Ex-Andelans launch Eden, an automated concierge service

Eden has officially launched. The company, founded by three ex-Andelans: Nadayar Enegesi, Prosper Otemuyiwa and Silm Momoh, wants professionals across the country to live their best lives [just as it was in the biblical Garden of Eden].

Ordinarily, people detest house chores. Not only because cleaning the toilet isn't fun, but because time spent on chores could have been used to do paid work or Netflix and Chill.

Across the world, people wanton time on house chores. A poll carried out by Moll Maid revealed that Britons spend an average of 10 years doing house chores, that's about 26 hours/week spent on cleaning and tidying, preparing meals, maintaining the house and car, etc. The UK-based cleaning service concluded that people would rather spend time on themselves—read, go to the gym, relax in front of the TV, go out with friends or spend quality time with family—than on doing chores.

While you may argue that Moll Maid is biased [because they want to sell their market], a compilation of time-use surveys done by the United Nations Development Programme lends credence to their conclusion, especially in developing African countries where people still fetch water and fire woods.

For people working in a city like Lagos, time is of essence. They are always looking for how to free themselves of tedious, time-consuming activities.

Enters Eden, an automated concierge service

Since April, Nadayar (CEO), Prosper (CTO) and Silm (Product) have been working on the tech-enabled concierge service. During that time, they have been able to build an active customer base of busy professionals in Lagos, such as the co-founder of Piggyvest, Odun Eweniyi, and the CEO of MO Agusto, Motunrayo Agusto.

Other members of the Eden team include Funmi Oyatogun (Operations), Justin Irabor (Growth) and Seni Sulyman, VP of Global Operations at Andela (Adviser).

Nadayar, who is also a co-founder of Andela, said:

We imagine a complete redesign of society and the principles that drive it. We are creating new cultures, systems and processes to ensure that people who provide services are rewarded properly and the people who require those services receive the highest quality of service possible. We believe that if we build on that principle from the ground up, we’ll have a more efficient, better-designed and scaleable model for African cities that we can replicate across the continent.

According to the CEO, the kind of person who has consistently used Eden so far is someone for whom time, quite literally, is money. He said: "These people understand that there is zero value in doing chores themselves and so they have readily embraced the value of Eden in their lives."

Speaking on the choice of their location [to launch first], Nadayar explained that the commercial capital of Nigeria seems like the logical place to launch Eden. "It has a growing population of young tech-savvy professionals who are getting increasingly busy by the day. As their standards of living improve, they’re now able to make important decisions about how they want to live. Eden brings the possibility of more living comfort to them."

How does Eden work?

Eden works with a well-trained team of home managers (concierge), who are called gardeners [because they are working in Eden, joo get?]. Once you subscribe to Eden, these gardeners take care of all your domestic chores such as laundry, cleaning, meals, home fumigation, etc. for an affordable fee. There are about eight subscription plans.

Eden also partners with best service providers, who working with the gardeners, to deliver timely and quality services necessary for running the home.