Sam Pillar is CEO of Jobber.

Sam Pillar on the software tools home service businesses need to find customers

Sam Pillar, chief executive officer of Jobber.

Calgary’s Business: What is Jobber? How and when was it founded?

Pillar: Jobber makes and provides software and resources for small home service businesses like plumbers, cleaners, landscapers and HVAC, just to name a few. My co-founder, Forrest Zeisler, and I launched Jobber in 2011, and we’re now a team of over 100 people across our headquarters in Edmonton and our Toronto office.

CB: Who is Jobber for?

Pillar: We make Jobber specifically for small home service businesses with fewer than 50 employees, many of them with a team of just five or 10 people. Why? In short, small businesses power economies. In Canada, small businesses employ 70 per cent of the private labour force. We want to help the people in these businesses be more successful, and by extension, contribute to a strong and robust economy. Home services as an industry category is expansive and highly fragmented. The industries I mentioned previously are just the tip of the iceberg. What they all have in common is they go to people’s homes or businesses to provide their services.

CB: How specifically does Jobber help small businesses?

Pillar: Today’s technology-enabled consumer has markedly different expectations of their home service providers compared to even just a few years ago, and the pace of these changing expectations is accelerating. Today’s consumers expect – and so they should – to be able to contact a service provider, get a quote for a job, view invoices, and make payments online and in real time. Jobber makes all of this possible and more. We provide the tools home service businesses need to offer customers an awesome and memorable service experience, so they ultimately rebook their services and eagerly recommend them to their friends.

CB: What are the company’s plans for future growth?

Pillar: We have customers in over 45 countries running their small home service businesses using Jobber and delivering billions worth of services annually, which is tremendously humbling, and at the same time a significant responsibility. We’re focused on continuing to build a world class team that can make good on this responsibility, and provide home service businesses with products that will help them wow their customers and build successful businesses.

CB: What’s your sense of where the Alberta economy is these days?

Pillar: It’s no secret at this point that Alberta is going through tough times as a result of the slowdown in the oil and gas industry. Further, recent and future, developments in technology, electric vehicles being one of them, will likely mean that this downturn won’t be like the others. I do think we are developing a healthy acknowledgement of this likelihood in Alberta, both within government and amongst the general population. This is a very good thing because Alberta is full of smart people and hard workers, and we have the will. We can find ways to redeploy those assets against longer term growth opportunities. We have a lot of work to do in Alberta to secure our spot in the new economy of the future, but we have everything we need to do it.

– Mario Toneguzzi


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