Transforming home repair services with an AI-powered handyman marketplace

  • Category: Enterprise
  • Industry: Consumer services and marketplaces
  • Service: Enterprise
  • Client: Leading home services platform

A leading UK platform partnered with Symphony to evolve from a directory into a two-sided marketplace with bookings, payments, and job management. We blended discovery and delivery, used agentic patterns where they truly helped, and kept the rest pragmatic—so the team could launch fast, meet privacy requirements, and continue scaling with confidence.

Problem

The client wanted to move beyond lead-gen to a transactional marketplace. Nothing was built yet, timelines were tight, and the product had to support secure authentication, payments, scheduling, and role-based workflows for homeowners and tradespeople—without creating long-term complexity.

  • Needed to transition from directory to transactional marketplace
  • Tight timeline with no existing product foundation
  • Complex requirements for secure authentication and payments
  • Role-based workflows for homeowners and tradespeople
  • Need to avoid long-term technical complexity

Solution

Symphony delivered a fast, scalable MVP and an approach the client's team could own:

  • Phase-gated delivery: Concept → scope → clickable flows → MVP → hardening & launch, with explicit exit criteria at each step
  • Agentic where useful: Cursor/Replit-driven coding assistance and promptable UX patterns to accelerate iteration; pragmatic software everywhere else
  • Privacy & safety by design: Least-privilege access, data minimization, vetted third-party auth and payments, and reviewable prompts/configs
  • Handover-ready: Internal team onboarding, deployment playbooks, and an admin view for configurations and guardrails

Technology: Built using phase-gated delivery methodology with AI-assisted development tools where beneficial, combined with pragmatic software engineering for core marketplace functionality.

Under the hood

Comprehensive marketplace platform with dual-sided user experiences:

  • Homeowners: browse and book jobs, pay, track status, receive notifications
  • Tradespeople: manage availability, accept jobs, message customers, handle payouts
  • Integrations: secure sign-in, payments, scheduling, and notifications
  • Delivery accelerators: design-to-dev continuity (Figma → GitHub), automated PR checks, acceptance tests, and rapid review environments
  • Privacy-first architecture with least-privilege access controls
  • Admin dashboard for configuration management and operational oversight

Impact

  • The two-sided marketplace moved from concept to production in 6 weeks instead of 12—a 4× speed-up—with bookings, payments, and job management live on day one
  • A smaller cross-functional team iterated faster by using agentic assist where it helped and pragmatic software where it didn't
  • Phase gates and privacy guardrails improved confidence in go-live and ongoing operations
  • A structured handover enabled the client's internal team to run and extend the product
  • Privacy and safety requirements met through design, not retrofitting
  • Scalable architecture ready for rapid user growth and feature expansion
  • 4× - Speed-up in time to market
  • 6 weeks - From concept to production
  • Day 1 - Bookings, payments & job management live
  • 100% - Team handover readiness

https://symphony.is/our-impact/case-studies/leading-home-services-platform