3 ms·

in return for what? I'd also like to take 10% off the top of some industry - let's say off of lawn mowing. Cool, so now invest 300 million dollars into my lawnm

in return for what? I'd also like to take 10% off the top of some industry - let's say off of lawn mowing. Cool, so now invest 300 million dollars into my lawnmowing app. What value is it providing? what's going to justify that 10% of the lawnmower market? I've got to go and create a few billion more dollars in value before I can skim off some of it and justify a 300 million dollar investment. I've got to grow the lawnmower market by 11% or create 11% more value before the players in the space would find it worth it to give me 10% of it. I don't know if it was clear how a dog walking startup was going to do that.

adrr 7y ago
Reducing the friction of finding a lawn care company to maintain your lawn for the customer and for the lawn care company, reducing the friction of finding customers. 1-800-dentist is a good example in a non-technology driven scenario. They paired potential patients with dentists for a slice of the pie. There are whole industries that just connect customers with people selling things like real estate. Lawn mowing tech company's competitor is really other adverting platforms and mediums that lawn care companies use to acquire customers. Thats the pie they are eating. 1-800 dentists biggest competitor was the yellow pages in the phonebook.
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >Reducing the friction of finding a lawn care company to maintain your lawn for the customer and for the lawn care company What's the ongoing value? You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly. Everyone wins (except your startup).
  - vel0city 7y ago
    What's the ongoing value of a site like Monster or Indeed? Or a cleaning service? There could be some amount of turn-over in these markets, or it could be something where almost all participants in the market only form long relationships. If there's high turnover, there's a decent market to be made being the matchmaker. Maybe not a >$300M market to be made, but there's probably some value in it.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > What's the ongoing value of a site like Monster or Indeed? They facilitate one-off transactions. > Or a cleaning service? It's a B2B version of hiring a cleaner, that's less risky and that has a feature useful for the hiring company in that the transaction is legal. Neither of these are similar to recurring individual-to-individual services that may or may not be above board wrt. the IRS.
  - chii 7y ago
    > You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly and how do you know someone else is willing to walk/mow for cheaper once you start paying them directly? How do you solve disputes, like no-shows, and payment legislations (like GST/VAT etc)? The platform reduces friction - that's not false. Whether the platform is worth it to reduce that friction is another matter. Esp. for low cost things like dog walking. The value generated by reducing friction must be big enough, relative to the cost of the thing.
  - petra 7y ago
    //What's the ongoing value? You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly. There are contracts involved.More than 50% of people prefer not to mess with that stuff. That's a big market.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Contracts... for dog walking? Here is the contract: "I give you a $20 bill and you walk the dog, deal? Let's shake on it." That's how it worked for dog walking and lawn work when I was doing it as a teenager. No lawyers, no paperwork, no signatures, nothing needed to get notarized. No bullshit. KISS principle in action.
      - cruano 7y ago
        I think he means an "If you do a side-deal we kick you off our platform" type of thing, referring to cutting out the middle man
Psyonic 7y ago
I’ll just leave this here: https://www.snappr.co/startup-snapshot/lawn-love https://www.snappr.co/startup-snapshot/lawn-love

adrr 7y ago

Reducing the friction of finding a lawn care company to maintain your lawn for the customer and for the lawn care company, reducing the friction of finding customers. 1-800-dentist is a good example in a non-technology driven scenario. They paired potential patients with dentists for a slice of the pie. There are whole industries that just connect customers with people selling things like real estate. Lawn mowing tech company's competitor is really other adverting platforms and mediums that lawn care companies use to acquire customers. Thats the pie they are eating. 1-800 dentists biggest competitor was the yellow pages in the phonebook.

aguyfromnb 7y ago
>Reducing the friction of finding a lawn care company to maintain your lawn for the customer and for the lawn care company What's the ongoing value? You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly. Everyone wins (except your startup).
- vel0city 7y ago
  What's the ongoing value of a site like Monster or Indeed? Or a cleaning service? There could be some amount of turn-over in these markets, or it could be something where almost all participants in the market only form long relationships. If there's high turnover, there's a decent market to be made being the matchmaker. Maybe not a >$300M market to be made, but there's probably some value in it.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > What's the ongoing value of a site like Monster or Indeed? They facilitate one-off transactions. > Or a cleaning service? It's a B2B version of hiring a cleaner, that's less risky and that has a feature useful for the hiring company in that the transaction is legal. Neither of these are similar to recurring individual-to-individual services that may or may not be above board wrt. the IRS.
- chii 7y ago
  > You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly and how do you know someone else is willing to walk/mow for cheaper once you start paying them directly? How do you solve disputes, like no-shows, and payment legislations (like GST/VAT etc)? The platform reduces friction - that's not false. Whether the platform is worth it to reduce that friction is another matter. Esp. for low cost things like dog walking. The value generated by reducing friction must be big enough, relative to the cost of the thing.
- petra 7y ago
  //What's the ongoing value? You find a lawn-mower or dog-walker you like, and cut out the middleman by paying them directly. There are contracts involved.More than 50% of people prefer not to mess with that stuff. That's a big market.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Contracts... for dog walking? Here is the contract: "I give you a $20 bill and you walk the dog, deal? Let's shake on it." That's how it worked for dog walking and lawn work when I was doing it as a teenager. No lawyers, no paperwork, no signatures, nothing needed to get notarized. No bullshit. KISS principle in action.
    - cruano 7y ago
      I think he means an "If you do a side-deal we kick you off our platform" type of thing, referring to cutting out the middle man

Psyonic 7y ago

I’ll just leave this here: https://www.snappr.co/startup-snapshot/lawn-love https://www.snappr.co/startup-snapshot/lawn-love