From Marketplace to Staffing Platform: Why We Pivoted Ona to Better Serve Home Care Agencies
Today marks an exciting new chapter for Ona. After months of listening to the needs of home care providers and reflecting on the challenges they face, we’re thrilled to announce the re-launch of Ona as an intelligent staffing platform designed specifically for home care agencies.
A Little Backstory: How We Got Here
When we first launched Ona, it was built as a marketplace for elderly care services. Our goal was to help families find trusted caregivers and home care services for their loved ones. And while this was a worthy mission, along the way we uncovered a much deeper, more pressing need within the home care industry: staffing.
Through countless conversations with home care agencies, one pain point came up time and again: finding and retaining qualified caregivers was not just difficult, it was holding agencies back from growing their businesses and providing high-quality care. The process of hiring caregivers was slow, labor-intensive, and expensive.
That insight led us to a crucial decision — we needed to pivot.
Why Staffing?
Home care is a vital service, yet the industry faces an alarming caregiver shortage. Agencies are doing everything they can to provide excellent care, but with high turnover rates (up to 70% annually) and a time-consuming hiring process, it’s hard for them to keep up.
In a sector where time is already stretched thin, spending hours posting job ads, vetting resumes, and conducting interviews means that agencies are losing valuable time they could spend on serving their clients and expanding their operations.
We realized that we could create more impact by solving this staffing problem head-on — and that’s exactly what we set out to do.
The Pivot: Ona’s New Focus on Staffing for Home Care Providers
With our pivot, Ona is now a staffing platform designed to make hiring caregivers simpler, faster, and more cost-effective for home care agencies.
Here’s how we do it:
Sourcing & Pre-Vetting: We combine AI-driven technology with our deep industry knowledge to find highly qualified caregivers. By pre-vetting candidates, we ensure that agencies are only reviewing caregivers who meet their standards.
Seamless Matching: We match agencies with caregivers based on specific needs — whether it’s location, skills, or availability — allowing providers to find the right fit quickly and easily.
Confident Hiring: With background checks, interview scheduling, and streamlined communications, agencies can make secure and confident hiring decisions without the administrative burden.
This new approach doesn’t just make hiring easier; it also allows agencies to reduce their operational costs and focus on providing better care for their clients.
What We’ve Learned and What’s Ahead
This pivot wasn’t made lightly. It was the result of months of interviews with home care leaders, product iteration, and testing. What we learned along the way is that agility and responsiveness to market needs are crucial for success — especially in industries like home care, where the stakes are so high.
We’re confident that this shift will create significant value not only for home care providers but also for the families who rely on these services. By helping agencies hire more efficiently, we hope to ultimately contribute to better care outcomes for the elderly and those in need of support.
An Invitation to Join Us
As we embark on this new phase, we invite home care providers, industry leaders, and investors to learn more about how Ona is helping solve the caregiver shortage by redefining the hiring process. We’re excited to work alongside agencies to help them grow, adapt, and thrive in this rapidly changing industry.
If you’re an agency owner or work in the home care space, check out our platform at www.myonacare.com and see how we can help you hire more effectively. We’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for being part of Ona’s journey — this is just the beginning.
