Last July, when Enjoy.com was just launching, high-end home-technology integrator Mat Lindstedt gave the new on-demand service a try. The owner of Silicon Valley Installation Co. in San Jose, Calif., Lindstedt shared his experience with CE Pro back then.

We are sharing it now as a complement to the editorial in the May issue of CE Pro concerning home technology and the on-demand economy.

While Enjoy isn't an on-demand service as we know it — you don't push a button on an app to beckon the nearest independent contractor — but it offers at least a glimpse into the future of home-technology fulfilment.

Installation and training on Sonos, Apple TV, Philips Hue, simple networking gear, drones and other select devices is free. How can it be free? 

“It's super simple,” says “Stew,” a “Bay Area Expert” for Enjoy. “We don't have stores. And when you don't have stores, you don't have to pay for things like rent or electricity or maintenance or insurance. Aaaaaand, when you don't have to pay for things like [the aforementioned], you can afford to send out super-great experts to deliver your super-great products. For free. It's match. It's awesome.”

Super simple, indeed.

After reading about Lindstedt's experience (thanks Gordon Van Zuiden for the introduction), we discussed Enjoy's business model. Here's his (correct) assessment.

It is a fascinating business model, and even though the manufacturers may be subsidizing the program, I still can't for the life of me figure out how they will ever be able to compete. As anyone in this business will tell you, it's very expensive to drive to a client home and set up anything without a lot margin in place to make it feasible.

Enjoy.com was founded in 2015 by Ron Johnson, the architect of the Apple Store and former CEO of JC Penney.

– Julie Jacobson

Mat Lindstedt, Silicon Valley Installation Co.

My Sonos ENJOY set up was interesting and fun. 

Two very nice people showed up on a Saturday morning at 10am..In separate cars. They actually were about 12 minutes early, but I watched them sit in their respective cars until 10am sharp. They came in with a very nice cloth tote bag along with my $199 Sonos Play 1. I told them they could set it up on my kitchen table while I “downloaded the Sonos App”. And then I saw one of them notice my seven Sonos products through out my house and I told them that I was just interested in learning about ENJOY.

They had already completed 3 Sonos installs that week and as you can imagine had some good stories about clients knowing nothing about their routers, Wi-Fi passwords, firewalls, iTunes passwords, Pandora passwords, Spoitfy passwords, etc.

They had some funny stories about what its like to go into homes and teach them about electronics….For an hour….for free….at an exact time, not a window of time.

I asked the two lovely ENJOY people how they expect to ever be profitable (in my rolling of the eyes of course). They hummed and hawed and said that they expect to do lots of volume and people really need help setting up their equipment. Of course they had no clue on how to make money doing it. 

I taught them a few things about Sonos — managed switches, Ethernet Storms, pairing up Sonos Connect Amps with rear speakers, what TOSLINK cables are ….

Clearly they were overwhelmed.

They left after one hour, having sold me one $199 product.that they might have made $49 profit on. I think the tote bag with the ENJOY logo is probably worth about $9. 

The funny thing is, there was no follow up. No user survey about my experience. No emails to get me to purchase more stuff. Nothing, And, except for the first day press I have heard nothing about ENJOY. 

Marc Andreessen should have just written me the check for $20 million. I could blow through it just as fast. 

NEXT: When Will Home Technology Installs be Uberized?

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