There’s a common refrain in the startup world: “Pick one thing and do it well.” This is undoubtedly sound advice for the services and apps working diligently to make your life a little easier. With one tap of a thumb, your taxi is on its way or your dinner is being delivered. In just a few clicks you can buy and receive your movie tickets without even going to a theater. Hitting the refresh button allows the world’s news to unfold before you without glancing at a newspaper. In the tech world, this simplicity is considered the pinnacle of delivering satisfaction to consumers.
But what happens when your needs can’t be solved by a single click, a single feature, or even by a single company? What happens when achieving your goal requires dozens of steps, expert advice, ongoing motivation and inspiration, and often takes months or years to accomplish? Is there an app for that?
A new set of companies in multiple industries like food, fitness, and financial planning are looking to take on the role of a multifaceted hub offering everything you might need to upgrade your life, from free content to experts for hire. These companies want to help you finally reach that dream of redoing your house, mastering a new hobby, or finishing a marathon by bringing everything and everyone you need together in one place.
Think of it this way: if a typical, single-purpose app or website is your go-to shoe store, then these multi-purpose tools are the department stores, offering an extensive suite of relevant resources to mix and match into the solution that’s right for you.
For example, Porch.com was founded by Matt Ehrlichman in response to realizing that the advice and information he needed to build his dream home was spread across many different websites. Now, a homeowner on Porch.com has a hub for their project that puts all the tools and resources in one place — a model that appeals to consumers across industries.
And increasingly, these companies are selling products via a “Shop” tab, creating a new revenue stream and a new reason for consumers to come back.
How do Small Companies Offer So Many Resources?
Like a department store, small companies mostly provide only the infrastructure, content curation, and customers. The actual content comes from contributors like small retailers, bloggers, and service providers.
The model works to everyone’s benefit. In a fragmented market, content creators, experts for hire, and retailers battle for the customer’s attention. It’s expensive, inefficient, and stacks the odds against small players. On these hubs, contributors and service providers get a spot in the community alongside users, where they can share their expertise and engage with potential customers without needing a large advertising budget.
On the other side of the market, consumers have a hard time cutting through the noise. Questions often surface: Is this the right advice? Can I trust this contractor I found on Google? Beginners often end up feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. It’s hard to make a major lifestyle improvement, and it’s even harder when you have to piece together every step yourself. As a result, people give up and everyone loses.
But on a site like Craftsy, a hub for people who want to learn and discuss crafts like quilting and cake decoration, each customer can carve out their own path at their own pace, while still having reliable professional help at hand. A novice quilter might read some starter blog posts and take a beginner class, while an advanced knitter might post their latest project, stock up on supplies or answer community questions.
In a sense, these companies serve as engines for their ecosystem, handling the onboarding of new customers and growing the market for everyone.
Does this complexity deter consumers accustomed to a one-click world? It doesn’t seem like it. In less than three years, Porch.com has captured data on 132 million home improvement projects, grown to more than 300 employees, and according to The New York Times is valued at about $500 million.
Craftsy has more than 5 million members and said it was projecting nearly $50 million in revenues for 2014.
Companies like Food52 (become a better cook) and Learnvest (take control of your finances) offer similar assistance with large personal goals and are also seeing a growth trajectory. Sites like Monster.com (find a new job) and WeightWatchers.com (lose weight) have used a version of this hub strategy for years.
While the late 90s and early 2000s saw the rise of the portal, which stuffed everything from horoscopes to email to classifieds into one experience, the last few years were about the stripped-down, single purpose app. Today, one-stop shop destinations are blending these models to create a happy medium, focusing on just one category — and it seems like they are here to stay.
Rohan Deuskar is co-founder and CEO of Stylitics.