How to Build An App Like Handy (A Step By Step Guide)

Last Updated on November 17, 2023

Whether it is about removing some waste or calling your electrician, fixing the faucet, or making more minor repairs at home? Some people want to do these things by themselves, but others need to invite professionals. The online home services market is booming and is forecasted to grow by USD 4.75 Billion from 2021 to 2026, according to reports.

But where will they be found? Well, the answer is simple –  on platforms like Handy & Taskrabbit.

Two-sided marketplaces such as TaskRabbit and Build An App Like Handy have overwhelmed the on-demand services market segment. Apps like these function as links between those who need immediate assistance those who give their services with home-based tasks and those on their toes.

See also

• How To Build An App Like TaskRabbit
• Guide to Building An App Like Thumbtack

Numerous opportunities have been generated by the home service economy sector that favors both service providers and those in need. Even more entrepreneurs, developers of mobile applications, etc., are looking to benefit from the ballooning segment of on-demand home services.

What Are On-Demand App Solutions?

The on-demand application solution principle is very straightforward. In this definition, the product or service should be delivered when you need it and at your fingertips. The on-demand app integrates the demand for the product or service electronically. This serves as a forum to reach the provider when the consumer needs to provide the service. This on-demand technology will reduce both the parties’ time and energy during the meet-up.

Under the on-demand solutions comes the category of on-demand home service apps. And one of the most popular home-service apps is Handy.

Handy is the pioneering platform for linking household service seekers to quality, autonomous service professional pre-screening services. From housekeeping to washing, Handy matches up with top experts in cities around the world each week to thousands of customers. Handy is the fastest and most efficient way to book home services thanks to the smooth 60-second booking, safe payment, and a handy satisfaction guarantee.

How Handy Started

Handy was created in 2012 as a practical solution to an age-old problem: seeking high-ranking, efficient professionals for popular household services. In 2012, it was named Handybook. When Oisin Hanrahan wanted to become a real estate developer in Eastern Europe, he was a 19-year-old university student in Ireland. Hanrahan began buying and refurbishing Budapest apartments after spending several hours on weekends at Trinity College in Dublin. Oisin found it challenging to find handymen of quality when he restored various flats across the area. It hadn’t been fast.

A few years later, when Oisin and Umang Dua attended Harvard Business School, the same thing was happening in the USA. They decided to create a mobile app to fill this gap and to make the simplest and most convenient way to find household services for busy people in every area.

Today, Handy runs in 28 U.S. cities and many Canadian cities, and the UK as well. Since July 2015, it has hired 160 employees full-time and has hired nearly 10,000 cleaners. Around 80 percent of its bookings come from repeated customers, according to Handy.

Amazon Alexa provides users access to services via mobile telephone by using the Amazon Echo’s voice-activated functionality as of November 2016. As part of the purchase of furniture through Wayfair, the Company collaborated in May 2017 with Wayfair, an online dealer, to provide installation and assembling. And the company has started to sell Walmart retail customers additional home construction services in 2018.

Some facts about Handy

• Founded: 2012
• Founders: Oisin Hanrahan, Umang Dua, Ignacio Leonhardt, Weina Scott
• Headquarters: New York City, United States.
• App Installs: 500,000+
• Revenue: $359 million

Related Resource: How Does Handyman Marketplace Work?

Steps To Build An App Like Handy?

1. Step 1: Project Planning 

This is the first stage of developing your mobile app, which describes the concept and the business model you choose for your home services app to turn it into a profitable product. You begin your research at this point. You’re here to

• Identify your destination users.
• Study the competition
• Define the aims and priorities of your app
• Do the review of technological viability.

When you begin to form your concept, the review and the planning process begin, where you start with the description of your use and the identification of functional needs.

2. Step 2: Designing

The next move is to wireframe and design the app to understand potential functionality. Although time isn’t there, drawing thorough drawings of the envisaged product will potentially help you spot problems with usability. Sketching does far more than just chart your moves. It can be a useful tool for collaboration and cooperation. Wireframing helps to refine ideas and organize all design elements in the correct way when you are finished. During this initial step, you can solve any technological constraint in the backend creation process.

Now strive to understand clearly how the features and ideas fusion into a working program. You can also create a map or a storyboard to illustrate how each screen works and how users access the app. Find ways to integrate the brand, concentrate on our user interface and consider different ways of using a mobile app against a mobile website.

3. Step 3: Development

In general, the production process begins very early after the idea creates a working prototype in the conceptual stage that validates the functionality and assumptions and lets it understand its nature.

The app goes through a variety of phases as the production progresses. The core feature is not evaluated in the initial stage but is present. See that the software is volatile, and at this stage, there are no non-core features. The second stage integrates a great deal of the features suggested for your home services app development. Hopefully, the app has been checked and resolved by a light bug, although some bugs still could occur. In this step, the app will be available for further testing by a particular group of external users. After bugs have been addressed in the second stage, it is now ready for release in the deployment process.

If your project is complex, where a user needs to change daily, use agile methodology. It leads to elegant preparation, advanced growth, early implementation, and quality improvement. A broad application may be divided into components and agile methodology for each small section may be used.

4. Step 4: Deployment

Now, your app is ready for submission. Choose a day and take a formal start. The guidelines for releasing an application are different for different application stores. This isn’t the end, remember. At launch, the production of the app does not stop. When your application gets in the hands of users you will collect reviews, which you will have to use in future versions. Updates and new features will be required for any app. 

Usually, the development cycle starts anew as soon as the first version of the app is released. To sustain your product, make sure you have the resources. Bear in mind that it is a long-term investment, aside from the money spent on creating a digital product.

Related Resource: Home Services App Case Study

Must-Have Features To Include In Your Handy-Like App

1. Booking Section

For any application to follow the lead of industry leaders like TaskRabbit & Handy, appointment booking is critical. For both the clients and the service suppliers, it is an essential function.

The above function enables end-users to make a reservation at the same time or plan it for some time later. It is also a valuable part of the overall reservation functionality to provide the option to reschedule the service in case of any unforeseen problem.

For providers, the reservation option enables all the orders they have issued and additional information about the same to be seen. They then have the choice to accept all the booking offers they have got or reject them.

2. Booking History

These features play a significant role for the providers in the application. It enables users to have a single place where all the booking orders they have made using the app can be viewed.

For the client, this segment has many uses too, ranging from paying for expenses while handling their budgets to learning about the best and worst bookings they received. Most importantly, when necessary, it enables users to contact the best service providers again.

The time and date of bookings made, the name and contact information of the service providers, etc. are detailed in an appropriate booking history section.

3. Detailed Admin Panel

Three layers of interaction, namely customers, service providers, and administrators, need to be addressed by any on-demand application. The admin is responsible for handling and communicating with both customers and service providers. One thing you need to ensure is that a robust infrastructure stack would support all of the above features since it can make or break the entire business venture.

It is also very important to choose the technology stack, as it is a contributing factor in determining the total production cost of the on-demand services app.

4. Detailed Market Place

In your on-demand home services app, you need to show customers a list of available services on the home screen. The marketplace is an important function that, like Handy, should be there on demand. Any service provider must have a well-built marketplace that is clutter-free.

There must be a snippet for each service, briefly describing what the customer should expect from that service. After clicking on a particular service, you need to go to a dedicated tab, such as pricing, features, and special information, describing the A to Z of the service concerned.

5. Help/Contact Us Section

Having a support section, where users can find answers to the most obvious questions in some sort of Q&A, is very important for any application. The support section also needs to be easy to find and, if possible, usable on most of the on-demand service provider app pages.

You need to provide contact information, such as an email support ID and a contact number, to address problems that go beyond the queries listed in the Q&As section.

6. In-App Messaging

You need to provide an in-app messaging feature for every application that links consumers with service providers. Although it can be useful to call, an in-app chat feature is much more convenient and simpler to use than calling.

The in-app messaging features allow clients and service providers to better understand each other in real-time, thus reducing uncertainty and/or the possibility of something going wrong with the effort.

Ensure that the network offered is encrypted when you add the in-app messaging functionality to your Handy-like on-demand service app. It adds to your application’s overall efficiency.

7. Invoice Generation

It’s mandatory to produce an invoice for a completed operation. Hence, it needs to have its own dedicated section. In addition, there must be automated invoice generation options that can be sent to the user’s registered email ID and/or contact number.

For detailed and brief invoices, you may also provide an alternative. The more choice users get to have better engagement and experience, which is a significant contributor to the overall success and preference earned by the app for on-demand services.

8. Multiple In-App Payment Options

When it comes to making payments, different clients have different expectations and distinct priorities. While some prefer to use debit cards and credit cards, others like to use eWallets, while others would like to pay for delivery or cash-on-delivery.

Nothing beats the simplicity of making a payment right from the phone. But as said before, various customers tend to pay in different ways, and some would like to do it in an old-fashioned manner.

Ensure that the payment platform is safe and stable, incorporated into your on-demand service provider application.

9. Service Provider Tracking

Customers want to follow up with their orders. It is an excellent choice to deal with the anxiety that follows the waiting time, the delay before the order is made, and the job is actually started.

Any kind of service provider monitoring feature must be provided to customers by a Handy-like app. It will let consumers determine the correct time for service providers to expect and verify how much time duration it will take for them to reach the destination from their current location.

10. Push Notifications

For the marketing strategy of any application, push notifications have become a significant staple. It also allows greater fruition to be accomplished by app interaction.

There is a wide range of uses for push notifications, ranging from alerting customers about booking status to empowering users who have not interacted with the app for a while.

Related Resource: Home Services App Features List

Tech Stack For An App Like Handy

• Application and Data: JavaScript, jQuery, Node.JS, MySQL, Bootstrap, Google Drive, TypeScript, Amazon S3, Amazon EC2, Firebase, Heroku, Android SDK, AWS Lambda, Swift, Amazon RDS, Grails
• Utilities: Google Analytics, Postman, Google Maps, Stripe, Amazon SES
• DevOps: Jenkins, Webpack, Sublime Text, New Relic, Android Studio, Gradle, Vagrant, Intellij IDEA
• Business Tools: Intercom, Basecamp

Cost Of Building An App Like Handy

There are some variables that every customer needs to know about the cost of app creation and the Uber-like app too. The price of the home services app development varies with the platforms that you plan to support Android, iOS, or Web. Factors like the time required to configure and build an app, the number of features you want for your app, the complexity of the design, targeted platforms, creation of back-end applications, product management, etc.

The cause why the cost differs is because the process of home services application development is complicated, and the price will add to the dynamic need and extension of the app as the final cost of development depends primarily on a variety of experts, specialists, and technology involved in it. An expert opinion will, however, allow you to guarantee anything from scratch to delivery.

Frequently Asked Questions for building an app like Handy (FAQs)