My Idea and My Launch Inquiries

FrankFKA

Hello everyone
Here is an idea that I've been working on.

What it is: To be brief, an idea marketplace

How it works: In my MVP (targeted towards entrepreneurs and small business owners), members would post an inquiry at a specific budget price. Other members would bid on the inquiry. The poster can then select a bidder and accept the bid. The payment is then sent to the primary receiver (Me).
Both the poster and bidder now have access to a workspace, where the inquiry is hopefully solved.
Afterwards, the inquiry would be marked complete. At this point the primary receiver (Me) would send payment to the secondary receiver (bidder) minus the transaction fees.

Monetization: Ideally I would take 15% of each transaction. As the site expands I would offer the option for free postings (if someone just wants to give an idea out for free) and I would also integrate advertising

What I have done: I have built the website using WP and a paid WP theme. I have created a pre-launch page with mailchimp integrated.

Some Issues: The paid WP theme promised PayPal escrow, but now PayPal says that they don't allow escrow for marketplace models. The theme-makers says that they're working on it, but I may need to integrate some sort of digital credit system.
I also have zero experience in launching and UA. I'm not quite sure about how to get users, especially for a marketplace

What I would Appreciate: Some general comments about my business model. Ideas that would increase the value of the marketplace. Any resources that would be helpful. Tips for launching and UA.

Charlie P

Initial thoughts are that this has some good potential.

Some questions that come to mind:
Will there be a minimum bid? and if so, how much?
WP is a great platform for most things, but you may want to look at building a full website from scratch (adds functionality options and is potentially more secure as the code is unique). Has this been looked into?
How about an option for a percentage of the moneys to be released early if it is a start up situation that is agreed upon by both parties?
Does the workplace have file storage for the sharing of files?

Good idea and hope to see you successful with it!

Ankita1234

Why anybody pay you 15% of there money to only access your workplace. Instead of that they would completely outsource the project.

Charlie P

Ankita1234 wrote:

Why anybody pay you 15% of there money to only access your workplace. Instead of that they would completely outsource the project.

Depending on the resources that are being provided by the website for the collaboration and development of ideas, then 15% may be worth it. Plus, it is helping protect the investor who doesn't want to just sign over all their money without a real assurance of the start up not just taking the money and running.

Helparo

My opinion is that you are trying to compete directly with giants in freelance field. UpWork and Freelancer are two huge platforms that offer a service at a higher level than you can ever offer with your standard WordPress template. And this is only the technical side. Play with their platforms, you'll find out the complexity of the features. They have a big advantage over you.

The second thing is that you are just a little player in the game, looking for a small piece of their pie (already competitors in freelance). It is costly and time consuming to serve your platform users. It's a so called "two side marketplace": you need people who need work done as much as you need people qualified to do the work (name it freelancers or small businesses).

If you do not have the financial resources to achieve all these, you can still be smarter in a direction. Take a small market with a certain type of services, and serve them very well. Your Paypal escrow is not a strong point; they do not offer escrow for digital products/services.

For example, launch your marketplace as marketplace for programmers in PHP Laravel framework. Limited to only people who look for APPS to be created in Laravel and freelancers with Laravel framework experience. Of course, this is just an example, think very well at a field you know best, and look for opportunities in it.
Once your business takes off, look for growth areas

lysella

As was mentioned about the bigger competitors, I'd focus on asking people who already use those services what they are missing. My #1 rule in startups is to make sure you are solving a problem that people actually have. #2 is to ensure that your idea for a solution is the solution that the market wants. It's so easy for us as entrepreneurs to come from a place of "I have a great idea and I'm going to build it" before we ask potential customers if they even have a problem and whether our idea for a solution solves that problem. In other words, I'd go ask 50 people who use UpWork or similar if there is anything they want it to do that it doesn't do.