A handy man in a recession

22 March 2009  By Gavin Daly

After Rob McCarthy graduated from college last September, seven of his friends - all graduates - emigrated to Australia. Finding it difficult to source despite his business and law degree, the 24-year-old decided to join them. A rugby player with Terenure and former Ireland under-19, McCarthy figured he could use his rugby connections to line up work and accommodation in Australia, making the move significantly easier.

Then he changed his mind. ‘‘It was on the cards, but then I thought: ‘am I going away to hide from this?"‘ said McCarthy, referring to the recession that has made life difficult for many recent graduates.

Rather than emigrating, he decided to stay in Ireland and deal with the downturn.

‘‘The usual graduate problems occurred," he said. ‘‘What do I work at? Where do I go? On top of that, the world fell apart. I started looking around for something to do for myself."

McCarthy’s plan was to find a venture that had been successful overseas and could be imported to Ireland. His search took him to Mr Handyman, a fix-it firm that has 300 franchisees in the US, supplying qualified, uniformed and police vetted handymen for all sorts of household repairs.

The company, which is owned by Service Brands International and has annual revenues of almost $100 million, was expanding outside the US for the first time, doing deals in China and other territories.

McCarthy saw an opportunity to bring it to Ireland. After initial email contact, he flew to Michigan last November to meet the company. Rather than becoming a franchisee, he struck a €450,000 deal to buy the licence for the business in Ireland and Britain, meaning no one else can use the brand in those countries. The Irish firm has been in business since February 16, supplying handymen for a flat fee of €79 an hour.

After a steady response to the business - with 58 call-outs since starting operations - McCarthy now has four staff and hopes to have 14 employees by the end of this year. If things go according to plan, he will expand the network of handymen nationwide through this year and then target the British market.

‘‘It is hard starting up," said McCarthy, who was born in Kildare and educated at Terenure College and Griffith College Dublin. ‘‘College doesn’t really set you up for the business world - there is still a lot more to learn."

He put the Mr Handyman business together with backing from his father, Frank, who previously owned a Dublin-based facilities management firm called Professional Contract Services. He sold that firm about two years ago in a seven-figure deal.

McCarthy said that while his father helped with some of the ‘‘bigger things’’ of setting up the business, he largely let his son get on with it. ‘‘He doesn’t want to see his investment go nowhere, but with most things, he lets me learn and do it myself," he said.

Chartered accountant Jacky Montgomery has also been instrumental in getting the business off the ground.

‘‘I couldn’t do it without her," said McCarthy. ‘‘The hardest part [of setting up the business] is that you are thinking of something new you have to do every two minutes - everything from putting together databases to buying pens." Despite the well documented pressures on Irish banks, he secured debt funding from Bank of Ireland which ‘‘loved the idea straightaway’’.

‘‘To be honest, I didn’t give them a lot of reasons to say ‘No’," he said. ‘‘They loved the branding and the package of Mr Handyman - it is something that people will trust, which doesn’t really exist at the moment. My competition is a guy with a truck and a mobile phone and the paperwork on the dashboard."

In contrast, Mr Handyman runs through a small call centre in Harold’s Cross in Dublin and the handymen are sent a list of daily appointments by e-mail to handheld computers. They also carry portable credit card machines, so they can accept card payments.

According to McCarthy, the workmen get a percentage of the payment and the company pays for their fuel and handles their tax affairs, as well as any customer complaints. He has not had any problem sourcing workers - when he advertised for handymen with Fás, he got 730 e-mails in one day ‘‘putting Gmail to the test’’.

That highlighted to McCarthy the number of tradespeople who have lost their jobs with the downturn in the construction sector, but he is optimistic that the business will benefit from people choosing to repair or upgrade their homes rather than move.

‘‘All Mr Handyman tradesmen are multi-tasked and will do maintenance in carpentry, plumbing, electrical, tiling and any other odd jobs," he said. ‘‘No job is too small. And they’re friendly guys who talk to the customers and involve them in the job."

And while McCarthy’s friends are settling in to life in Australia, he is getting used to being a businessman. If it gets too much, he can turn to a new friend - the ‘face’ of Mr Handyman is Richard Karn, who played Al Borland in the US television series Home Improvements.