When Services Are the Speed Game: How ‘In-Minutes’ Help is Rewriting Everyday Life
On a muggy Thursday evening in Mumbai, Ankita, a 32-year-old marketing executive, stared at the water pooling beneath her kitchen sink. The plumber, her building’s watchman, knew he was “busy for two days.” In the old days, that meant managing with buckets, mopping endlessly, and praying the damage didn’t spread. Now, she opened an app, tapped “Plumber-Urgent”, and 14 minutes later, Raghav, in a crisp blue uniform with a digital ID badge, was kneeling under her sink, tools in hand. By the time Ankita’s pasta water boiled, the leak was a thing of the past.
Stories like Ankita’s are no longer exceptions. They are becoming the rhythm of urban life. Quick service isn’t new: we’ve long hailed cabs on Ola or Uber in minutes, booked a driver from DriveU, or summoned food that reached us before the next ad break. But the “minutes” promise is now spilling into almost every kind of service imaginable, from a tuition teacher for a last-minute maths revision to a nanny when childcare plans collapse, or a physiotherapist when back pain flares on a Sunday.
This is the next chapter in India’s on-demand economy, and the cast of characters, both customers and service providers, is expanding fast.
Why Now? The Macro Tailwinds
Vikram, a 45-year-old finance professional, jokes that his home now runs like a “hotel with a 24×7 concierge”, only his concierge is a smartphone. The reasons are bigger than convenience. Urban households are stretched thin. Dual-income couples juggle long commutes, after-school runs, and the constant hum of chores.
Technology has caught up to culture: GPS tracking, verified IDs, and customer ratings have replaced the whispered recommendations of the neighbourhood aunty. Platforms that start with one offering, say, home cleaning, can now branch into adjacent categories like AC repair or babysitting without rebuilding their supply networks from scratch.
The pandemic shifted mindsets, too. Inviting a trained gig worker into your home now feels routine, not risky. And investors have noticed: capital that once fuelled grocery quick commerce is flowing into these high-frequency, high-stickiness service models.
Deep Dive: What Makes This Category Click
To understand the pull, meet Meera, a single mother and IT consultant. For her, the “minutes” model is more than a convenience; it’s a safety net. When her regular nanny fell ill, she booked vetted childcare through an app, complete with live GPS tracking and photo updates. Later that week, she used the same platform to hire a yoga trainer for a 6 a.m. session before a big presentation.
The magic lies in frequency and breadth. More categories mean more reasons to open the app: tutoring once a week, plumbing once a season, cleaning every other day. Trust earned in one service spills over into others. And the monetisation potential goes beyond hourly billing: subscription passes for unlimited urgent jobs, surge pricing for peak hours, and corporate contracts for offices or housing societies are already being tested.
Challenges at Rapid Speed
But there’s another side to the story. For Raghav, the plumber from Ankita’s kitchen, the in-minutes economy is both a blessing and a grind. He no longer waits for work to trickle in from the local hardware store; jobs come to him all day. But he’s also racing across micro-markets, juggling ratings, and adapting to digital workflows.
Scaling across categories is an operational marathon. Onboarding a nanny isn’t like onboarding a plumber; the training, checks, and certifications are worlds apart. Maintaining consistent quality across varied services is a constant challenge. Some categories, like tutoring, have a limited supply willing to work on short notice. And with each vertical comes its own regulatory baggage, from childcare compliance to electrical safety standards. All of this burns capital fast, testing investor patience.
Outlook for the Next 6-12 Months
The horizon is shifting from single-category specialists to horizontal service super-apps. Snabbit is preparing to move beyond home help into babysitting, a test of whether its trust-based full-stack model can work in regulated, sensitive verticals. Urban Company, already a super-app for skilled services, may integrate Insta Help to provide instant access to everything from electricians to appliance repair.
Niche entrants may also emerge. Think Tutors-in-Minutes for education or On-Demand Healthcare for nurses and physiotherapists. For investors, the spotlight will be on who can prove retention, lifetime value, and profitability across categories without relying solely on discounts.
Tomorrow’s 10-Minute Services
From broom to brainpower, here’s where the services-in-minutes model could go next.
Tuition teacher: Vetted maths/science tutor at home or online within 30 min, great for exam prep or last-minute clarifications.Nanny on call: Short-notice childcare with background checks & live GPS monitoring for safety.Electrician and Plumber: Minor fixes (switches, leaks) handled the same day, no more waiting till “tomorrow.”Pet Care and Dog Walking: Verified pet handlers for walks, grooming, or feeding when you’re busy or away.Fitness Trainer: Yoga instructor or personal trainer arrives in minutes, with basic equipment in tow.Tech Support: Certified technicians for laptop troubleshooting, smart-home setups, or urgent repairs.On-Demand Healthcare: Nurses, physiotherapists, or lab sample collectors within an hour — bridging healthcare gaps.Event Helpers: Extra servers, bartenders, or decorators for last-minute event needs.
Conclusion
For customers like Ankita and Meera, services-in-minutes is changing how life’s hiccups are handled, from a stressful disruption to a solved problem before dinner is on the table. For providers like Raghav, it’s a steady flow of work and also a new kind of hustle.
Quick-service commerce has moved beyond delivering things to delivering people with skills. The first act may be home help, but the script is already being rewritten to include almost any service you can imagine. The winners will be those who can scale not just speed, but also trust, quality, and fairness, across a dizzying variety of human needs.
LoEstro Advisors is an investment banking firm specializing in sell-side fundraising and M&A advisory, along with a strong consulting arm. Recognized as the #1 financial advisor in education in India, we are the advisor of choice to India’s blue-chip education businesses.
Over the last four years, we have grown to be one of India’s largest (in terms of M&A transactions) homegrown boutique investment banks, with $1.25 bn+ worth of combined deals closed across education, healthcare, consumer, and technology sectors.
