the past, Yamaguchi says, no one has to wait any more on a lawn service to come out, see a property and return a price which can take days (although several Falls Church services promise to deliver a price in 20 – 60 minutes).
Last year the National Association of Landscape Professionals estimated one million employees working for 500,000 businesses generated sales of $82 billion for the industry.
Statistics from Lawn Love and the Association claim 80 percent of American households have lawns and half of them use lawn care services.
Although Yamaguchi says he has cut plenty of lawns in his time, it was not his experience outdoors which led to the creation of Lawn Love. Rather it was his experience in software development and the marketing skills in home services he gained after selling a business in 2013 before starting his lawn business the next year.
“I saw what a fragmented industry [lawn services] is, and I wanted to help improve the lives of contractors and elevate services for the customer,” he says.
The average lawn care company in the U.S. employs only two people and lacks resources to modernize business models. “We are trying to democratize innovative software for these small companies that will allow them to compete with larger lawn care providers such as TruGreen,” according to Yamaguchi.
Lawn Love, only four years old, now operates in 120 cities in 38 states, including Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. It recently completed 300,000 jobs.
Lawn care may be the latest industry for entrepreneurs seeking opportunities since services exist to connect people with everything from medical professionals to helping hands.
Doctor home visits are making a comeback, and dental home treatments can easily be arranged. Birthday and get well cards may be ordered online with your own signature and delivered by first class mail. Security services by drones are at your fingertips. Even menial tasks such as babysitting, fish sitting and indoor plant sitting are being farmed out through independent services.
Lawn Love’s mission is to enable customers to save time and money and help lawn professionals be more efficient and grow their businesses.
By achieving these goals, Lawn Love believes it will “build the largest high-tech lawn service on planet earth.” The land is the limit.