cake
06-30-2008, 06:49 PM
2 parts to this post.
1. Here's one of my muse ideas:
I work in a very specialized niche industry. If I had to guess, I'd say there's maybe 1000 companies in the US that do what I do. The providers travel all across the country for the work, which is doled out by the buyers. The same 2 problems creep up all the time in my industry: Provider does the work, and gets stiffed by the buyer, or the buyer hires the provider and the provider never shows up/does an awful job/doesn't complete the job.
Here's my muse: build a website similar to Elance, where these buyers can submit 'requests for proposal' and providers can bid on these jobs. key points would be that both buyers and providers both go through some type of credentialing to validate themselves, also once the work is done they each get to leave feedback on each other that cannot be deleted (like Ebay). So they could both see who is reliable and who pays their bills. I think a lot of companies in my industry would pay for this type of a website. It's so small and I know it so well, I know exactly how and where to advertise to reach out and communicate with most of them, I wouldnt' need to do any adwords or stuff like that. Also, I'm not sure how much to charge for this service, whether to charge the provider, buyer, or both, or what format to charge (monthly, pay as you go?). Also, I'm struggling with how to keep the recurring revenue going - once the buyers and providers have networked and built up their reliable contacts through this website, why would they stay, other than to continue to grow, perhaps? Thoughts?
2nd part.
How much would it cost to develop a website similar to elance? What would I need to do, who would I hire to do it? I consider myself a savvy computer/web USER, but I know very little about hosting/designing/software/content/copywriting/etc/etc.
Thanks,
Cake
1. Here's one of my muse ideas:
I work in a very specialized niche industry. If I had to guess, I'd say there's maybe 1000 companies in the US that do what I do. The providers travel all across the country for the work, which is doled out by the buyers. The same 2 problems creep up all the time in my industry: Provider does the work, and gets stiffed by the buyer, or the buyer hires the provider and the provider never shows up/does an awful job/doesn't complete the job.
Here's my muse: build a website similar to Elance, where these buyers can submit 'requests for proposal' and providers can bid on these jobs. key points would be that both buyers and providers both go through some type of credentialing to validate themselves, also once the work is done they each get to leave feedback on each other that cannot be deleted (like Ebay). So they could both see who is reliable and who pays their bills. I think a lot of companies in my industry would pay for this type of a website. It's so small and I know it so well, I know exactly how and where to advertise to reach out and communicate with most of them, I wouldnt' need to do any adwords or stuff like that. Also, I'm not sure how much to charge for this service, whether to charge the provider, buyer, or both, or what format to charge (monthly, pay as you go?). Also, I'm struggling with how to keep the recurring revenue going - once the buyers and providers have networked and built up their reliable contacts through this website, why would they stay, other than to continue to grow, perhaps? Thoughts?
2nd part.
How much would it cost to develop a website similar to elance? What would I need to do, who would I hire to do it? I consider myself a savvy computer/web USER, but I know very little about hosting/designing/software/content/copywriting/etc/etc.
Thanks,
Cake