Our Mission
tuugu is a social business Our goal is to offer a fair, transparent and a not-for-profit service, that not only our users benefit from, but also society in general. To provide homes with reliable cleaners is not the end for us, because 100% of our profits will be donated to partnered charity organisations who support children and teenagers.
Our journey It started with the desire to create fair educational opportunities for children. There are many different ways to get involved in this area, but we have chosen this path, when we discovered the Economy for the Common Good (Gemeinwohl-Ökonomie). The Economy for the Common Good stands for a different form of economy. Whereas the primary goal of traditional companies is profit, tuugu’s priority is contributing to the common good.
The business model With our desire to make a meaningful contribution, we searched for an established business model that we could adapt and improve into a social direction. In the process we came across online cleaning platforms, where we saw a major need for improvement.
Most cleaning platforms are part of the gig economy. A ‘gig economy’ is probably an unknown term for most of us, despite it affecting almost all areas of our lives.
The Gig-Economy Whether we order pizza, have our purchase delivered in 10 minutes, or book a cleaner with a few clicks, we are clients of the so-called gig economy. The business model of all the major platforms we are using everyday is simply explained: They bring two user groups that are looking for one another together. At first glance there is nothing wrong with that. Clients find their service providers and service providers find work.
What even is there to improve for us? All those platforms have one thing in common. Ultimately, it all centres around maximising profit. Of course, it is not unusual that businesses are eager to generate profit. We do certainly have a problem though when these businesses build their success at the expense of the service providers who do the real work. While clients mostly use online offerings for free, cleaners pay 30-40% commission on market-leading platforms thus financing the success of these businesses. Wage dumping, illicit work and exploitation are not terms we have invented, but are known issues of the strongly growing gig economy.
A social alternative tuugu is not a technological innovation but a step forward towards a just society. Being the first charitable cleaning platform, we bring people together without exploitation or putting anyone at a disadvantage. That is why our cleaning platform is freely available for all of our clients. Only those who can financially support tuugu can pay a voluntary monthly fee that can be adjusted or cancelled at any time.
Only with your help we can make our social business model a succes, that we all will benefit from continuosly.