Type Private Founded September, 2013 | Industry Home services | |
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Headquarters New York City, United States Number of locations 2, Boston, New York City Key people Marcela Sapone, Jess Beck, Christian Bjelland (Founding Team) Bijan Sabet, Scott Sandell (Board Members) | ||
Hello Alfred is an American technology company that assigns its members a personal butler who visits their home each week and works with on-demand and local services to complete errands and to-dos. Requests are made in an app developed by the company.
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Founded in 2013 by Marcela Sapone and Jess Beck, the company won TechCrunch Disrupt SF in 2014. They were the first women to win this competition. The company has publicly raised $12.5 million in funding and operates in Boston and New York City, with stated plans to expand to several other cities.
History
Hello Alfred was founded in March, 2013 by Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck, both former McKinsey & Company employees. The two were attending Harvard Business School at the time, along with founding team member Christian Bjelland.
The co-founders first developed the service for their own personal use; they began to develop it commercially after neighbors began asking for it themselves.
In April, 2014 the company won the Harvard Business School New Venture Competition. In September, 2014, the company proceeded to win TechCrunch Disrupt SF, the startup competition and showcase made famous in Mike Judge’s Silicon Valley (TV series), featured on HBO.
In November, 2014, the company raised a $2 million seed funding round with investments from Spark Capital, SV Angel, and Crunchfund. After its seed round the company launched in New York and moved its headquarters there, while continuing its Boston operations. In April 2015 Hello Alfred raised a $10.5 million Series A with investments from New Enterprise Associates, Spark Capital, Sherpa Ventures, and CrunchFund.
In May, 2015, the company made a strategic purchase of key assets from New York based on-demand company WunWun.
Worker Classification Debate
The company has received attention for hiring its Alfreds as W-2 employees and offering a starting hourly wage of $16. It has also weighed in on the debate about worker classification in the Sharing economy. The debate erupted in the media spotlight shortly after former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton criticized companies for misclassifying workers as Form 1099 independent contractors in a speech laying out her economic agenda for the United States Presidential Election, 2016. Prior to this tech giant Uber inc. lost a lawsuit in California over its worker classification of Barbara Berwick, with the court finding that Ms. Berwick was improperly classified as an independent contractor and should have been classified as an employee.
Hello Alfred classifies its workers as W2 employees instead of 1099 independent contractors and therefore offers benefits and healthcare.
Other
Alfred is considered one of the first companies in the On Demand Economy 2.0, and is also seen as opening up butler services to the masses in the same way Uber did black car service.