Technology

Every project management tool seeks to do the same instrumental thing: keep teams connected, on task and on deadline to get major initiatives done. But the market is getting pretty crowded, and for good reason — no platform seems to have gotten the right feel for what people need to see, and how that information should be displayed so that itboth actionable/relevant, and contextualized.

Thatwhy monday.com is worth a shot. The platform is based off a simple, but powerful idea: that as humans, we like to feel like we&re contributing to part of a greater/effort good — an idea that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle as we focus on the details of getting stuff done. So projects are put onto a task board (think of it like a digital whiteboard), where everyone can have the same level of visibility into anyone else whocontributing set of tasks. That transparency breaks down the silos between teams that cause communication errors and costly project mistakes — and ita beautiful, simple way to connect people to the processes that drive forward big business initiatives.

The Roomba i7+ looks like, well, it looks like a Roomba. There are few factors distinguishing the product from the last several generations. The rollers are bright green, along with a large Automatic Dirt Disposal section just below. Beyond that, however, itnearly identical to what you&ll already find on store shelves.

For iRobot co-founder and CEO Colin Angle, however, the product represents the culmination of the companynearly 30-year existence. &This is the thing,& the executive explains. &This is the Roomba I&ve always wanted to make.&

The latest version of the robotic vacuum represents a number of advances over its predecessor, chief among them the ability to know where itgoing and remember where itbeen. Ita skill Angle has teased for a few years now, including several appearances on TechCrunch — and high atop the list of the linemost requested features.

The feature has been teased in past versions of the home robot. Last year, the company added Clean Mapping to the 900 series. The feature lets the robot create an indoor map of the home, showing where the Roomba spent most of its time and helping it return home to the dock, even when iton the other side of the home.

With the i7+, however, Roomba will be able to recognize different rooms.

&The idea that we can build this system that remembers whatgoing on in the home is the big leap,& Angle tells TechCrunch. &The 900 built maps, but didn&t remember them. The goal of organizing information to enable the smart home required this robot. For the company, ithuge. We transition from being a company that is building robots to a company that is organizing spatial information in the home. Therea data dimension to the company that can now actually be talked about.&

This is accomplished, in part, due to a large jump in computational power — 50x over the 900 series, according to the CEO. While most users refresh their Roombas at roughly the same rate as smartphones (every two to three years), the bump in on-board tech means the company is able to offer a device that continuously updates over the life of the product.

&Itmuch more of a platform at this point,& Angle says. &We can improve your robot, and you should expect the robot to be more of a software product. Your ability to interact with it and the sophistication of what it can do at launch versus a year from now is actually going to be pretty different. The next time it can be smarter about what it can do.&

iRobot gave us a sneak peek of the product on a recent trip to its Bedford, Mass. headquarters. The iRobotHOME labis a 4,000-square-foot fake home protected by a series of secure doors. Itmuch nicer and much larger than my own New York City apartment, save for the notes that line different piece of furniture, warning visitors not to do things like lie on the bed.

The company showed off the tech by mapping roughly half the space for the new Roomba, code-named &Lewis,& as a tip of the cap to one half of the famed duo of 19th century American explorers. The combination of iAdapt 3.0 Navigation with vSLAM location mapping makes the robot able to navigate to a destination chosen by the user. The recent additions of Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa means users can command the robot with their voice.

Thereone more key hardware addition for the i7+, which addresses another longstanding complaint with the Roomba. The Clean Base is a large bin attached to the charging dock. Using the Automatic Dirt Disposal system, the Roomba is able to empty its own bin. You&ll still have to clean out the larger bin, of course, but only 1/30th of the time of the on-board system.When that bag is full, the user will get a notification from the app.

The i7+ is up for presale starting today, priced at $699. The clean base runs another $299. The robot will start shipping in September. You also can get a sneak peek of the system this week at TechCrunch Disrupt.

South Korean home cleaning service Miso wants to leave its competition in the dust after raising an $8 million Series A. Led by AddVenture, with participation from returning investors Y Combinator, FundersClub and Strong Ventures, and new backer Social Capital, the funding will be used on marketing and entering new Asian countries.

The Y Combinator alum, which was the third startup from South Korea to participate in the accelerator program, has now raised over $10.5 million in total. When TechCrunch first profiled Miso in June 2016, it was processing about 5,000 bookings a month. Now co-founder and CEO Victor Ching says the platform processes about 50,000 to 60,000 cleanings a month.

The company claims that it has processed over 750,000 bookings since it was founded in 2015 and made more than $40 million in gross merchandise value over the last three years. It has served a total of 110,000 customers and currently has 15,000 cleaners on its platform, which is accessible through mobile apps and its website.

When they launched, Miso and competitors like WaHome and Daeri Jubu represented a shift in how home cleaners work in South Korea, where demand for their services is growing thanks to the increase in dual-income households. As Ching explains to TechCrunch, cleaners previously had to pay a monthly fee to join an agency and were often required to check in at its office to wait for bookings, even though work wasn&t guaranteed. Cleaning apps give customers and cleaners more convenience and flexibility, as well as a rating system for transparency.

Ching says that when he and co-founder Haksu Lee started Miso, they assumed most cleaners would want the equivalent of full-time work, or about 30 to 40 hours a week. In reality, however, only about 30% of its providers want to work that many hours, while the rest clean on a part-time basis or to supplement their income. Full time cleaners on the platform typically earn up to about $2,000 a month (in comparison, the monthly minimum wage for full-time work in South Korea is about $1,400).

To stand out from competitors, Miso has focused on developing scale over the last two years, says Ching, who was chief product officer at food delivery startup Yogiyo before it was acquired by Delivery Hero in 2014. Chingexperience handling food delivery logistics helped him develop Misobackend so that when bookings began to increase, it was able to arrange shorter commutes for cleaners. This in turn allowed the company to offer quicker bookings of about 2 to 3 hours, expanding its customer base (it initially only offered four- or eight-hour sessions). Its services also now include air conditioner and washing machine cleanings, as well as same-day bookings in some markets.

Misologistics system also helps match cleaners and customers. About half of its customer base are subscribers, which mean they typically book a cleaning once a week. Most prefer to have the same person come over every week, but that means Miso needs to pair them with a cleaner who is willing to go over regularly. Misoplatform takes into account the preferences of both customers and providers and also tries to match jobs in the same building or apartment complex with one cleaner. Ching says this is an important advantage Miso has over competitors, because its focus on convenience keeps cleaners loyal to the platform.