Scaper: My Startup

One Mother's Day morning while cooking up a storm to host my family, I freeze in terror realizing the grass was almost tall enough to ride the big kid rollercoaster. With my hands covered in dough and almost an acre of grass needing about 2.5 hours to mow, with only having 4 hours to finish setting up the party, I litterally shouted "Can't I just get one of my college swimmers to do it? There's got to be an app for that!"

It hit me like lightning: there is no app for that. There is no national DoorDash type app for mowing the grass. I started to wonder how Landscapers find customers, is it word of mouth, signs on freshly mowed grasses? The questions kept piling up while an idea started to brew.

I jumped the gun with a prototype and some designs for an app that let you order a landscaper like ordering dinner on sushi night. It piqued the interest of my friend who decided to join me on this journey. This case study begins in June of 2018 when the most exciting summer of my life began.

Honing an Idea

Before jumping to visual designs and code, we wanted to make sure our targets and goals lined up. We started everything with a doodle, or two, and refined these ideas into presentable artifacts to share with our mentor. These artifacts were designed to keep us on track with an attainable goal.

Market Research

I actually hired one of my college swimmers (I am also a swim coach) to join me walking around the neighborhood interviewing potential users on the fly. We spoke to about 50 people right on the street, some caught in the act of mowing their lawn. This was followed by more data gathering exercises resulting in personas and some competitor analysis cards being created.

Target Identified

All of our market research culminated in a Market Segmentation exercise to identify our beach head market: Homeowner Hailey in Parsippany, NJ. Our development efforts were always aided by keeping our personas in mind by asking oursevles questions similar to "Would Collin want to pickup an extra job on a saturday?", or "Would Hailey even trust Collin?". Through social media and print ads we successfully completed 5 Scaper calls across the county, one of which was a repeat customer.

Next Steps

After concluding the market test we went back to the drawing board. Some process updates included recruiting Landos and Freddies to cut the grass instead of me actually going to the homeowners property. Our biggest growth area is in marketing, especially in social media as that was the best source for clients. Updates to the site and app will solidify our growth in the next launch.

Recently, I had to put Scaper on the backseat for a short time. I have welcomed my beautiful daughter Lily Rose into the world and found a home to raise her in. Scaper will make a return to the market Spring of 2021 to all of Northern NJ.