Jobber – CRM for Field Service: Estimate & Invoice - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

I hold a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering from the University of Alberta. Prior to founding Jobber with my co-founder, Sam Pillar, I worked as a freelance software developer helping mostly small businesses build technology solutions.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

Business owners often want the same powerful capabilities of Jobber online while they’re working on the go in our app. Jobber is a big solution, and I think there’s always a tension between trying to get as much functionality as possible into the mobile app vs. keeping it simple and usable. These aren’t mutually exclusive, but it’s a lot of work to add value without adding perceived complexity for our customers. I hope we can continue to push these limits and provide our customers the best of both worlds.

_{Forrest Zeisler - Co-Founder and CTO at Jobber}

Forrest Zeisler, the interviewee, is the Co-Founder and CTO at Jobber. At Jobber, he helps in Product Management, Engineering & Design, and works together with his team to build valuable and impactful products to help their customers be more successful.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

Slack, Google Calendar, Quickbooks Online would all have to be on my short-list. They provide real value, and they aren’t flashy about it. There are thousands of calendar solutions over the past decades, but Google managed to take a solved problem and do it just a little bit better. I couldn’t even put my finger on how it does it better, but anytime I use a different calendar solution, I get a bit frustrated. I’d say that Slack has similarly created a slightly better mousetrap for a chat and Quickbooks Online has for small business accounting. Being the best within a crowded space takes a lot of time and talent and hustle to keep grinding and refining your product.

How long have you been working on this app?

Jobber started back in 2011 when my co-founder and I met at a coffee shop in Edmonton, Alberta. We were both working as software developers at the time and realized we had an opportunity to democratize enterprise technology for small businesses. Jobber began as a very basic setup that minimized the stacks of paperwork problems our first customer, Graham Audenart of Painters Enterprise, was facing. Tasks like getting invoicing, client records, and team schedules into an online framework quickly turned into a software solution that multiple businesses could benefit from. We knew that a lot of the headaches business owners were feeling were shared between industries (scheduling the unexpected, reacting to problems quickly, drowning in paperwork, inability to grow their business, customer expectations, etc.), and discovered that fixing a single process problem for one industry consequently fixed the same problem in several other industries. It wasn’t just about fixing the problems that one business experienced, it was about fixing the entire system in which home service businesses operated in, and so Jobber was born.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

The entire foundation of Jobber is built on a passion for small businesses and helping them modernize through technology that simplifies their operations, maximizes earning potential, and helps them compete with large corporations.

Jobber users have a wide range of experience using technology, so the platform has to be intuitive and easy-to-learn for home service entrepreneurs and their crews. In fact, many home service businesses using Jobber are making the transition from pen-and-paper or crude Excel documents. Jobber also needs to be comprehensive to meet the growing needs of home service business companies. That’s why the Jobber platform is designed to manage the full customer lifecycle – from generating proposals and sending quotes to scheduling crews, dispatching jobs, invoicing customers, and accepting in-person or electronic payments.

Mobility is a major need for our customer base. Having access to records and information about commitments to homeowners on-the-go is critical to getting work done in the field. Through Jobber, home service professionals have full client history to see past quotes, jobs, visits, invoices, and billing – so that they never lose touch with their clients. Small business owners can track the status of jobs, view technician schedules, and flag new jobs to crew members in real-time. This all eliminates the need to play “phone tag”, which in turn will keep operations running smoothly and reduce manual errors. Having solid technology in place means that when the unexpected happens, businesses are better able to deal with the situation, and ultimately are more likely to succeed.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

We have a lot of power within our ecosystem, but when you first pick up the app, we keep you focused on the basics. It’s not overwhelming, but we can grow with your business. There are a lot of great niche tools out on the market — invoice & estimate tools, calendar apps, and time-tracking apps for example, which serve a particular function well, but they aren’t specifically designed for home services companies, and they don’t cover the entire workflow of a home service company. So what ends up happening is people have to use a number of different apps to manage and track their jobs. Data gets lost, things get dropped. Jobber is innovative in that we are laser-focused on building for home service companies, and we are an all-in-one solution, so you don’t have to be juggling data in multiple places. We also offer features like route optimization and “on my way texts” that are specifically built to solve pain points of home services companies.

Our values are centered around our dedication to small business and the belief that community is more important than competition. Due to this passion, our customer care team is a huge advantage for all our users. They go beyond just helping right any difficulties as they occur, and work with home service business leaders to make sure they are getting the most out of the Jobber platform and implementing best practices. From a technology standpoint, we focus our development on new features and integrations to address the day-to-day problems that our customers are facing, based on their direct feedback.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

Helping home service providers stay connected to their customers is an important part of our mission. In this space, we have seen a strong trend from property owners expecting high quality, highly responsive, communications across a range of mediums at their convenience. For example, SMS is becoming a preferred way for home service providers to communicate with their clients. We are continuing to invest in our communication functionality within the Jobber app, so home service providers can keep all their conversations in one place, making it even easier to stay organized. For example, a client can text you pictures and you can add those rights to your job. You can keep track of your entire conversation and refer back to it. Connecting communications directly back to the work helps provide efficiencies, and hopefully quicker responses with less dropped context, for businesses running on Jobber.

We are also upgrading our technology and design so the app is faster and easier to use. Our customers can face any number of challenges in the field, from standing at the top of a ladder to wearing gloves in cold weather, to loud distracting equipment and more, so making it a foolproof and super easy experience will always be important for our customers.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

If you work in a home service industry, including lawn care, plumbing, HVAC, painting, cleaning, or more, download the app from the Apple Store or from Google Play, or visit our website.