Doesn't this already exist? I don't like to base my comments off things I see in movies, but I seem to remember the characters in the movie Eurotrip getting discounted flights to Europe because they were acting as couriers.
I look at this and can't help but think how important it is to entrepreneurs. "Why" is fundamental, the building blocks for your implementation/execution, the "how".
The fundamental question for a venture is: Why are we doing what we are doing? Expressed market demand. We can make money providing the supply for that demand.
Interestingly, "why" is also where all "how" questions eventually lead when you dig deep enough. How are we going to provide a solution? Through a mobile application. Why a mobile app?
If you are not asking a why question, you haven't thought enough about a particular topic. And if you think long enough, all your "why" questions should eventually lead back to the fundamental answer, "because there is demand for this".
Well, I wouldn't call it a "market", exactly. But people spend money on plenty of things they don't need to. And if no one supports all the great stuff people work on and put up for free on the Web, then we'll just get more and more obnoxious advertisements and more crazy schemes from big businesses.
At TipTheWeb (see my comments above), we think that by supporting the publishers of the stuff you like online, you're helping to make the Web a place that's more valuable to you. We all want more of the good stuff and less of the crap. If you tip a blog post that you like 10 cents, then not only does the publisher of that blog make a little money, but they also get some information about which of the stuff they write is valuable to their readers. This is a feedback loop that's missing from advertisement-driven publishing, where they get the ad impression regardless of whether you like the content.
Flattr would work better if it did more stuff. For example, if there was an API allowing any Flattr user to pay an amount into any other Flattr user's account. This would probably involve issues with banking regulations, however.
Interesting. Could it be that they are looking to raise equity to make it easier to acquire competition?
Makes sense to me that they need to diversify their model to compete with some of the new ventures in the market. It might make more sense of Yelp to acquire the platform and the product knowledge than build it in-house. If they have equity in the market, it might be easier to acquire these companies with stock than through a private cash acquisition.
Not sure if that's true, but I'm throwing it out there for debate.
The smart money IPOs just before a market transition, and the retail-aid market is s-t-a-l-e for change. We've got the various players all lined up, but where it goes is anybody's guess. Yelp is preparing to do something, whether it's Groupon or GoDaddy remains to be seen, and an IPO would fund it much more easily than what they have now.
I think the idea of suing for only a dollar is to show that it isn't about the money. I can relate to the frustration experienced when you can't get in touch with a human being through a website--especially when its a non-web based company.
I doubt FB would setup a call center--imagine the call volume! That said, maybe an online chat with a support person? Or an open chat forum to ask questions to other users with a few FB specialist who are also available?
When you get to a scale of hundreds of millions of users, providing
support must be an absolute nightmare. I'm really not sure how it could
be done effectively. On the other hand, it is a fascinating problem to
ponder.
One might argue there is a market for a product that could deliver a solution to this problem... A company could provide a drop-in solution to sites that requires little overhead to manage. Is there anything out there like this now?
I'm partial to the idea of an open chat room with users providing insight (a wiki-sort of solution). We use this in internal chat channels at my bank. It is helpful because you can pose a question (ex. how can I do X in excel) to a "room" full of experts in the particular subject (ex. an excel specific chat).
yes, but Craigslist doesn't give you "your website" to organise the garage sale.
The idea is to let people create and customize the website, specifically in situations when they need to sell many things.
I agree--a personalized website is the value add. The issue I see is what is the breakeven on something like that? It will obviously cost something to put up your own site (not just money, but time). If I'm trying to sell stuff in a jam, do I think I'm going to get more page views on my own site than on CL? Is it going to be worth the extra time? Am I getting a better price for my stuff?
Also, it will be a bit of a pain if I need to update it each time something is sold.
Things I would consider adding:
1) ability to pay for the item directly on the site (you could partner with paypal on this, or offer the merchant service directly for a cost to the website user)
2) waiting list for people interested in the objects.
General issue I see with this: can you get people to pay for this when they have a free option? If you're going to offer it free, can you generate enough page views on individual sites to validate ad revenue?
I think keeping your expenses down is important. Even if you are independently wealthy, running a tight personal budget will help you think more frugally about your business expenses.
I live in NYC, and you will be surprised at how expensive it is. Take a look at some of the surrounding areas. Around Hoboken (as Hoboken itself has gotten expensive), parts of Queens and parts of Brooklyn are all relatively cheap. You can find parts of Harlem that aren't too bad, and if you're willing to go very north on the island, there are actual houses that are pretty cheap once you get above Harlem. I would definitely suggest living together if you don't think that social issues will be a problem (which would be a bad sign for your startup regardless). I think getting yourself a little farther away from Manhattan might also help keep some of the social distractions from popping up--it can be tough to code late into the night when you see/hear people out and about having a good time.
That's just my opinion and how I would approach the subject... I'm sure people will have different suggestions.
The first chapter regarding PayPal discusses how the company was initially founded on the concept of being able to use your Palm Pilot to pay for lunch. Actually, it initially was a security company that focused on protecting your mobile electronic device. Once it was "protected" they realized you could store money on your mobile device. Eventually they realized that at the time the online electronic payments market was much larger than that for mobile device electronic payments.
Interesting to think PayPal may have been decades ahead on this.
