At the end of March, the GreenPal app launched in Jacksonville.
Since then, more than 5,000 Jacksonville homeowners used the service to get their lawns mowed by one of the 500 Jacksonville landscaping providers who the company said signed up with the app.
Founded in 2012 by childhood friends Caballero, Bryan Clayton and Zach Hendrix in Nashville, the app is now in 250 markets, the company said. Jacksonville is GreenPal’s fourth Florida market along with Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
GreenPal connects pre-screened vendors to users — with Jacksonville's 875 square miles presenting some challenges to growth.
“When you have a huge city like Jacksonville, you have to make sure that you have vendors in all pockets of the city. The last thing we want to do is launch with no vendors there to bid,” Caballero said. “And you and I both know that your competition is only a click away.”
The app provides lead generation, scheduling, route optimization and payment processing to business owners. User payment goes to GreenPal, which takes a 5% cut.
GreenPal founders grew the company organically, receiving no outside capital funding.
“As soon as you take institutional money, you automatically have a boss and you have goals that you have to hit,” Caballero said. “You have to grow as fast as you possibly can, and sometimes, that's not aligned with the core values of the company.”
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