A team of software engineering students have built Fixh.me, a digital platform to help homeowners source reliable home repair services.

The platform is the brainchild of Teng Seavpor, Tea Vengtieng, Sim Chhay, and Phan Putheary who are students at Kirirom Institute of Technology.

Speaking for the team, Seavpor, who is a software engineering major, told The Post that he hatched the idea to build a home repair service platform in his freshman year.

“At that time, I was a youth who just stepped into my first year of university life. Once, I wanted to find a reliable technician to fix something in my house but did not know where to start,” said Seavpor, who is head of strategy for the platform.

The experience inspired him to find a solution for homeowners who faced the same difficulty in getting quality and affordable home repair services.

So together with his co-founders, Seavpor started to build Fixh.me, which was initially called Homex. It took the team six months to develop the idea and another four months to develop the website.

Fixh.me’s mobile app is still in the development process and expected to be ready for the official launch in the next four to five months.

Seavpor and his team are working with another company to develop the mobile app. “Our team designs the features and functionality of the platform while the collaborating company takes care of the coding for the app.

“Fixh.me is a platform that connects technicians to those homeowners who need plumbing, electricity, and electronic device fixing services. As of now, customers can contact us through our Facebook page, make a phone call, or book services they need online on our website.

Seavpor said that the technicians registered in the platform have all gone through a quality screening process. Fixh.me gains profit by charging technicians a 20 per cent commission from the fees they are paid by platform users.

“Once you booked the service [you need] and scheduled the time for the visit to your house, we will match the request to an available technician.

“If a user needs the service urgently, we can arrange a technician to be at your doorstep in about 20 minutes from the time of confirming a booking.”

In the SmartStart Cycle 2 challenge, the team behind Fixh.me won a cash prize of $4,000 and was awarded entry into a six-month incubator programme to transform their tech ideas into reality.

Also, they received $9,000, extensive publicity and coaching for being one of the three winning teams in the Startupper of the Year by Total Challenge 2018-2019.

Seavpor said: “Working on this project has given me the chance to explore something that I didn’t learn in class and implement all my skills in a real-world scenario.”

However, since Seavpor and his fellow co-founders were full-time students, they had a tough time juggling between managing the platform and their studies.

“It is a very challenging task because when we created the platform, most of our team were freshmen with little experience in coding and ways to do business.

“We did extensive research, asked opinions of a lot of people, and spent a lot of time to get this platform ready,” he said.

Although the mobile application will be launched in the next four or five months as an alternative way for seeking our services, Seavpor said he focused on the website and social media platform rather than the mobile application.

“In the future, we will have more services for customers, such as cleaning the house and home maintenance and our value of the company is to put customers first. We believe that with Fixh.me, household maintenance is no longer a problem.”

One can avail of the services in three ways – logon to www.fixh.me and book a service online, go to facebook.com/fixhme to book through facebook, or dial 0969611112 to book via phone a call.

For more information, visit www.homexkh.com or email: [email protected].