The 'Quick' Dilemma: Ankur Bisen on Urban Company's InstaHelp and the Future of Home Services

India’s consumer landscape is addicted to speed. What began with 10-minute grocery deliveries has now spilled over into the gig economy, giving rise to the “quick home services” sector.

Leading the charge is Urban Company with its rapidly expanding InstaHelp vertical, promising near-instant deployment of technicians for immediate home fixes.

However, a recent deep-dive by The CapTable asks the million-dollar question: InstaHelp is growing fast, but can Urban Company actually make money on it?

Ankur Bisen, Senior Partner at The Knowledge Company (TKC), recently shared his perspective on this high-stakes pivot from scheduled services to hyper-local, on-demand fulfillment, highlighting the severe operational challenges beneath the impressive top-line growth.

The fundamental difference between quick commerce and quick services lies in the nature of the “inventory.”

While q-commerce relies on standardized products stored in hyper-local dark stores, quick home services rely on human capital. Deploying a skilled electrician or plumber within a 30-minute window requires a dense, hyper-local network of idle professionals.

As Bisen points out in the broader industry context, managing the utilization rates of these highly skilled gig workers without eroding margins is the ultimate operational bottleneck.

The rapid growth of InstaHelp, alongside agile new competitors like Pronto and Snabbit, proves that consumer demand for emergency home services is massive.

Customers are willing to pay for convenience when a pipe bursts or the AC fails in peak summer.

However, the unit economics tell a different story.

• Customer Acquisition vs. Ticket Size: Emergency fixes often have lower ticket sizes compared to scheduled deep-cleaning or appliance servicing.

• The Cost of Speed: To guarantee low ETAs, platforms must incentivize workers to remain on standby in specific micro-markets, driving up operational costs.

The challenge for Urban Company is proving that this vertical can transition from a “growth-at-all-costs” customer acquisition tool into a sustainably profitable standalone business model.

The emergence of players like Pronto and Snabbit indicates that the market is fragmenting, forcing legacy platforms to defend their turf. For these models to survive the next 24 months, the focus must inevitably shift from mere scale to execution discipline, optimizing route algorithms, dynamic surge pricing, and maximizing the daily earnings of the gig workforce to prevent high churn rates.

The Knowledge Company’s strategic advisory practice helps digital platforms and service aggregators navigate the fragile balance between hyper-growth and sustainable unit economics.

• Unit Economics & Margin Optimization: We help platforms stress-test their operational models, identifying hidden costs in fulfillment and idle capacity.

• Gig Workforce Strategy: Advising on incentive structures, retention modeling, and productivity optimization for dispersed, highly skilled workforces.

• Competitive Benchmarking: Analyzing the strategic maneuvers of both incumbents and agile startups in the evolving quick-service landscape.

• Route-to-Market Evolution: Helping traditional service brands build the technological and operational muscle to compete in the on-demand era.

Is your service model optimized for both speed and profitability? Connect with TKC to turn operational complexity into a sustainable competitive advantage.