lawn care companies in the United States, he said, and 98 percent of them are owner-operator run with perhaps a crew of one or two people. “They don’t have a lot of resources—no back-end offices, marketing, or invoicing,” he said. “Lawn Guru improves their cash flow, gives them jobs in the area they live in, and adds transparency for customers.”
Durrant said Lawn Guru providers fill out an application on the company’s website and undergo a vetting process to ensure they meet basic requirements: They must have their own commercial-grade equipment and submit to a background check. “Once they’re approved, it’s really seamless,” he said.
So far, Lawn Guru is operating only in a handful of metro Detroit cities: Brighton, Milford, New Hudson, Northville, Novi, South Lyon, Walled Lake, Whitmore Lake, and Wixom. And though the field is crowded with other companies trying to digitize lawn care—two that Xconomy has written about, LawnStarter and Lawn Love, come to mind—Durrant said expansion is imminent.
“We’ve gotten a lot of interest from VCs, and we’re working on closing big partnerships with lawn care equipment manufacturers. We predict rapid expansion—first in Michigan, and then in the Southeastern part of the U.S.”
And just in case you’ve forgotten summers in Michigan are fleeting, Lawn Guru has a new feature coming soon to the app: On-demand snow removal.
