Show HN: An app where you suggest me your vet, I suggest you my babysitter (play.google.com)
Similar projects, like Yelp, usually have the two-sided-market, or chicken-and-egg issue: they are useless for costumers until they don't have providers, and useless for providers until they don't have customers. The way I designed it, it's distributed and personal: it doesn't need a database (and actually even if it had it, a new user wouldn't see anything on it, because it only shows the favorite providers entered by your friends). Instead, even if just two or three friends use it to share their trusted contacts, it's already useful to them. Plus, this layout eliminates the issue of the usual fake reviews, and of the effort for the real users to enter diplomatic assessments: this app is just an exchange of contacts, if I need that kind of provider I will then call my friend and ask her for more feedback.
This app is a formalized word-of-mouth. It serves two needs: it is useful for anyone like me who often seeks a specific kind of provider, but it's also useful for a provider who wants to increase her customer base. Suppose I'm a math tutor, I will download the app, enter my profile, and then send a broadcast from the app to my WhatsApp contacts asking them to endorse me (and then to share further the app with the endorsement).
The Android version of the app as I envisioned it, is complete, no users yet (I know, you'll say I should have progressed the other way around, got it). I have tested it with some people, they are positive but not enough to use it. I need to understand how to make it more appealing so that it can spread.
I'm not seeking investors, I believe that if the product/market fit is achieved the app can grow almost naturally, if it isn't achieved money won't help.
I would love your comments and suggestions!
4 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 16.3 ms ] threadYour competition is direct messages between friends and coworker mailing lists. These seem inefficient, but they have the benefit of reinforcing a relationship. If I want to find a service provider, is it easier to message all my friends and ask them to send me the info, or to message all my friends and ask them to sign up for this app, then enter the info in the app? Obviously the former is easier. So you have to somehow convince folks that proactively putting this info in one time in your app is either going to a) save them effort later, or b) make their friends more grateful to them than they otherwise would be if they just waited for a friend to ask. Personally I think b is more likely to happen, e.g. I have a great experience with a plumber in January and write it in this app (like a little journal), then my friend Alice needs a plumber in July. She doesn't think to ask me, but happens to check the app, and sees that I recommended a great one and they do a great job for her. Even though she didn't message me, I want to still feel like I did Alice a favor, but without her even having to ask. And maybe that little act of entering in the plumber will help 5 people I know over the next few years. I also want Alice to see my entering in these details as an investment into our relationship because I care about helping Alice out. Maybe I want to see "Alice saw your recommendation for plumber X" or even "Alice called plumber X" and we can talk about it next time we see each other and compare notes.
Another thing I'd wonder as a consumer running across this (rather than as a personal friend of yours) is what's the revenue model going to be. If it's not serving me ads, is it collecting my contact list and selling that instead?
I agree with what you write about folks' motivation, let me add that the users of the app are required, if they want to see the details of an endorsement, to enter an endorsement of their own (until they do that, they will just see "Alice endorses a plumber"). In fact I want to leverage a little also the curiosity of people to see the names that their friends are endorsing.
Perhaps the biggest push to use and spread the app, could be the need for providers to spread their offerings. Say I seek customers as a babysitter, I will download the app, enter my profile, and then ask to all my contacts to endorse me on the app (and preferably then spread the app to their contacts as well, with the message "Anyone seeks a babysitter?"). I'm trying to follow this path, currently without success, but I know that some people have been able to spread similar apps, so I need to understand how they did it.
As for the revenue model, it is the usual one for yellow pages: providers pay if they want to enter info on their listing. I agree that it's good to state it clearly in the FAQs.
Would you wish to take part in this project? Have you done something similar?
Cheers, Francesco.