Get help with a tap: The home cleaning services app making life simple while boosting livelihoods

What does a magical racing broomstick from Harry Potter have to do with cleaning homes?

For 36-year-old entrepreneur Daniel Thong, the reference is more than whimsical. Naming his company ‘

Nimbus Homes

’ reflects his vision that technology should help everyone make everyday cleaning feel effortless.

“Good technology should work like magic,” says the company’s chief executive officer. “Nimbus, being associated with the magic broom, is meant to capture the idea that booking a cleaning service should be seamless, fuss-free and amazing.”

Nimbus started in 2017 as a full-suite integrated office facility solution for corporate offices.

Beyond just cleaning, Nimbus consolidated a wide range of office management services, including plumbing and catering, providing businesses with convenience by grouping these services under a single provider.

Two years later, it launched the Nimbus Homes app as it expanded into home services, including air-conditioner maintenance, painting and mould removal.

Central to Nimbus Homes’ business model is its belief in hiring part-time and full-time staff – a decision driven by two key reasons.

One was quality. It was hard to ensure consistent, high-quality service with freelancers, so Nimbus Homes began training its own team and ensuring they were WSQ-certified.

The other was personal. Mr Thong’s uncle was a plumber, and he has aunts who are cleaners. Having seen the struggles of gig workers firsthand, he wanted Nimbus Homes to provide people like them with stable, dignified work – not just a quick job.

To follow through on this, he got the firm accredited under the Progressive Wage Mark – a national scheme that requires him to pay fair starting salaries and offer training so his employees can earn more over time.

“We really care about the career trajectory and growth of our workers,” Mr Thong explains – the heart of Nimbus Homes’ motivation.

In many ways, the real magic behind Nimbus Homes is clear: using technology not just to make life easier for customers, but also to create better futures for the people doing the hard work.

Supporting low-wage workers through technology

The first two years of Nimbus’ operations showed Mr Thong that most blue-collar workers do not use tech or digital solutions to find and retain customers, let alone accept payments that were becoming increasingly digital.

“When we started Nimbus, the on-demand economy was still new and booking a service through a mobile app was very novel. It still kind of blows my mind today that we can do that,” says Mr Thong.

“So the idea was to see how janitors and maintenance workers could benefit from the sharing economy and through mobile technology.”

Similar to ride-hailing apps like Grab and Ryde, Nimbus Homes’ workers are assigned by the app’s algorithm to their closest next available job to minimise travel distance.

With the app making it so easy for home owners to book, rate and pay for services, Nimbus Homes has been highly successful, attracting around 15,000 home customers.

“Most customers are PMETs in their late-20s and 30s, who are busy working adults needing some degree of help to manage their household chores, and who are more inclined to turn to tech and apps for solutions,” says Mr Thong.

Nimbus also serves approximately 100 enterprise clients through its

facility services arm

.

Today, the company, which earns millions in revenue annually, employs around 400 staff, around 95 per cent of whom are on-the-ground workers.

Beyond helping customers to find cleaning and maintenance services easily, Nimbus Homes also built app features that directly benefit its employees – including a tipping function.

But making sure those tips are paid out accurately takes “magic” behind the scenes.

To do this, Nimbus Homes relies on the

cloud accounting platform Xero

, which is integrated with the app’s payment gateway, Stripe. This setup helps the team track what each customer tips and ensure the full amount goes to the right worker.

Xero facilitates this by lining out credit and non-credit purchases through the app, and since Xero is also linked to Nimbus Homes’ bank accounts, reconciliation is much easier.

Making sure the tipping feature works seamlessly is important to Nimbus Homes’ reputation.

“We need the technology to work well and effectively so that we don’t break the seamless web of trust between the company, the customers and the workers,” Mr Thong says.

Xero has been part of Nimbus Homes’ tech stack from day one.

It also integrates with the company’s invoicing and expense tools, giving Mr Thong and his team 24/7 visibility of their live financial data.

“We are able to plug in many different systems, such as for payments and invoicing, into Xero, which helps keep our costs lean and our operations efficient,” says Mr Thong.

“I also use the mobile app because I can instantly retrieve and view my profit and loss statements and balance sheets on the go.”

With these time-saving tools in place, Mr Thong and his finance team are free to focus on more meaningful work – like finding ways to motivate and reward staff. For example, they are exploring how to better incentivise workers who consistently earn five-star ratings on the app.

On the business front, Nimbus also engages corporate clients to raise awareness about the Progressive Wage Model and its role in improving livelihoods, encouraging them to support companies that prioritise fair pay and dignity at work.

“Digitalisation is very important to keep accounting and operations clean, to ultimately enable workers a livelihood,” he says.

“At the end of the day, it’s the impact of what it does for the workers that we care about.”

Learn how Xero can help your business.