October 2018
AskWinston founded
January 2019
Product launched & joined Geovation
April 2019
Joined the Geovation Accelerator programme
May 2021
Pivoted from AskWinston to Abstract
James Harbridge
Managing Director
Kaivan Faria
Managing Director
Showcase
Abstract is a Techstars-backed company building the smartest search engine to discover products. Our vision is to create an intelligent search engine that cuts through the noise and product placements to match you with the perfect set of products. We want to help the world find products they love based on their interests, tastes, and style. Today, that starts with gifts.
Problem
Requesting home services is painful. You must compare platforms, search pages of gig workers, and manage multiple accounts to request a service. Yet the pain doesn’t stop there, as you still need to be involved – you wait for grocery deliveries, laundry collection, and exchange keys with cleaners or handymen. But what if you could request all services with one channel, and have a trusted team of experts complete tasks without your involvement?
Solution
AskWinston provides hotel-style amenities such as housekeeping, laundry, and grocery restocking to apartment buildings. Residents request services via WhatsApp, and they are completed by a trusted team of experts who support the building. residents simply send us a WhatsApp, leave their keys with concierge and we take care of the rest – it’s just like living in a hotel.
Market
By 2030, more than 60% of people will live in cities and the stock of apartment buildings is expected to double. Equally, on-demand services are growing by 35% per annum, and are becoming the de facto way of consuming services. By supporting buildings, we monetise owners and managers with a subscription per resident, take 10% of all transactions, and can effectively scale across building portfolios.
Traction
We are supporting two apartment buildings in London with a total of c. 500 addressable apartments. We have 50 residents signed up and 15 actively using one or more recurring service. Our ‘super users’ use three services on average that are normally cleaning, laundry and groceries. We are also having pilot discussions with B2B partners to test our service in their buildings.
You might also like
