We sat down with Jorey Ramer to discuss his new tech company. He founded Super to help homeowners save money, manage their home services, prevent problems and cover appliances and home system breakdowns.
REAM: What inspired you to start Super?
JR: The idea for Super was born from a personal experience. When my wife and I moved from Boston to the Bay Area, we purchased our first home. As long-time renters, we were used to paying the same amount month–to–month and having someone else maintain our home.
We had one person to call when I needed help – the building super.
We quickly discovered there was a huge difference between renting and owning. Owning a home took up too much time and money. It’s too unpredictable, and it’s hard to budget for inevitable breakdowns.
I searched for a solution. There are a lot of companies out there that want to make homeownership easier, but none of them gave me the experience I was looking for –so I started Super.
I saw an opportunity to create a company that could shake up a constantly complained-about industry that hasn’t seen innovation in decades: home warranty.
Home warranty covers the cost of breakdowns, which are serviced by a network of technicians–offering a component of a renter-like experience. There was a huge opportunity to improve a homeowner’s experience when it comes to caring for their home, and to offer a service that goes beyond just fixing things when they break, and I wanted to seize it.
REAM: How does it differ from home warranty companies already on the market?
JR: We’re a technology company at our core. Technology is behind everything we do to make caring for a home easier – from a mobile app to easily request and schedule services, maintaining a digital record of all the work done to a home, to a cashless transaction system that offers a seamless payment process and detects fraud.
Our long-term vision is to ultimately cover 100 percent of repair and maintenance in your home. You’ll never have to pay for anything because everything will be included in your Super subscription.
REAM: Have you worked with any real estate companies or agents through the development process?
JR: Real estate professionals have a valuable perspective on the needs of homeowners and where opportunities may exist to improve the homeownership experience. Feedback from our real estate partners is important to us as we continuously work to enhance our offering. In fact, we assembled an Agent Advisory Group, made up of some of our most active agent partners, who contribute to our product development process.
REAM: How do you see companies like Super impacting the future of the industry?
JR: Like any tech-driven business, we’re a catalyst for change and will inspire the entire industry to evolve. We’ve already seen other companies in our market working to bring about change in their organizations seeing the threat of technology disruption.
REAM: What is next for Super? Expansion? New platform?
JR: Super is currently available in seven major metro markets–Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio–with plans to expand into new markets in the coming year. We’ll also be enhancing our maintenance service offerings as we understand that caring for a home means more than just fixing things when they break down. Properly maintaining appliances and systems can help prevent breakdowns to begin with.
REAM: Anything else you’d like to add?
JR: We’ve built a team of great people who are talented, passionate, diligent, empathetic, and honest. As a result, those people attract other similar people.
All of those people are owners in the business. If everyone walks in the door feeling like they’re a respected owner in the business, then they’ll speak out for change when it’s needed. They’ll speak out when they see problems, regardless of whether or not those problems are within their responsibility. They’ll propose solutions, even if those solutions might be different from what’s been prescribed by management.
As owners in the business, everyone has an incentive to do the right thing for our customers, service providers, real estate agents, and employees. They do so not only because it’s reflective of the type of people they are, but also because it pays dividends for the business. When there’s ambiguity, we lean in the direction of what’s good for the customer.
