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Any feedback on side project: reverse groupon 'AskForADeal' (in Santa monica)

Started this reverse groupon to be for national brands, but pivoted it to be for just one location and local business started accepting deals.<p>It's essentially Groupon in reverse: http://santamonica.askforadeal.com

fezzl 15y ago
The only problem I see is that why would anyone want to use it. There are so many (and I mean really many) daily deal websites out there now that sell just about anything; chances are most people can find what they want at the price they desire, or at least close enough to beat inputting a bunch of numbers into a third-party website and waiting for some conclusion that may not even materialize.
eth 15y ago
It's interesting, but perhaps counter-intuitive (at least for me). Based on what I have seen from your "users" (or army of employees) people are requesting deals from businesses that they already like and frequent. Generally speaking, you frequent a business because you like and receive what you perceive to be fair value for what the money you spend there. If I go to the cafe down the street 5 days a week because I like it and am willing to pay full price, I have no real reason to ask them for a discount - I am satisfied paying full price. Now, it does make sense to me to request discounts from places that I want to try as a way to get me in the door. However, actually requesting a deal from these new places requires work on my end, whereas I can just sit around and lazily let Groupon/LivingSocial push new deals to new places on a daily basis. Cool idea, but not something I see myself using.
mjs00 15y ago
Business owners might appreciate an opportunity to be part of a feedback loop they can generalize - say greater than 30% discount just isn't possible due to cost structure (group buy won't matter)- let them indicate that somehow for their business to filter/feedback future requests, so they don't feel like they are getting bullied with a lot of requests greater than that. For users, maybe let them also offer non-monetary factors for discount - off-peak / non-prime hours, introduce a friend, available on short notice to fill a cancellation, post a blog or tweet, post a local sign, ??, etc. - bartering a little for the discount where the retailer would see value in the barter. Groupon can't do this, but your personalized approach seems ideal for this. In cases where business finds deals that work, archive them for the business, then offer to post or syndicate them on-demand as desired by business to drum up demand on an ongoing basis. And to keep users interested, do something where you as the service do random (or not so random) selections and 'make the discount' happen for the requester, at _no_ cost to the merchant.
jasonmcalacanis 15y ago
link: http://santamonica.askforadeal.com http://santamonica.askforadeal.com
k33n 15y ago
Seems like a novel idea. Are you hoping to monetize this?
orenmazor 15y ago
I do this already manually (i.e. contacted various businesses to see who can offer me a deal on 7 suits for a wedding party). I love the idea of it being automated for me.
coreyg 15y ago
I think this could be a good idea as long as the companies in the drop down have agreed to be apart of the deal. Also I'd recommend having a directory around the companies so that there is some marketing for the companies where visitors can find out what they do and through that discovery ask for a deal
staunch 15y ago
It could work maybe as a way to actually build a more efficient kind of Groupon. Instead of having to convince businesses to run deals you let users bug them until they do, and they run better deals because they're the ones users asked for. You also don't need to take a cut (or at most a very small one) since your effort is rather limited. Ultimately it seems you end up in the same place as Groupon as far as using it. People would want to know what deals were already available, so they don't have to ask for one themselves most of the time. It's got a massive chicken-n-egg problem, so that's the real challenge in making it work. Using the "bowling pin" strategy and starting in Santa Monica should help. It's interesting and different, which I like.
r00fus 15y ago
So let's say you have 100 deal requests for a given business, but with varying %off and amounts. What do you do next? Go to the target business? Let's say you go ahead with this idea, what if half the people drop out if the deal amount is doubled or %off is halved? I'd like to know why the sliders, and how it's different from Loopt: http://www.businessinsider.com/loopt-u-deals-2011-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/loopt-u-deals-2011-6
markhall 15y ago
I really like the idea. There may be some interesting challenges in terms of acquiring businesses to buy-in to the concept. There is definitely an opportunity there. Best of luck.
revorad 15y ago
You need to make it much much simpler. Just ask people to choose a business. You decide the numbers. Fix the discount at some reasonable number around the average of Groupon-type discounts. The amount spent will be decided by the type of business anyway.
notahacker 15y ago
An optional free text field is the way forward as I can envisage a few people having other requests (particular dates they need the discount on, specific products they're interested in, justifications for asking for such an outrageous discount etc.) as well. I think a typical use case would be someone looking for a better deal when they've got a big group of people to entertain, in which case there's a particular time frame they're interested in.

fezzl 15y ago

The only problem I see is that why would anyone want to use it. There are so many (and I mean really many) daily deal websites out there now that sell just about anything; chances are most people can find what they want at the price they desire, or at least close enough to beat inputting a bunch of numbers into a third-party website and waiting for some conclusion that may not even materialize.

eth 15y ago

It's interesting, but perhaps counter-intuitive (at least for me). Based on what I have seen from your "users" (or army of employees) people are requesting deals from businesses that they already like and frequent. Generally speaking, you frequent a business because you like and receive what you perceive to be fair value for what the money you spend there. If I go to the cafe down the street 5 days a week because I like it and am willing to pay full price, I have no real reason to ask them for a discount - I am satisfied paying full price. Now, it does make sense to me to request discounts from places that I want to try as a way to get me in the door. However, actually requesting a deal from these new places requires work on my end, whereas I can just sit around and lazily let Groupon/LivingSocial push new deals to new places on a daily basis. Cool idea, but not something I see myself using.

mjs00 15y ago

Business owners might appreciate an opportunity to be part of a feedback loop they can generalize - say greater than 30% discount just isn't possible due to cost structure (group buy won't matter)- let them indicate that somehow for their business to filter/feedback future requests, so they don't feel like they are getting bullied with a lot of requests greater than that. For users, maybe let them also offer non-monetary factors for discount - off-peak / non-prime hours, introduce a friend, available on short notice to fill a cancellation, post a blog or tweet, post a local sign, ??, etc. - bartering a little for the discount where the retailer would see value in the barter. Groupon can't do this, but your personalized approach seems ideal for this. In cases where business finds deals that work, archive them for the business, then offer to post or syndicate them on-demand as desired by business to drum up demand on an ongoing basis. And to keep users interested, do something where you as the service do random (or not so random) selections and 'make the discount' happen for the requester, at _no_ cost to the merchant.

jasonmcalacanis 15y ago

link: http://santamonica.askforadeal.com http://santamonica.askforadeal.com

k33n 15y ago

Seems like a novel idea. Are you hoping to monetize this?

orenmazor 15y ago

I do this already manually (i.e. contacted various businesses to see who can offer me a deal on 7 suits for a wedding party). I love the idea of it being automated for me.

coreyg 15y ago

I think this could be a good idea as long as the companies in the drop down have agreed to be apart of the deal. Also I'd recommend having a directory around the companies so that there is some marketing for the companies where visitors can find out what they do and through that discovery ask for a deal

staunch 15y ago

It could work maybe as a way to actually build a more efficient kind of Groupon. Instead of having to convince businesses to run deals you let users bug them until they do, and they run better deals because they're the ones users asked for. You also don't need to take a cut (or at most a very small one) since your effort is rather limited. Ultimately it seems you end up in the same place as Groupon as far as using it. People would want to know what deals were already available, so they don't have to ask for one themselves most of the time. It's got a massive chicken-n-egg problem, so that's the real challenge in making it work. Using the "bowling pin" strategy and starting in Santa Monica should help. It's interesting and different, which I like.

r00fus 15y ago

So let's say you have 100 deal requests for a given business, but with varying %off and amounts. What do you do next? Go to the target business? Let's say you go ahead with this idea, what if half the people drop out if the deal amount is doubled or %off is halved? I'd like to know why the sliders, and how it's different from Loopt: http://www.businessinsider.com/loopt-u-deals-2011-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/loopt-u-deals-2011-6

markhall 15y ago

I really like the idea. There may be some interesting challenges in terms of acquiring businesses to buy-in to the concept. There is definitely an opportunity there. Best of luck.

revorad 15y ago

You need to make it much much simpler. Just ask people to choose a business. You decide the numbers. Fix the discount at some reasonable number around the average of Groupon-type discounts. The amount spent will be decided by the type of business anyway.

notahacker 15y ago

An optional free text field is the way forward as I can envisage a few people having other requests (particular dates they need the discount on, specific products they're interested in, justifications for asking for such an outrageous discount etc.) as well. I think a typical use case would be someone looking for a better deal when they've got a big group of people to entertain, in which case there's a particular time frame they're interested in.