I have become recently fascinated with what some have referred to as “People as a Service”. Because “PaaS” was already taken as a tech acronym as “platform as a service”, I’ll call it “HaaS”, or “Humans as a Service”, for short. HaaS refers to the growing business of digitally mechanizing and monetizing people’s fractional time. The one’s you’ve heard about on a national level are Uber for rides, or if you live in Austin like me, Burpy for groceries or Favor for, well, any favor like picking up things at a restaurant or at nearly any store. One major HaaS segment, a huge one, is home repair and improvement. Right now the press has keyed in on the big guys like Amazon.com who is entering the space or the small upstarts like Thumbtack, backed by Google Capital, but I believe companies with an established track record like IAC’s HomeAdvisor are the most interesting ones to watch.  I had the chance to interview Chris Terrill, HomeAdvisor’s CEO, and I’d like to tell you a little bit about HomeAdvisor and why I think they are unique. A little background first.

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