With more screens and mobile devices filling households, the more chances for frustrations when gadgets don t work as they should.
And when powering off and on again, and perhaps giving the TV or laptop a good whack doesn t fix the problem — enter Eden. The San Francisco company, a scrappy upstart launched in May, will swoop into your home to solve your tech conundrums.
And on Tuesday, Eden announced it raised $1.3 million from investors, including Y Combinator, Comcast Ventures, Maven Ventures, Canvas Venture Fund and Dylan Smith, Box s co-founder.
We took little pieces from a lot of people, said Joe Du Bey, Eden co-founder and CEO.
The business model was pioneered by Geek Squad, Best Buy s tech support subsidiary that makes home visits to repair and install technology. Du Bey said that service is too slow, too costly and often short-changes customers on solutions.
People want their homes to be a place where everything works, he said.
Geek Squad in San Francisco has a two-star rating on Yelp; Eden has a five-star rating, although it obviously has served many fewer customers. Eden charges $69 per hour; Geek Squad, which has been in business about 20 years, tends to cost a few hundred dollars for a tech repair.
Eden markets to a lot of baby boomers — consumers who buy technology but are limited in their abilities to fix problems when they arise.
Investors estimate the on-demand tech repair market is worth $30 billion. Du Bey says that figure doesn t account for all the people who need tech help but haven t used a service yet, because, until now, they ve been too expensive and inefficient.
There is a ton of pent-up demand if you can just make the market work efficiently, he said. The market is way understated.
Du Bey said Eden has six employees and is on track to hire another four by the end of the month. It has about 25 contractor workers who are dispatched to homes and businesses on-demand to attend to tech problems; they make $30 per hour.
Eden is currently enrolled in Y Combinator, a Mountain View tech accelerator.
Illustration by Doug Griswold, San Jose Mercury News.
