Anvi Bonanthaya
Founder and CEOPlatform and concept creation; manages finances; handles technology and business operations; conducts market research; shapes growth strategy
About HomeNex
We're building a marketplace where households find local help they actually trust, and providers, no matter their age, get a real shot at growing something.
ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Anvi Bonanthaya, Founder and CEO of HomeNex
Anvi Bonanthaya is the founder and CEO of HomeNex, and a high school senior from Long Island, New York.
Her HomeNex journey began about two years ago, when she noticed something in her own community. Plenty of teenagers and young adults around her were good at something people would happily pay for, but they had nowhere to easily show it. Intrigued by this simple issue she had observed, Anvi wanted to understand the why, so she started doing the research.
What began as simple curiosity grew the more she learned. The more she read about how young providers try to earn trust, the clearer it became that this was a bigger problem than one neighborhood, and that someone needed to act on it.
So she decided to build the solution herself. Armed with a rudimentary coding foundation, she learned the more complex concepts required to build an app this multifaceted through online tutorials, working through one problem at a time. After months of hard work, she independently developed HomeNex, from the first prototype to the live site.
For Anvi, HomeNex is more than a web app. It’s a way to make sure that being young, or new at something, never means being overlooked.
A simple belief drives her: anyone who is good at something deserves a real chance to be noticed. She is continuously learning from new experiences as she embarks on this startup journey, and is still refining HomeNex every day alongside the providers and families who shape it.
Our Values
Trust First
Real portfolios and real recommendations. Not an anonymous listing.
Local by Design
Built around your own neighborhood, so you can get to know the person you hire.
Everyone Starts Somewhere
Never run a business before? Doesn't matter. We built the structure to help you prove yourself anyway.
Built to Grow
Providers keep what they earn. Households keep who they know.
Our Mission
HomeNex exists because getting local service gigs shouldn't depend solely on your resume or who you already know. We built this for anyone who's genuinely good at something, whether it be photography, tutoring, walking every dog on the block, but has never had a real place to prove it and get noticed. And we built it for the neighbor who just wants someone reliable, without scrolling through a hundred anonymous reviews written by strangers. On one side, we're handing people the structure to turn what they're good at into something real: a unique portfolio, a following, a reputation that's actually theirs. On the other, we're making it easier to find that person the way it always used to work, through people you already trust, just a lot faster. We're not trying to replace word of mouth. We're just trying to give it room to travel further than your block in this digital age.
Why We Built HomeNex
The Problem
Getting noticed shouldn't take this long.
Emerging providers struggle to prove they're legitimate, with no easy way to build a real professional identity. Especially minors, who despite being the most digitally native generation yet, have never had a platform built to take them seriously in this context. Households, meanwhile, are stuck piecing trust together from scattered reviews and word of mouth that rarely travels past their own block.
The Solution
One platform, built for both sides.
HomeNex gives providers of any experience level a real portfolio to prove what they can do, with no lead fees standing in the way. Households get the same word of mouth that's always worked, just digitized and easy to find, through recommendations from people they already know.
The Research Behind HomeNex
68%
The share of teens and young adults who say they'd start a service-based side hustle if they knew where to begin.
87%
Young providers who say they'd feel taken more seriously with a real portfolio to point to, instead of just a text thread or a word-of-mouth reputation.
2.8×
How much faster providers land a first booking through a recommendation network compared to cold outreach alone.
Academic Foundation
This started with a 3-phase action research study on the real barriers adolescents face trying to offer hyperlocal service gigs or run a small service business, with challenges centering around credibility, entrepreneurial identity, legitimacy, operational overload, and lack of community support. Those key findings directly shaped how HomeNex works today: structured profiles to solve for credibility, the portfolio system to build entrepreneurial identity, and a genuinely simplified toolset so providers never feel like they're drowning in a platform built for someone else's business. The early platform was also reviewed by a panel of business educators, who rated it 36.7 out of 40 before a single round of beta testing. Full methodology coming soon.
Recognition
Leadership
Minyoung Kim
CMOManages social media channels; leads the NexLeaders intern program; advances business development efforts; helps oversee daily operations; shapes growth strategy