Yohana, the personal concierge service launched in Seattle by a robotics pioneer juggling life as a busy mom, is expanding nationwide.
Founder and CEO Yoky Matsuoka debuted Yohana in September 2021 as a way to help families manage ever-growing to-do lists. The service’s membership plan matches users with a real human assistant and others who can help with everything from planning parties to booking reservations to signing up kids for sports teams. It’s all buoyed by behind-the-scenes data and automation.
A fully funded independent subsidiary of Panasonic, Yohana expanded to Los Angeles earlier this year.
Matsuoka is a former Google and Apple technology leader who won a MacArthur Genius award in 2007 as a professor at the University of Washington. She told GeekWire that the response to her newest venture has exceeded expectations.
“We knew that families needed support and were struggling, but the feedback and testimonials we hear from our members has reinforced our mission to help modern families thrive,” Matsuoka said.
For $249 per month (reduced to $149 for the remainder of the year), Yohana members now get access to four core benefits:
- Yohana Guide: Families have a go-to person who works to understand their needs, set goals and find balance for the family.
- Yohana Specialists: Every family is matched with a specialist and team experienced in managing home, family and experience planning to help with a broad range of needs.
- Yohana Pro & Partner Network: Members access third-party providers such as plumbers or roofers or wellness specialists who provide additional services for the home, family, and personal well-being.
- Yohana App + Website: A virtual management system, where members can create tasks for their team, see what’s been completed and track time saved.
Matsuoka said those services are an expansion of what Yohana first launched with, and they’ve come after Matsuoka learned just how much help families really need.
“When we started in Seattle, we paired families with one Yo Assistant, backed by researchers and AI to make them ‘superhuman,'” Matsuoka said. “But our members needed even more support.”
The company has supported more than 3,000 families and completed nearly 50,000 to-do tasks since launch. Help with weekday meal planning is huge now, Matsuoka said, eclipsing the initial demand around home repair requests. And a recent special aimed at helping families figure out Halloween planning — costumes, decor, healthy treats — was well received.
“We’ve had some families say that Yohana has saved them up to 8-10 hours per week,” Matsuoka said.
Yohana is relying heavily on feedback from members. The original experience was built entirely on an app, but expanded to a desktop version at the request of members. A focus on helping take the stress out of the holidays came after seeing members’ most requested tasks in 2021.
“We have honed in on our members’ stories and listened to their core pain points that they wanted resolved,” Matsuoka said. “They help identify areas of opportunity in order to design experiences that are compelling, meaningful, and focused on addressing key needs.”
Based in Silicon Valley, Yohana now employs about 140 people.
