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".
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).
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.
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?
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.
I'm currently reading Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston (http://www.foundersatwork.com/), and one of the stories seems to apply to your dilemma.
If you have the chance I would suggest taking a look at chapter 3 which discusses Steve Wozniak's early days with Apple. He talks about his hesitation to leave HP where he was an engineer. At the same time, Jobs was pushing him to come over and work on their new venture full time. It wasn't until Wozniak realized (through a conversation with a friend) that he could move to Apple and continue to be an engineer did he agree to make the move. In the end, Woz knew he loved being an engineer, and he didn't think that the time and effort it would take to run/manage a company was something he would enjoy (in fact, he knew he would not like it).
It sounds like you love learning new programming languages, something that is not afforded you in your current venture's structure. Maybe you should consider bringing in a partner to help you manage the business while focus on programming. Or maybe you should hire a programmer to handle the routine stuff for your site. Either option could free-up a considerable amount of time that would allow you to again spend some time each week learning something new.
I'm not sure if that is an option, but it is something to work towards maybe.
I'm working through my network to find a programmer that I would be comfortable partnering with on a startup. Am I going to be insulting him/her if I can't pay them? I would expect to split the company with him or her if he/she agreed to team up.
This is really helpful. I'm a non-technical founder, and I'm glad to hear that there is hope.
Do you think having applied previously was a positive or a negative for you? Do you think it matters that these applications were for different ideas? I'm just trying to figure out when I should apply--if it is better to wait and develop something fully functional before applying or applying now with the caveat that I need the funding to help develop the idea.
I am planning to apply with a technical co-founder, but I have concerns about how we could effectively develop our product without some substantial financial backing. I don't want to put something out there half-assed and have it fail because we didn't have the right tools, only to then have someone with the resources to execute steal the idea.
There has been some debate regarding PG's "naughtiness" criteria for founders. Maybe irreverence would be a better word? To truly believe in their venture, founders need to have a certain irreverence for how things are done today or how the world is missing out on their idea.
I really like the notion of a trifecta--"a tech lead, a designer, and a business hustler". I think that when you have smart people with complimentary skill sets that can work together eloquently, you have a better chance of delivering a quality product with fewer revisions and rewrites.
I'm not sure it makes a difference whether the initial idea comes from a designer or a hacker or a business person. I think that to deliver successfully, a company eventually needs all three, but the initial idea is just an idea. I see no reason why hackers would be favored over designers or anyone else. I think a fund to help designers fund their ideas is a great thing.
I've seen people at booths at marathon expos use these to sign people up for mailing lists on the spot. I've also seen the street marketers for non-profits use these to sign people up for whatever they were promoting.
The world is finally starting to take notice of how significant it is that everyone has these handheld computers in their pockets all day long. The amount of data that is being harnessed by apps today is impressive, but over the next few years, I think the market for this information is going to be enormous. I wonder who will "own" the information. I assume it will be the network providers.
They are going to need tools to make sense of the information they have. They have very detailed information on their phone users, but they'll have to think through how they can monetize the information legally. Could we see these companies developing the ability to say, "the user of the cell phone X, who is a 14 year-old girl, spent 2 hours in this store on this day". That data on an aggregate basis could be very valuable to companies--companies that would be willing to pay for this kind of insight. "We noticed a spike in teenage girls visiting your stores in the northeast within a day after launching your ad campaign. It didn't have as large of a spike in this region of the country however." I think investors would be willing to buy this kind of information too. Imagine the edge a hedge fund would have if they had this sort of insight into consumer trends.
I suspect there will be a huge need for tools to analyze and make sense of the data that this new market will demand. I'm sure there are already some startups headed down this path, and I'm sure large communication companies would rather use a vendor for this data analysis than learn to do it themselves.
I think this is definitely the edge of a huge new market.