Remember that plumbing repair in your bathroom five years ago?
For most people, the idea would send them into the messy stack of home records where things sometimes, but not always, end up.
What if you could just pull it up on your phone instead?
Enter Daryl Hoffmann. His startup, Home2aT hit the market last month as a way of tracking and recording home maintenance. The app – available on Google and Apple devices – also includes a curated directory of local service professionals.
Call it the “Carfax for your house.”
Hoffmann is a longtime bank technologist who works as a systems engineer for M&T Bank. He’s had a front-row seat to how society at large has integrated digital technology into their lives.
“We’re at the point now where almost everyone does mobile banking on their phone,” he said. “That’s the use case here: Managing your home’s needs on your phone is doable now.”
Hoffmann built much of the software himself before intervention from his sister, whom he described as his “mentor,” led him to raising a friends-and-family round of funding last year and hiring a vendor to finish the development work.
The platform finally went live last month, with Buffalo as its first target market, and Hoffmann is gearing up for a marketing push to onboard both homeowners and service professionals.
For plumbers, electricians and other contractors, Hoffmann said Home2aT is an opportunity to market themselves directly to people who are seeking their services.
Hoffmann remains employed by M&T and is mostly launching Home2aT with the support of family members. He said the Small Business Development Center at Niagara Community College has been a vital source of support and that his company is in consideration for the University at Buffalo’s Cultivator accelerator program.
In the meantime, he’s having a blast building something he’s long believed in.
“I’ve always had the itch to start my own company, and we’re at a point technically speaking where this can be done,” he said. “There’s such a vibe now in the Buffalo ecosystem of creating new companies.”
