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I've seen this trend popping up a lot lately. Pooling buying power among individuals to get discounts up the supply chain. It makes great sense. I think ther

by fnid2 17y ago

I've seen this trend popping up a lot lately. Pooling buying power among individuals to get discounts up the supply chain. It makes great sense. I think there is a lot of potential here because it is only at a certain scale that some ideas become profitable or even implementable. In the old days, some investors got together and created companies at great risk in order to see if there is a market for a product. Taking these group buying systems to one more level, people who want a particular product can pool their resources in order to get the product developed. I don't think Venture Capital sees the threat from models like this. Imagine the CNC market that is getting a lot of buzz for enabling them to be built at home. If you create a company where when 100 CNC products are ordered, then everyone is charged, ALL the parts are ordered and constructed, perhaps in part by one such already existing CNC -- created just this way. This model enables the consumer of the product to be the investor in the product. Models like this eliminate the need for venture capital in a lot of spaces with currently large barriers to entry. EDIT: Yep, here's another example, right on the front page of HN. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149207 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149207

compumike 17y ago
We're taking a slightly different angle, in that the individual customers each have a better experience with the product when it's done together. What you're mentioning, in terms of pooling resources toward getting a product developed, is also a really neat application. But it adds another layer of uncertainty (i.e. can the developer actually deliver on what's being promised?), so we're starting out with a product that exists and already extremely well-received by its target audience, and applying the model there. If we can prove that consumers understand the model for an already-existing product, then we (or others) can push into the not-yet-developed product area.

by fnid2 17y ago

compumike 17y ago

We're taking a slightly different angle, in that the individual customers each have a better experience with the product when it's done together. What you're mentioning, in terms of pooling resources toward getting a product developed, is also a really neat application. But it adds another layer of uncertainty (i.e. can the developer actually deliver on what's being promised?), so we're starting out with a product that exists and already extremely well-received by its target audience, and applying the model there. If we can prove that consumers understand the model for an already-existing product, then we (or others) can push into the not-yet-developed product area.