What is it: a start up service exchange platform based on the Barter system. Pain points: Person A: Imagine you’re software engineer building the next google in your garage, you need legal advice but don’t have money yet to pay for a lawyer at this stage. Person B: Lawyer, need help with marketing to promote their new practice. Person C: Marketer, has a start up idea but need a software engineer’s help (that’s me 😋) Solution: Person B provides legal help to person A and collects points that they can spend on getting services from Person C. Person C can then spend points on Person A. The point system: To make it simple - 1 point is equivalent to 1$. - People set up their own point rate. Monetization: - If you don’t want to render services, you can just purchase points with $ to hire whoever you want. We get a percentage of the total price. - if you want to render services but want to be paid only in cash, you can convert your points to $, we get a percentage here as well. What do we think? Would this work? Edit: adding poll to make it easier #tech #startup #ideas
Too long to read, not stealing
Loooool in true Amazon fashion, I respect that!
Lols an Amazonian complaining that something takes too long to read? We have a doc got everything literally and we have meetings dedicated to reading docs.
I think someone made that up a long time ago using what they call "coins" or money instead of using sugar or salt.
I’m sure this is not a new idea given that the barter system existed for centuries, it’s just how we can do it better and provide value
This is just contract work but you for some reason take a percentage
It’s contract work where you pay with your own services vs money if you don’t have cash
Right, but I can pay with money I make from offering my own services elsewhere… I fail to see how you’re necessary
Lets say Im looking for a marketer and I can use your platform to find them for 1000 points, now I’m not gonna spend time collecting those points to avail them. I might as well buy the points and get their service, but thats the same as paying for any marketing service via existing platforms. What’s different here? While it doesn’t apply to me personally, it may apply to someone else and you need to figure that market and validate your idea before you proceed.
Thank you so much for taking the time to provide feedback and that’s a good point that I haven’t 100% figured out, maybe you get “free points” when you do actions in the website, like sign up, update your profile, etc. And these initial points can be used to get a service. As you become more active on the community and offer your own services you start building out loyalty points in addition to the ones you earn?
Interesting idea. How do you stop a marketer, a lawyer, and an engineer rendering a bunch of services to each other for points and then coming back to your platform and asking for cash in exchange? If think there will be a strong imbalance between people buying points and people cashing in points. Per your example I’m only using the platform because I don’t have cash, otherwise I’d just pay for those services. I think this problem will exist even if people act in good faith but compounding it - the ability to abuse the system is high unless I’m missing something.
Waw I didn’t even think of that!! 🤔 I don’t know the immediate answer but yes the idea will definitely need to be refined and account for these risk issues
Yeah let’s post our startup ideas in front of a community that could easily replicate them and would steal them…and then ask them to not steal them. Genius.
LOL I’m so passionate about this idea and don’t have the technical skills to build it, so I am okey if someone steals and just makes me CMO 😂
How is this different from Upwork or Fiverr? The point system is pretty gimmicky. You need a stronger differentiator to have user growth since high CAC are no longer sustainable due to the high interest rate environment.
Updog is better
I think the positioning is different, this is not a company hiring a contractor but more people from the same community helping each other. The point system is not gimmicky in my opinion because it solves (a bit) the high cost of getting into entrepreneurship or create a start up, especially in these economic conditions where cash is scarce.
TLDR
Can you then just read the pain point and solution please?
All that matters is getting returning and paying users. That’s all that makes an idea good or not.
That’s true, that’s why I’m hesitating with this idea tbh. I think it could really provide a lot of value to the users and I can see a growing audience for it but maybe it’s not monetizable enough since it’s based on service exchange and not cash per say
Launch a signup form on Reddit and social media, see who signs up.
Stolen, too late
Nooo let’s work on it together!
Naah, just discussed it with my buddy. We are meeting tonight to get started.