Ask HN: My startup idea, What do you think?
8 comments
I was working on a very similar idea, only got as far as a prototype before getting pulled onto something else...so kudos if you are able to run with it.
In alignment with your benefits, I just feel that in this day and age, as a buyer I shouldn't have to spend countless hours looking for the best deal. Especially if I know exactly what I want, people with it should be able to give it to me and compete for my business.
I envisioned showing only information about the requested item, and then charging sellers for access to contact the person...this helps to weed out people that aren't serious about selling/don't have the item in question.
Obviously you could use this for any tangible item, but I saw a big benefit when buying a car. As the process stands today, you submit via the manufacturer's website that you are interested in model X, then you get hit with a ton of emails from dealers in your area, typically offering you everything but the exact make/model/color you want. Cut through the noise and management of those emails and get what you want.
Feel free to hit me up if I can help in any way: shawn.arnwine at gmail.com
Good luck.
In alignment with your benefits, I just feel that in this day and age, as a buyer I shouldn't have to spend countless hours looking for the best deal. Especially if I know exactly what I want, people with it should be able to give it to me and compete for my business.
I envisioned showing only information about the requested item, and then charging sellers for access to contact the person...this helps to weed out people that aren't serious about selling/don't have the item in question.
Obviously you could use this for any tangible item, but I saw a big benefit when buying a car. As the process stands today, you submit via the manufacturer's website that you are interested in model X, then you get hit with a ton of emails from dealers in your area, typically offering you everything but the exact make/model/color you want. Cut through the noise and management of those emails and get what you want.
Feel free to hit me up if I can help in any way: shawn.arnwine at gmail.com
Good luck.
I sure will email you.
Customer acquisition costs would easily escalate during the ensuing competition. It's much cheaper to make clients compete and use their time and resources to find products and sellers than the other way around. The reason that it hasn't been done before is simply that it doesn't work.
I am not sure what you mean by "It's much cheaper to make clients compete and use their time". Can you please explain?
People looking on auction sites, doing web searches and outbidding each other is them doing the work. The price remains stable because the seller only has to spend a fixed amount for the ad campaign that led the user to a particular website. Doing it your way would introduce uncertainty: what amount of time to spend, how low to bid, how many people to pay for monitoring what people want or how much computational resources to allocate to do it by machine. Investors would run the other way.
I see what you are saying. Is it anyway I can talk to you over the phone? If so, shoot me an email with your number and good time to call. My email is imomin at gmail
Benefits for buyers.
Benefits for sellers.
I am surprise giants like eBay and Amazon does have this. I would call it, name your price feature. Craigslist has something similar to this but not intuitive.