I was reading this very interesting thread, and had to jump in here as well. I actually worked (briefly) on a very similar idea last year - basically an Exec cl

I was reading this very interesting thread, and had to jump in here as well. I actually worked (briefly) on a very similar idea last year - basically an Exec clone for the UK. We scrapped the idea after a month, since we realised that you're basically competing directly with existing service firms, and the unique niche of a "mobile tasks marketplace" is tasks that are: - not doable by a specialised company (cleaning, gardening) - have a physical component (else they could be done by a VA) - are more efficient to outsource than do yourself (which seems to rule out pretty much everything) I came to the conclusion that the only way to go would be to build a specialised services firm, which seems to be what Exec has done (they now seem to just do cleaning). Which is cool, but maybe I'm missing something, since I don't see how they're really a tech startup as they don't really leverage tech in the way that Uber does. But straight services firms make tons of money anyway, so Justin Kan deserves applause for persuading pg to invest in a cleaning company. Anyway my points to grandparent are: - I agree, figure out a niche skillset first, then expand - don't get seduced by the "on-demand mobile workforce" element. It sounds cool, but your target market probably doesn't care about cool. You have to answer the question "who really wants a dogsbody to do generic tasks?" - Though the social aspect of this kind of business is nice, nailing the supply side is really easy. Unskilled and semi-skilled labour is really cheap, if you haven't noticed. 90% of your focus should be on nailing the demand side. - read everything you can get your hands on about Exec/TaskRabbit/all their many clones. - agree with parent's plan. Most local services firms probably suck at online marketing. If you can figure out a way to reliably get online customers for service X, you can then go to all the local firms that offer service X and offer a 10% affiliate deal. I'd focus more on nailing the marketing channel before the product (SEO, AdWords, whatever works - find out if there's underpriced search terms like "best window cleaning firms in Cambridge" and go from there). And yeah, I've become a big fan of the patio11/tptacek approach. Just need to put it into action myself...