Milusos
Milusos, the one-stop shop for home construction, remodeling, and maintenance.
Startup Snapshot
Startup: Milusos
Industry: Proptech-Construtech
Business Model: B2B2C
Founder: Alejandro Novoa & Daniel Ricchiuti
Operates in: Mexico City, Monterrey Guadalajara, Queretaro, Leon, Merida, and Cancun.
HQ Location: Mexico City
Team Size: 16
Founded: 2019
Stage: Pre-series A
Accelerators: Mucker Lab, Algen 8, Impacta VC
Website: milusosapp.com
What does Milusos do?
Milusos is a B2B2C marketplace connecting consumers with labor and partners for construction, remodeling, and home maintenance projects.
What's your backstory?
Alejandro, the founder of Milusos, boasts a successful history of entrepreneurship, having founded two startups before this one. His first startup, "Tu Colonia," facilitated collaboration between neighbors in private residential areas by providing a scrum or agile board for real-time decision-making regarding maintenance and administration. This app proved to be a hit and resulted in a successful exit for Alejandro.
Before delving into entrepreneurship, Alejandro and his colleague, Daniel, worked as consultants for the Government of Bajio de León on a project involving intelligent parking meters. They also developed another project related to exports at the Central de Abastos in Mexico City, which focused on tamarind and dried shrimp sales in California and Texas, targeting the Latino population in the USA.
Daniel, a mechatronic engineer from ITESM and a former IBM student, took the opportunity to study economics and finance abroad in Sophia Antipolis, France. He also participates in IBM programs remotely at an IBM Research Center in Sophia Antipolis. Furthermore, he founded a nutrition startup called Nutrinoot and remains actively involved as a board member.
How did you come up with the idea?
In 2018, Alejandro met with some friends in the real estate industry while Daniel was away in France. These friends were involved in a hedge fund in Mexico and the US and were already familiar with Alejandro and Daniel's background. During the meeting, they learned about the "Tu Colonia" project and had an idea to create a similar platform for real estate maintenance. As this platform would benefit them directly and the real estate industry, they decided to invest USD 350,000 in a pre-seed round with the support of IDE Fund and AyH, a legal and accounting firm specializing in real estate.
However, the pandemic presented a challenge regarding accessing people's homes, which complicated business operations. To solve this problem, they enrolled in a course led by Mariana Serrano, the head of operations at Uber. The course covered various topics, including first markets, TAM (Total Addressable Market), scalability, and how to apply these concepts to specific niches. Milusos decided to focus on the real estate management niche.
In 2020, Milusos concentrated on developing its platform and launched its marketplace early in 2021. The Milusos marketplace enables consumers to connect with contractors who offer various services, such as pest control, disinfection, home beautification, space adjustments, home office setups, and more.
How did you acquire your first customers?
During the early days, Milusos lacked funds for paid marketing. Thus, they resorted to Facebook groups for contractors, plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, and other professionals. They proposed a yearly subscription of 1,2000 MXN to the members of these groups in return for connecting them with projects on their platform. This strategy proved highly effective, and numerous contractors joined the platform. Furthermore, Milusos incentivized their partners by offering a bonus for every new customer they referred, which resulted in considerable signups and revenue for their partners.
Milusos partners, on average, increase their annual income by 200% within their first 12 months on the platform.
Daniel and Alejandro planned to attract more customers during the pandemic by selling vouchers to property owners. These vouchers could be redeemed on Milusos for work in advance and were sold for MXN 1,000 in contracts. However, the property owners had $1,500 to spend. This was like gift cards with pre-pay bonuses to raise capital, gain recognition, and generate service demand.
Their initiative became popular, and they were invited to the Alatorre program on TV Azteca. In 2022, several investors, including Mucker Lab, Algen 8, and Impacta VC, approached them, and soon after, they closed a USD 500k seed round.
When did you realize you had achieved PMF?
In 2022, the company secured extra funding and used it for paid marketing efforts for Milusos. By September of the same year, they successfully increased the number of monthly services booked from 800 to around 3,000, a significant achievement for the platform. Consequently, there was a monthly surge in organic customers and, most importantly, a substantial decrease in the churn rate from 85-90% to only 30%. One of the strategies used was a 30% discount on a customer's second service if they returned. These efforts increased the average ticket price from USD 40 to USD 1,800.
What's your motivation?
What drives Milusos is the desire to improve the lives of countless workers and clients by helping them secure better jobs and homes. The company was founded to address the lack of formal structure and limited opportunities for workers in the construction sector to create the top technology platform to enable individuals to achieve a better standard of living.
What's next for Milusos?
Short-term: Milusos is expanding into Monterrey and the northern region of Mexico to become the top player in the area.
Medium-term: Reach annual revenue in the seven-figure range.
Long-term: We hope to elevate all of our Milusos partners from c-class to b-class within six months of using our app.
Tips for other founders:
Learn to assess yourself critically and accept compliments and criticism without allowing them to shape your future. Instead, ensure that what you are creating today is something you'll be proud of even decades from now.
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Founders Wisdom
When I see something not being done right, my first reaction isn’t to fix it. It’s to say, we’re building a team here and will build great stuff for the next decade, not just the next year.
Steve Jobs, Cofounder of Apple
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