[andrewljohnson]

Minimum wage is 10.24 in SF, and rising. On top of that:

* there will be refunds (grubhub gives a lot of refunds for bad food)

* they will need insurance (remember airbnb?)

* there will be legal challenges - like Uber, this kind of startup walks a fine line - if you employ 50 maids, you would usually have to provide workers comp at least, and maids seem more prone to file a claim than lots of professions

* there needs to be a margin for pathjoy

I believe you can possibly scale 20/hour maid service in parts of the country, but in the Bay, it will be at a loss or the price will rise. I really don't see how the math works any other way.

Grubhub's strategy was to raise delivery fees after they got traction, and it wouldn't surprise me if thats what pathjoy does. They will need to differentiate on something other than price though.

[tvjunky]

Great points.

On the topic of working elsewhere. Large urban areas provide the best opportunity for lower cost and more efficient operations. Two things limit growth for this kind of service in smaller less dense areas. Travel and population. Both limit the number of jobs that can be requested or completed.

[ryanglasgow]

You're vastly overestimating the costs involved. It's common for such P2P services to take 20-30% to cover everything you've mentioned and make a profit. Lyft takes 20% cut from drivers and faces much stiffer regulation, guarantee's drivers $18/hr, and has a $1M insurance policy. PathJoy faces smaller overhead and taking 20% should be plenty profitable.