How we helped Hidrent succeed and go live on Shark Tank

Hidrent is the only on-demand home service company partnered with the IAFF-FC that is dedicated exclusively to helping firefighters supplement their incomes during their off-duty days. It connects firefighters with homeowners and local businesses in need of "handyman-type" help that firefighters can complete in between shifts.

Off-duty

As seen on Shark Tank, Hidrent is the only task-based online service that matches customers with off-duty firefighters. Most firefighters work 24 hours on duty, followed by 48 hours off duty. Firefighters are uniquely qualified to continue serving their community during their time off.

On-demand

Hiring an off-duty firefighter is mutually beneficial. This supplements their income and leverages their skills and expertise while you get the help you need from someone you can trust to get the job done right.

The result

We had a team of three developers working independently on the three sub-projects. Weekly meetings were scheduled to show the “sprint” progress and get feedback. Once the project was released, we provided ongoing support for new features and bug fixing.

Juan Baz

ENGINEER AT GOGROW

"Working at Hidrent was special because I took on a new role as a Technical Leader. This allowed me to be present during business meetings and make important decisions with the founding team."

We Keep improving

After 2 years, we’ve continued working together on new and promising features. The platform is super stable. We’ve helped Hidrent save money in DevOps, maintenance, and User Management by changing the architecture, backend, and admin panel. All of this has led to high customer satisfaction.

Challenge

Build a web app to allow homeowners to book jobs.

Build a mobile app for firefighters to pick up jobs nearby their homes and release it to Apple and Play stores.

Build an admin panel for Hidrent's team to get full access to the platform database and perform a variety of custom actions.

Provide ongoing support and implementation of new features.

Highlights

USA

Media > Internet Media & Services

www.hidrent.com

4-6 developers, 1 project manager

2+ years, ongoing

End-to-end development, Staff Augmentation

Solution

At GoGrow, we are loyal followers of Ruby on Rails and React, and that's exactly what we used to kick the project off.

We built a team composed of a web developer, a mobile developer, a backend developer, and a project manager.

We followed an Agile methodology, running 2-week "sprints". During the development stage, we performed Demo meetings twice a month to show progress, receive feedback, and make small and incremental releases. For communication, we use Slack.

The development team hosted the repositories on GitHub and integrated HerokuCI for continuous integration (tests and best practices checks). Every new change added to the codebase goes under a code review by members of the team/organization.

The web app was deployed on AWS Amplify, while the backend was in Heroku, where we also hosted a PostgreSQL database. The mobile app is available in both Apple and Play stores.

GoGrow engineers have become part of Hidrent's team.

We are proud of how far we have gotten working together, with a clear mission of becoming the most trusted source available for gig labor and improving the financial well-being of our neighborhood firefighters.

Juan Andrés Baz

ENGINEERING MANAGER AT GOGROW

"Working at Hidrent was special because I took on a new role as a Technical Leader. This allowed me to be present during business meetings and make important decisions with the founding team. It’s been more than two years since we started the challenge of re-implementing a platform that was already working in the market, and now, due to its growth, it has two mobile apps and two web apps."

Technology stack

Technologies

Cloud

Metrics

Project & Team:

• MVP Release Time: 3 months
• MVP Team Size: 3 developers, 1 project manager
• Ongoing (incremental) support: 2 developers, 1 project manager
• Relationship duration: 2+ years, ongoing

Apps:

• Hidrent went live in the Shark Tank show with a massive audience and an excellent performance.
• Current Users: 30k+
• Repeat Users: 35% more than once
• < 5 critical errors MoM
• < 10 bugs MoM

Product*:

• 4000+ jobs completed across the country
• 1M+ early revenue since inception
• $250 average revenue per project

* https://www.startengine.com/hidrent

David Heimbuch

Founder at Hidrent | Participated in Over $1B in Successful Startup Exits

"What I have found most impressive was their ability to create a back end environment that saves me time, and allows me the ability to conduct business much more efficiently."