Gene Caballero is the co-founder of the website and app GreenPal, which he describes as “Uber for lawn care.” Caballero has been in the landscaping business since high school and started his company in 2012.
“I used a pen and pad to drive cars, knock on doors, and run analog. I did that from high school through college and after college,” Caballero said. . “My territory was on the West Coast, so I was a little familiar with new tech like Lyft and Airbnb. I thought, if you pay extra to rent an extra bedroom for the weekend, they’ll do the same for your lawn.”
The app works on a relatively simple premise. Homeowners create accounts by explaining what needs to be done and when. The user chooses the ideal grass height if mulching is required or if fencing work, topiary or hedges are to be included. Homeowners enter their property address into the app and answer a few questions about yard conditions and whether they have pets outside.
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GreenPal then compresses that information into a profile and sends it to landscapers who have registered with the app. The profile shows the vendor his Google aerial and street view of the property and provides details about potential jobs from the owner. Vendors can use that information to create and submit bids.
Property owners can browse a gallery of bidder ratings, reviews and photos of previous work before booking services through the app.
“Homeowners say they love the social proof aspect. After every service, homeowners rate and review every vendor. It’s what we use to judge,” Caballero said.
To enroll in GreenPal, vendors must be 18 years of age or older and have a valid social security number, bank account, and driver’s license. Vendors must also be able to submit references and photographs of previous landscaping work.
When homeowners book a vendor through GreenPal, they pay the price shown in the submitted bid, but GreenPal ultimately cuts 5% of the total transaction amount.
After a three-year app development process, the Nashville-based company has been seeing vendors booking, rating, and paying with GreenPal since 2015.
Today, it has expanded to more than 250 markets, according to Caballero.
The co-founder of the app said the company doesn’t do market research. Instead, we log when a user signs up outside of an area where the service is already provided. When we see demand from property owners or vendors, GreenPal makes a full-scale entry into the community.
After officially launching the app in Phoenix, Caballero said a few users showed up in the Flagstaff area.
GreenPal has launched a campaign to recruit more vendors, with 35 vendors in the region poised to accept bids when it officially launched in Flagstaff this month.
“Once you get the first tickle from a vendor signing up, start a small campaign to make sure there are enough vendors in the area to do the launch. “I go door to door, I write flyers, I do Craigslist. That was me years ago,” Caballero said. “What GreenPal does is not only handle payment processing and scheduling, but also demand generation.”
According to Caballero, the app’s target or ideal vendor is landscapers who already have established operations in a region and are looking to grow their business.
“Old school” word-of-mouth marketing is already working, according to local landscaper Katie Harris. She worries about how rideshare-style apps might affect customer attitudes.
Harris owns a business in Flagstaff called Mountain Girl Landscapes for 15 years. She says her landscaping services are in high demand, so connecting with her customers isn’t much of a problem.
“I think it’s a good idea, but I’m not sure how realistic it is,” Harris said. “By the middle of the season, at least in Flagstaff, most landscapers have more work than they can handle.
She worries that throwing the app into the mix will make customers even more likely to expect instant gratification. She worries that the easy-to-book app will make customers want to get their work done faster than they actually are. This is already a problem for small business owners who are inundated with bid requests.
“There’s a lot of demand. We’d love to have another advertising venue, but we don’t need a middleman,” Harris said.
Caballero claims the app offers advantages over traditional payment and booking methods. One is that the app can work completely contactless.
When a landscaper completes a job booked on GreenPal, it sends the homeowner a photo that serves as an invoice for the completed lawn. From there, homeowners can pay for work on the app. In theory, the client may not need to meet the landscaper face-to-face.
“I think people have gotten a little used to social distancing and using contactless businesses. We fit that genre perfectly. [the early parts of the COVID-19 pandemic] Today, you can probably offer a slightly more secure service than traditional methods. ”
More than 30% of GreenPal’s customers are over the age of 60, according to Caballero.
“That demographic is the most likely to contract COVID-19 and thereby become fatally ill,” he said.
Flagstaff is a high desert community, a place where planting grass may not be a viable water use for residents. Currently, the city of Flagstaff is Low water landscape program It is intended to support property owners in designing landscapes that use less water. The city is offering a rebate of $0.25 per square foot to those who choose to ditch the thirsty exotic grasses, plant local shrubs and adopt a less traditional layout for their yards. .
At first glance, the GreenPal app appears to be most closely tuned for lawn maintenance and installation. But Caballero said the app can be used to book all kinds of landscaping and outdoor home maintenance work.
“It’s something that’s outside the house. We actually used GreenPal to put up the fence and put up the gutters. I’m here.
It’s free for homeowners to download the app and ask for bids. However, if the user wants to book services for multiple facilities, they cannot do so immediately. According to Caballero, it’s by design.
“We want to make sure that people with multiple properties know how to use the app first. It’s time to be able to do it,” said Caballero.
He said “multiple properties” were added to the app after a property manager contacted the company and requested the feature.
Caballero said he is optimistic about GreenPal’s future on Flagstaff phone screens, as the company receives feedback from vendors and other community users.
Sierra Ferguson can be reached at sierra.ferguson@lee.net.
