Home improvement, maintenance, and repairs are a hassle. From finding a design everyone likes, to picking the right professionals, to actually sticking to a budget—it’s a pain. Located in Golden, HomeAdvisor aims to take the hassle out of the process and make home improvement easier and more efficient.
HomeAdvisor’s online and mobile platform makes it easier to get home projects done from start to finish. Not only does the platform connect home owners to their network of over 150,000 prescreened home service professionals, but it also offers resources and tools to help complete projects as effectively and efficiently as possible. One of their tools is the True Cost Guide, which gives home owners local and national data on hundreds of home projects. Users get more accurate estimates on their potential costs by looking at projects and their end-costs similar to their own. DesignMine, another tool, allows users to create inspiration boards, which can be shared with friends, family, and even professionals to help make the vision come to life.
Since opening their doors in 1999, HomeAdvisor has always had the same goal: to make home improvement easier. However, they haven’t always kept the same name. HomeAdvisor was originally ServiceMagic at founding. After being acquired by IAC, they did a complete rename, rebrand, relaunch of the platform under their new name of HomeAdvisor. Back at the time of the relaunch, in 2012, CEO Chris Terrill said that the new name was a necessary change: “For a company of our size and age, we should be a dominant brand, but we’re not. So we made the decision to change based on some very specific research.”
The research showed that while “service” attracted the right audience, the word “magic” wasn’t associated with the home improvement sector and did not give the results the company needed to see. Even with the research showing it was the right decision, it was a risky move. Everything was tied back to ServiceMagic.com—they had to start from scratch.
However, HomeAdvisor proved that, in this case, it was worth the risk. The company has been growing rapidly since 2012, bringing in 800 more employees since the relaunch, merging with a rival company, and making big plans for a new headquarters.
HomeAdvisor is also well known for their company culture; they’ve been named a Top Workplace by the Denver Post for five years in a row. Their Golden office has onsite bikes and basketball courts and their benefits package is described as one part Volvo, one part Bentley: “because in addition to safeguards, HomeAdvisor offers some lavish extras too.”
With their merge and steady, but huge, growth, HomeAdvisor is planning to move headquarters to the RiNo district in late 2018. The company said that the move was in order to attract more young tech talent, specifically those unwilling to commute to Golden. While the exact location of the new headquarters is not solidified, HomeAdvisor is confident in making the move.