HeyBryan, a peer-to-peer marketplace app that connects homeowners with home maintenance experts, has closed its initial public offering on the Canadian Securities Exchange with aggregate gross proceeds of $2.5 million.
“In 2019 alone, our user base grew by over 800 percent and we have quadrupled our team.”
HeyBryan, which launched in 2017, is backed by Bryan Baeumler, a host of several HGTV network shows like House of Bryan, Bryan Inc, Leave it to Bryan, and Island of Bryan. Net proceeds of the oversubscribed IPO will be used to support marketing efforts, back-end support and analytics, and working capital for operational cash flow.
“When Lance Montgomery [HeyBryan’s CEO] approached me about HeyBryan, I was thrilled,” said Baeumler. “With the app development already well underway, I could see how well the platform worked and loved how transparent the whole process was. It seemed to answer all those small home maintenance needs we all have. HeyBryan expertly responds to the need for trustworthy, high-quality work around the house. Getting small jobs done at home, and getting paid well for doing them, has never been easier.”
Typical tasks on HeyBryan include mounting or installation, furniture assembly, electrical work, appliance repair, plumbing, flooring and carpet work, lawn and yard maintenance, and junk removal. Payments are processed through the app, and experts can list themselves and receive leads for free. Every expert is vetted with a criminal check, background check, credit check, and a telephone interview.
“I recognized a gap in the market, for the smaller tasks, too small for a major contractor but still worth a solid two to eight hours of work for experts,” said Lance Montgomery, CEO of HeyBryan. “It’s difficult to find trusted, quality service providers who are able to complete these smaller jobs effectively, and when I reached out to Bryan with just a cold email he got back to me immediately because he also recognized the gap in the market. And just like that, he was on board. That was when I really knew that we were really onto something.”
The company launched in Toronto and Vancouver less than a year ago, and Montgomery said the response has been “overwhelmingly” positive.
“We’ve already seen hundreds of tasks successfully completed on our platform by folks we call experts,” he said. “In 2019 alone, our user base grew by over 800 percent and we have quadrupled our team to support this growth.”