5945 is Taiwan’s up and coming online home repairs marketplace startup. The model is similar to America’s Redbeacon, which was acquired by Home Depot last year.
The name “5945” makes no sense to most folks. But it’s named to be hyper-localized for the Taiwan market. The pronunciation of 5945 sounds like the phrase “calling masters” in Taiwanese Hokkien, a dialect most people in Taiwan can speak or at least understand. In Taiwan, professionals like plumbers, electricians, and carpenters are called shifu – meaning “masters” in English.
The startup was founded in 2010 by computer science graduates Michael Chang and Brian Fang who are high school classmates. Both of them believe that repairmen wouldn’t know how to provide their services on the internet. Therefore, the duo created 5945 as a home services marketplace for people who don’t want to DIY to find them easily on the web. The Taiwanese startup was incubated by AppWorks in 2010 and was subsequently invested in 2012.
5945 has over 300 handymen who cover the majority of Taiwan, including Taipei, New Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. To date, 5945 has received over 3,300 user requests for repairmen and generates over $67,000 worth of service sales for these professionals.
For 2013, the Taiwanese startup aims to launch mCall, a mobile application that will help connect these service people and users directly through mobile devices. 5945 claims that 60 percent of all home repair professionals are using smartphones. 5945 is also looking to break even this year.
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