Ask HN: Had an idea for a web app to trade favors with strangers. Feedback?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3568023

by mcrittenden • 14 years ago

6 15 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I had an idea this morning and put this landing page together: http://minutefavors.com/

To be more specific, my thoughts at this point on the process are as follows

- A user ("requester") posts a new favor request, something that can be done in 1 or 2 minutes at a computer

- Someone else (the "helper") sees the favor as something he can do and marks it as "spoken for"

- The helper has 5 minutes to complete the favor

- If it gets rejected or it isn't completed within 5 minutes, then it goes back into the pool of open requests for someone else to fulfill

Possible favors include stuff like:

- Converting a PSD to a PNG, for people without Photoshop

- Testing a small website feature in a version of IE that you may not have

- Combining multiple PDFs together into a single PDF

- Anything else that can be done in a minute or two using only a computer, by a person with the know-how and necessary software

Is there any potential here? I'm having trouble finding a business plan (and I'd be happy doing it as a free for-fun service, but I'd love for it to be a startup if possible) since paid memberships doesn't really make sense in this context (am I wrong?), so do you have any ideas there?

mcrittenden4• 14 years ago

Clickable: http://minutefavors.com/

gamechangr• 14 years ago

Pretty much sounds like Zaarly

mcrittenden4• 14 years ago

You think? Zaarly seems pretty different to me in that 1) it's not quick favors, it's anything, 2) it's meant to be used only with people in your local area, and 3) you are doing the buying and selling yourself with actual money, rather than the site handling it with karma or credits or whatever.

Basically, Zaarly seems a lot closer to Ebay + Craiglist than my idea. Do you disagree?

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

Zaarly solves the problem you are trying to solve. The other parts are just details.

bglenn09• 14 years ago

You might want to take a look at http://favo.rs.

nurik4• 14 years ago

You can monetize with this: add the feature that the ones who do the favors also can explain other how they did it, if you want to know how to do it you have pay a very small fee (maybe 10 to 50 cents). I know there are already code review pages outthere, but I would definitely add the feature to review/add code snippets.

You would rather "tax" the user for digital services (a bit like itunes which "taxes" users for digital products). Depending on a lot of stuff this might actually be a very good idea. When you have your fvp send me a mail.

bkyan4• 14 years ago

I agree with the "tax" idea, but I think the small fee needs to be much higher, to get serious buyers and sellers. As a buyer, I would be more concerned about the job being done quickly and correctly, than trying to save some pennies. As a seller, I would be more inclined to participate in the system on a regular basis, if I could generate a reasonable income from it.

nurik4• 14 years ago

I see your point. However, jf you have a smart solution that's worth buying, people will buy it over and over again and even when it seems "cheap" it could generate significant revenue (just like the songs etc. on itunes)...

mcrittenden4• 14 years ago

Ah, interesting idea. My initial reaction is that once people had the request fulfilled, they wouldn't usually be willing to pull out their credit card to find out how it was done (no matter how cheap it is), but I'd love to be wrong. You think there'd be some interest in that feature?

Also, what are your thoughts on keeping it simple and just charging $1 (or some other very small amount) per favor, and I take some percentage of that (20% or so), and the person who fulfills it gets the rest? Seems like that might be a good way to get a steady stream of people fulfilling favors since it's a way to make easy money, but again I worry that the "requesters" won't be willing to pay for such small things.

Thanks again.

nurik4• 14 years ago

I agree with you that the one who will get the favor done wont be interested in buying the solution. It also depends of course on the favor...(i.e. reviewing code cant be done twice in a row since each problem is going to be different). However, the following people that have the same problem maybe will. Lets say the initial favor costs 1 USD and the solution 50 cent....then you might opt for the solution. Didnt Amazon have a small-task service? You might also check out mightybell.com for some inspiration on that...

bkyan4• 14 years ago

I think you should consider a business model similar to fiverr.com, but with your unique timer/availability concept. I've gotten decent results from Fiverr (as a buyer), but find it impractical to send work over there needs to be done right away.

mcrittenden4• 14 years ago

So basically you're talking about having people pay real money to get requests fulfilled, and receive real money for fulfilling requests? Maybe like $1 per request, and I'd keep 15% of that or something, so the fulfiller gets $0.85?

It's an interesting idea - I'm not sure how willing people would be to pull out their credit card for such small favors, and I'm also not sure about the logistics of charging such small payments, but I'll do some market research and gauge some interest on it.

Thanks a lot for the thoughts!

bkyan4• 14 years ago

You can always have buyers purchase a bundle of credits and then pay for favors with their credits.

Ask HN: Had an idea for a web app to trade favors with strangers. Feedback?

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