Mowing your lawn and removing snow from your driveway can be tedious, time-consuming and exhaustive. Ann Arbor, Michigan-based LawnGuru is solving this problem by making these tasks as simple as making a request with a tap of a button, just like what Uber did for taxi services.
LawnGuru was started by Skye Durrant and Brandon Bertrang. The two long-time friends met attending high school in South Lyon, Michigan, where they mowed lawns together to save for college. While Durrant attended the University of Colorado-Boulder, Bertrang continued to mow lawns while earning his Bachelor’s degree in finance from Michigan State University—allowing him to graduate debt-free. During their college years, Durrant and Bertrang would spend their time catching up pitching and refining countless startup ideas. Little did they know that, years later, they would come up with a groundbreaking idea that solves the problem for people who need help with lawn care and snow removal.
With years of experience mowing lawns, Bertrang and Durrant knew firsthand what pain points plague industry professionals every day and how much value solving them would unlock. To this day, you’ll still find Bertrang and Durrant on site at jobs to get a feel of the user experience and prioritize improvements.
Both of them created an iOS version of the app in May 2015 with the help of Jacob Torrence, who was then a student at the University of Michigan. LawnGuru quickly expanded onto Android and web-based platform to broaden their reach in markets. After launching a trial market spanning just 12 zip codes, LawnGuru has grown to provide coverage across the greater Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Philadelphia and Washington D.C metro areas and the lower peninsula of Michigan.
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