Interview: Jorey Ramer, Founder, SUPER

How is this different than traditional outreach to source professionals for house upkeep and maintenance?

The main difference is that Super takes this dulling process off of the homeowner's to-do list. Because we are subscription-based, we find the right provider for you and there's no fee haggling because of the flattened monthly fee.

And behind the scenes, there are two big differences: you benefit from Super’s operational data and commercial buying power.

There are lots of reviews out there, but those are all consumer crowd-sourced reviews, not true, on-the-ground data. Are they actually representative of the experience you will get? Maybe, but review sifting is a job in itself and you can never be sure you'll have the same experience. Stanford linguistics professor Dan Jurafsky described one review site as a place where people find “collective closure” for “minor traumas.”

Super uses metrics you won’t find on any review site. What percentage of the time was a servicer on-time for an appointment? How long did a repair take? Which technician performed the service? What were the symptoms, solution, and costs? By analyzing this data, we’re more likely to dispatch the right technician for the right job at the right time.

Similarly, there are marketplace websites or apps that are meant to help consumers with pricing. But as an individual consumer, you will never have the buying power of a commercial entity. We, on the other hand, have the buying power of many homes, not just one. That means we can negotiate superior pricing, availability and service quality.