HandyMan VS Full Stack Marketer

HandyMan's answer

Two things, and both are about who keeps the money and who sets the price.

• No commission. Pros keep the whole of what they agree with the client, and posting a job is free. There is no charge for a lead and no cut of the job.
• The pro sets the price, not us. You describe the work, local pros reply with their own quote, and you compare profiles, ratings and reviews before choosing. HandyMan does not publish rates or take a booking on a pro's behalf.

The job also stays in one place: request, offers, chat, and the review at the end are one thread rather than a phone number handed over and a conversation that disappears.

HandyMan's answer

Because of what it costs the pro, and because of where we operate.

Most of the large marketplaces charge the tradesperson for a lead whether or not the job happens, or take a percentage of the work. HandyMan charges neither. A pro joins free, sets their own rate, quotes only for jobs they want, and keeps what they agree.

We are also built for the United Arab Emirates as well as the United States. That shows up in the details: the emirate you live in decides which authority has to approve electrical and water work, buildings ask for a contractor NOC before anyone is let upstairs, and the whole tenancy cycle runs on a different calendar. A marketplace designed only for North America handles none of that.

What we do not claim: we are new, and the network is small. If you want the largest possible pool of pros in a US city today, the incumbents have more of them.

HandyMan's answer

Two sides, and the product has to work for both.

People who need something done at home. Overwhelmingly renters and owners of apartments in the UAE, where the tenancy cycle turns over every year and produces the same list each time: a dripping mixer, a socket that stopped working, a wardrobe to rebuild after a move, an end-of-tenancy clean. In the US it skews towards houses and larger jobs.

Tradespeople looking for work. Plumbers, electricians, cleaners, furniture assemblers and general handymen — mostly self-employed or small crews, who want jobs without paying for leads that go nowhere. In the UAE that includes people working under a freelance permit or their own trade licence; in the US, independent contractors.

The common thread on both sides is the small job. Not renovations and not construction projects — the hour or two of work that is hard to find someone for.

HandyMan's answer

Web — a static multi-page site built with Vite and Tailwind CSS, served from Cloudflare Workers with the assets binding. No SPA framework: every page is its own HTML entry, which keeps it fast and readable by crawlers.

Backend — Supabase (PostgreSQL, Auth, Storage, Realtime, Edge Functions) with a NestJS service alongside it for the work that does not belong in the database.

Android — Kotlin with Jetpack Compose.

iOS — Swift with SwiftUI. The Xcode project is generated with XcodeGen rather than checked in.

Along the way — Firebase Cloud Messaging for push, Google Maps for addresses and the job map, Stripe for payments, hCaptcha on sign-up, and Leaflet where a lighter map is enough.