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We've unbundled Craiglist, how do we unbundle FB Groups/Subreddits?

4 points by anthonybaksys ↗ HN
There is a great article by A16Z "Platforms vs Verticals and the Next Great Unbundling" where they write on how companies like Airbnb, Tinder or Thumbtack started as an alternative to Craiglist's category.

Today there are big and active communities in Facebook groups or Subreddits which I believe also could be unbundled and turned into a businesses like social marketplaces or niche forums. Are there any examples of companies who did that already?

6 comments

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cblconfederate
Consider that FB's business is advertising, not groups. Attempts to unbundle that have failed because they can't sustain themselves. FB and google just gatekeep too much of the advertising pie. Things like substack attempt to use alternative models, but that is limited imho, their market size is not that big. If someone could unbundle advertising, we already have had the unbundled version of FB groups before: forums, communities etc.
ikkah
> Things like substack attempt to use alternative models, but that is limited imho, their market size is not that big.

Not every businesses need to generate billions or even more than double digit millions, I think lots of people/teams will be happy to find market which can make them 1-100k/month.

Problem with unbundling groups might be convenience of interaction inside FB, if unbundled not many people may want to sign up and interact.

trengorilla
You can serve ads on a forum easily and make bank..
adventured
Groups are not difficult to unbundle from Facebook. What's difficult is financially supporting the cost of running such a network when Facebook's model is 'free' for people to use. That means you're going to struggle to charge for the service, which wipes out a big category of potential competition. Sure, you could charge, and you'll struggle to gain any traction. It leaves advertising, thin (one person, low costs), and non-profit avenues.

Thin either requires charging or running advertising. If you run ads on people's groups, it's going to annoy them inevitably, devaluing your product. You can charge as a thin product, and it'll be a very slow growth model. The non-profit approach requires donations or the equivalent, which is difficult as well.

Ning was an example of the rapid growth the segment makes possible. It proved financially unviable in the manner in which they approached it, and they proceeded to ruin their own product's appeal during the business model conversion.

It's certainly feasible to run a thin model (avoiding the bleed-to-death financial problems of a Ning), in the style of Pinboard, however it'll be a very hard slog. It would take someone insanely dedicated, with a willingness to invest many years of struggle (five years minimum, plan for ten). That's a difficult pitch in the age when (in the US) an average software engineer can earn $140,000 per year with good benefits, and an average web developer can earn $80,000. Someone with the ability to do it, gives up a lot to pursue that (an average sofware engineer at five years of struggle, making barely-getting-by money pursuing this idea, loses upwards of a million dollars in total compensation vs working for a decent non-FAANG tech company).

anthonybaksys
What if it is a social marketplace: both a social network and a marketplace?
adventured
You could certainly make money on transactions via a market built into the group system. You can imagine baseball card or antiques or furniture collective groups running their own selling & auctioning (the market could enable a few different selling methods). Buyers could flow from one group market to the next with one account, and feedback in the market would cross groups which would amplify the value proposition of the whole system further.

If you add the market on top of the group social features the build time will risk becoming incredible, unfortunately. You're looking at building a potentially enormous platform. Maybe with three to five people and a stripped down set of features. Could also make it a non-profit, open source it and run a hosted version of it as the parental core (more or less what WordPress does), scaling up the number of contributors to accelerate development. The mission (debasing some of Facebook's power) and ethos (non-profit) might be enough to draw people willing to contribute.

The transaction fees in the market (drop below eBay's most common ~10% fee, aim for 3% or 5% perhaps) would of course go to fund the non-profit's efforts to build it all out, avoiding donations and advertising permanently.

I think the critical factor would be: how stripped down can you make it to get started (while still having something people will want to use), to keep build time as low as reasonably possible.