At this point practically every restaurant, shop, or handyman service has a Yelp, Google, or Angie’s List review to help us decide who gets our money. But when it comes to a far more important and subtle kind of decision, finding the right person to take care of an elderly or disabled friend or relative, the internet offers very little guidance.
Startup TenderTree is hoping to be that guide. A Summer graduate of incubator 500 Startups, TenderTree is doing the same for hiring a home care provider that UrbanSitter has done for finding a babysitter – helping people find and hire a qualified worker online and at a lower cost.
When someone needs to hire a caregiver, it’s typical to go through a government or non-profit agency. The problem, says TenderTree founder Andy Argawal, is that you rarely have a say about who comes into your home. You can always send back a care provider that you don’t think is a good fit, but you don’t get the chance to check someone out before they walk in the front door. TenderTree, Argawal says, is different because it lets customers pick out and hire professional caregivers based on their qualifications and personalities.
For Jim Cadena, a customer who used TenderTree to find assistance for his 92-year-old mother, the ability to pick out and personally interview who he hired was the best feature of the service. “Agencies are daunting, and they just send you people without you getting a choice,” he says. Cadena says the process of finding someone was as simple as posting the job description on TenderTree, sifting through responses, and interviewing a few candidates. The level of quality of the caregivers was much higher than what he experienced with agency workers, and the price was far lower, he added.
On average most agencies charge between $15 and $30 per hour for caregiver services, according to a recent study. (Cadena says he’s paid $28 per hour). Agency-hired workers only take home about half of those wages, says Robert Woods, a home-care provider who used to work for an agency and now gets jobs through TenderTree. On the platform, providers set their own rate and the company takes a small cut of their earnings. Though Argawal wouldn’t disclose the exact percentage TenderTree takes, he says much of it goes toward insuring each caregiver with a $3 million policy – it’s clearly a volume play for the startup. TenderTree is looking to create as large a marketplace as possible for caregivers and those in need of their help, and take its small piece of the action.
TenderTree also handles all the payroll tax paperwork and deducts payments from a customer’s credit card at the end of each week. Workers log their hours on the platform, and the customer approves them for payment.
Before offering them up for hire, TenderTree does extensive criminal background checks and skills verifications on every person accepted into the program. Unlike a pet sitter or babysitter, caregivers often need to have specific training and certifications to handle a patient’s medical needs.
The types of care providers available on TenderTree range from companions who cook, clean and provide conversation, to certified aides who can assist the elderly and disabled with feeding and bathing. At the most skilled end of the spectrum are licensed nurses who provide in-home medical care. There’s also speech and occupational therapists available for hire that can assist with developmental and physical disabilities.
TenderTree launched its private beta in March 2012, and has had “thousands” of customers and caregivers sign up. Currently the service is available for customers in the San Francisco Bay Area that pay out of pocket for home care, not those paying with insurance plans or government aid. That is the biggest barrier to the startup’s plans to scale broadly. If it really has the goal of helping the largest number of people – both patients and caregivers – it will need to find a way to accept the forms of payment that most people use.
Have Your Say: TenderTree Can Help You Pick a Caregiver
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Have Your Say: TenderTree Can Help You Pick a Caregiver
