4 ms·

There are a lot of properties in common with real estate: for buyers the experience is rare and intense, at a huge information disadvantage. For service seller

There are a lot of properties in common with real estate: for buyers the experience is rare and intense, at a huge information disadvantage. For service sellers, the transaction is repeated endlessly, in the same local market with the same people. There are many incentives and opportunities for service providers to work together to resist disruption.

uberman 8y ago
I came to say the same thing, but you said it quicker and probably better than I. Funerals is probably a third such set of services.
- jawns 8y ago
  Yes, funerals are perhaps the most extreme example, because in many cases you have very little time in which to make the decisions, plus you're in a state of shock or grief and maybe aren't making the most rational decisions. One possible way to disrupt such an industry is by encouraging pre-planning, which helps eliminate the tight time constraints. But while we all know we're going to die, and our preferences around our funerals tend to be based on our individual wishes, it's not certain that we're going to get married, and our preferences around our weddings tend to based on the joint wishes of the couple, so you can only go so far with pre-planning. It would make little sense for you to start pre-planning before you start dating the person who will become your future husband or wife.
  - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
    Pre-planning may not be practical with a funeral either. I understand in the case of a terminal illness, but death does happen rather suddenly to a lot of people. For a wedding at least you can book the venue ahead of time.
    - faitswulff 8y ago
      Unfortunately from recent experience I can tell you that there is still a good amount that you can preplan with death, if not funeral, like getting a deal on the headstone or plot of land, signing a DNR and power of attorney ahead of time, or having a hospice care plan, as morbid as those are.
      - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
        Totally fair, and a lot of those can be done years in advance.
    - astura 8y ago
      My great grandma was well into her 90s when she died. Once you're in your 90s no matter how good your health is, your days are numbered. She did the logical thing and preplanned and prepaid for her funeral. Entirely. She even had the dress picked out that she wanted to wear.
JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
Where is the information asymmetry? Let's boil down weddings to needing to book a venue and have catering. The same could be said for planning a family reunion. You'd contact numerous venues and catering services and get the best prices, and then your event is planned. In the case of a couple planning their wedding, what exactly do these service providers know that the couple does not? How much food ordinarily costs, when catered? How much a particular venue space usually rents for, for an evening?
- evrydayhustling 8y ago
  You boiled out all the wedding specific stuff :). There are special conventions around everything from flowers to officiants to PA systems to photographers to DJs to invitations to rehearsals -- all things that most folks will never have done. (Separately, a tiny percentage of folks have ever planned a family reunion, let alone more than once). Finally, even services that should be commoditized, like catering, segment their prices and offerings for weddings, because they can.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    >because they can And also because they're probably often a PITA compared to some conference or corporate event. I'm not saying corporate/conference event planners don't make a genuine effort to get things right. Smaller events, in particular, can be very well done. But no one's going to freak out if some aspect of the dinner isn't just so.
mr_tristan 8y ago
Considering that the biggest expense of a wedding is the venue, then services (band, photographer), I could see the direct correlation to real estate. I'm not sure you could get the venue owners to drop rates, because it sure doesn't seem like many have much of a demand shortage. Wedding venues seem to be booked way far out in advance, and don't seem to have any issues with vacancies. And I'm sure they are well aware of each others' rates. Anecdotally, I also see large disincentives to lower costs for the other major services. Musicians who play weddings do so because the gig pays well, not because playing crappy covers is what they really want to do. Pretty sure the same goes for photographers - if the wedding business wasn't so lucrative, they'd probably just go do something else with their lives. They're all professional, but I'm not sure many would identify as a "wedding singer", just "musician" or "photographer". But, I'd guess they too are very aware of each other's rates, which gives them no reason to work for less money. Not sure what there's to "disrupt" here other than culture. And if there's one true rule I've learned: Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  Seems like maybe the best way to disrupt weddings, then, is to have some lower-cost venues that are close to on par with the current ones - kind of like the way the PC disrupted the minicomputer market. They weren't as good, but they were good enough, and a lot less money.
  - mr_tristan 8y ago
    "AirBnB for event space" sites already exist, like https://www.peerspace.com https://www.peerspace.com. All of them just generalize for "event" planning. But most of the spaces are for smaller events, because that's what's unused. Once you get to 100+ attendees, options drop dramatically. When I did a cursory search for "average us wedding size", I got a number of 120. So, I'm just not sure where this source of "good enough" venues are going to come from, that aren't already in use.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
      I was thinking that the disruption would be the creation of new venues. It seems that there's a market for less-expensive venues that can hold from 120 up to perhaps 200 (?) people. There's unserved demand there. The trick is to create spaces that work, that are attractive, that aren't as expensive as the existing options.

uberman 8y ago

I came to say the same thing, but you said it quicker and probably better than I. Funerals is probably a third such set of services.

jawns 8y ago
Yes, funerals are perhaps the most extreme example, because in many cases you have very little time in which to make the decisions, plus you're in a state of shock or grief and maybe aren't making the most rational decisions. One possible way to disrupt such an industry is by encouraging pre-planning, which helps eliminate the tight time constraints. But while we all know we're going to die, and our preferences around our funerals tend to be based on our individual wishes, it's not certain that we're going to get married, and our preferences around our weddings tend to based on the joint wishes of the couple, so you can only go so far with pre-planning. It would make little sense for you to start pre-planning before you start dating the person who will become your future husband or wife.
- SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
  Pre-planning may not be practical with a funeral either. I understand in the case of a terminal illness, but death does happen rather suddenly to a lot of people. For a wedding at least you can book the venue ahead of time.
  - faitswulff 8y ago
    Unfortunately from recent experience I can tell you that there is still a good amount that you can preplan with death, if not funeral, like getting a deal on the headstone or plot of land, signing a DNR and power of attorney ahead of time, or having a hospice care plan, as morbid as those are.
    - SketchySeaBeast 8y ago
      Totally fair, and a lot of those can be done years in advance.
  - astura 8y ago
    My great grandma was well into her 90s when she died. Once you're in your 90s no matter how good your health is, your days are numbered. She did the logical thing and preplanned and prepaid for her funeral. Entirely. She even had the dress picked out that she wanted to wear.

JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago

Where is the information asymmetry? Let's boil down weddings to needing to book a venue and have catering. The same could be said for planning a family reunion. You'd contact numerous venues and catering services and get the best prices, and then your event is planned. In the case of a couple planning their wedding, what exactly do these service providers know that the couple does not? How much food ordinarily costs, when catered? How much a particular venue space usually rents for, for an evening?

evrydayhustling 8y ago
You boiled out all the wedding specific stuff :). There are special conventions around everything from flowers to officiants to PA systems to photographers to DJs to invitations to rehearsals -- all things that most folks will never have done. (Separately, a tiny percentage of folks have ever planned a family reunion, let alone more than once). Finally, even services that should be commoditized, like catering, segment their prices and offerings for weddings, because they can.
- ghaff 8y ago
  >because they can And also because they're probably often a PITA compared to some conference or corporate event. I'm not saying corporate/conference event planners don't make a genuine effort to get things right. Smaller events, in particular, can be very well done. But no one's going to freak out if some aspect of the dinner isn't just so.

mr_tristan 8y ago

Considering that the biggest expense of a wedding is the venue, then services (band, photographer), I could see the direct correlation to real estate. I'm not sure you could get the venue owners to drop rates, because it sure doesn't seem like many have much of a demand shortage. Wedding venues seem to be booked way far out in advance, and don't seem to have any issues with vacancies. And I'm sure they are well aware of each others' rates. Anecdotally, I also see large disincentives to lower costs for the other major services. Musicians who play weddings do so because the gig pays well, not because playing crappy covers is what they really want to do. Pretty sure the same goes for photographers - if the wedding business wasn't so lucrative, they'd probably just go do something else with their lives. They're all professional, but I'm not sure many would identify as a "wedding singer", just "musician" or "photographer". But, I'd guess they too are very aware of each other's rates, which gives them no reason to work for less money. Not sure what there's to "disrupt" here other than culture. And if there's one true rule I've learned: Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
Seems like maybe the best way to disrupt weddings, then, is to have some lower-cost venues that are close to on par with the current ones - kind of like the way the PC disrupted the minicomputer market. They weren't as good, but they were good enough, and a lot less money.
- mr_tristan 8y ago
  "AirBnB for event space" sites already exist, like https://www.peerspace.com https://www.peerspace.com. All of them just generalize for "event" planning. But most of the spaces are for smaller events, because that's what's unused. Once you get to 100+ attendees, options drop dramatically. When I did a cursory search for "average us wedding size", I got a number of 120. So, I'm just not sure where this source of "good enough" venues are going to come from, that aren't already in use.
  - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
    I was thinking that the disruption would be the creation of new venues. It seems that there's a market for less-expensive venues that can hold from 120 up to perhaps 200 (?) people. There's unserved demand there. The trick is to create spaces that work, that are attractive, that aren't as expensive as the existing options.