The product (what is it, use case, who would want it)
In my spare time, I've been building an MVP for an idea I've had, which is basically a marketplace to get on-demand consulting from top marketers. There's marketplaces for engineers and designers, but after you get an app built on Gigster or Upwork or your logo and design made on Fiverr or 99designs, you need to actually grow your product.
This is the pain point I'm hoping EliteGigs solves.
For an MVP, I'm going to only allow 1 hour consulting calls so companies can get insight and advice from an expert on the marketplace. This way the transaction is fast and people get paid quickly. If this actually takes off, we can explore things like bigger projects.
The consultant pool is going to be invite-only and will be initially be made up of of the best people I've worked with and friends of friends that are qualified (e.g. top companies, proven work ethic, good communication skills, etc.).
The goal is that a future-founder, startup, or established company can visit the marketplace and instantly get a quality consulting call set up with a person who can actually help them grow.
The market (size, competition, dynamics that we should be aware of)
Service industry is roughly $1.7T. Global advertising market size is $560B. Specifically, the marketing services industry is a $100B market.
Competitors in the space are individual marketing services houses as well as some platforms like Fiverr that have marketing consulting as a vertical.
Product analysis / comparison against competition
I view the value props as:
1. Quality, vetted marketers who have real experience: Most of the marketplaces like Fiverr allow anyone to make a listing. With EliteGigs, I just want it to be exceptional people. This means the talent pool will always be of a high bar and it unlocks the second value prop.
2. Companies have the confidence that they will get good work: If the talent pool is always of a high caliber, they don't have to worry about subpar work.
3. Ease of use: The flow I'm building for the Companies is: create a listing -> get applicants withinin 48 hours -> approve 1 -> talk with them -> get paid. I want it to be almost like Uber where you just click a button and you get a good driver except here you'll get a quality expert.
What stage are you in? Do you need money? Are you raising?
Pre-alpha. The skeleton of the site is made and it can 1) make a listing 2) allow applicants to apply 3) allow a brand to accept an applicant 4) allow both parties to approve that the job is complete 5) the brand pays and the money is transferred to the consultant after the platform takes it's cut.
To illustrate the fees, lets say company A creates a job for $1000. A consultant accepts and the job is completed. The company is charged a 15% listing fee (total billed $1,150) and then the consultant recieves the list price of the work less a 5% transaction fee (total sent $950).
Customer conversion strategy (where do you find them, and how do you make them buy shit from you)
Right now, I want to start seeding it on small communities of entrepreneurs and businesses like Indie Hackers and subreddits like startups, entrepreneur, shopify, etc. I might also build a scrapper to email companies who post jobs looking for heads of marketing or strategy and see if cold emails result in leads.
Why you? Whose your daddy and what does he do?!? err, wait. never mind. I mean, why are YOU the best person for this job? (experience? good team? rich daddy who can't bring himself to pull the plug? what?)
I've worked at 3 companies that all had good exists (Amazon being two of them). My network is now made up of exceptional marketers and business people, and I've been trying to find an idea that would solve problems for us.
I'm a self-taught programmer, and after building a few ideas I've realized that:
1. To get my friends to use a product, they need an incentive -> cash is a great incentive
2. To get the people in my network to use a product, it needs to cater to our collective strengths -> I know a lot of marketing and business people.
3. Aiming for a unicorn startup is admirable but not realistic. But, if you can get to profitability quickly, then fundraising is secondary to the value that you're bringing to your users. If EliteGigs can allow my friends and I to make a couple thousand bucks a month just doing consulting calls, it would unlock new wealth for us, and then I can choose to raise or just keep it as a profitable side project.
So that's my idea. I'd appreciate any feedback on the idea, problems I'm not seeing, the fee structure, and if you'd be interested in using it!
In my spare time, I've been building an MVP for an idea I've had, which is basically a marketplace to get on-demand consulting from top marketers. There's marketplaces for engineers and designers, but after you get an app built on Gigster or Upwork or your logo and design made on Fiverr or 99designs, you need to actually grow your product.
This is the pain point I'm hoping EliteGigs solves.
For an MVP, I'm going to only allow 1 hour consulting calls so companies can get insight and advice from an expert on the marketplace. This way the transaction is fast and people get paid quickly. If this actually takes off, we can explore things like bigger projects.
The consultant pool is going to be invite-only and will be initially be made up of of the best people I've worked with and friends of friends that are qualified (e.g. top companies, proven work ethic, good communication skills, etc.).
The goal is that a future-founder, startup, or established company can visit the marketplace and instantly get a quality consulting call set up with a person who can actually help them grow.
The market (size, competition, dynamics that we should be aware of)
Service industry is roughly $1.7T. Global advertising market size is $560B. Specifically, the marketing services industry is a $100B market.
Competitors in the space are individual marketing services houses as well as some platforms like Fiverr that have marketing consulting as a vertical.
Product analysis / comparison against competition
I view the value props as:
1. Quality, vetted marketers who have real experience: Most of the marketplaces like Fiverr allow anyone to make a listing. With EliteGigs, I just want it to be exceptional people. This means the talent pool will always be of a high bar and it unlocks the second value prop.
2. Companies have the confidence that they will get good work: If the talent pool is always of a high caliber, they don't have to worry about subpar work.
3. Ease of use: The flow I'm building for the Companies is: create a listing -> get applicants withinin 48 hours -> approve 1 -> talk with them -> get paid. I want it to be almost like Uber where you just click a button and you get a good driver except here you'll get a quality expert.
What stage are you in? Do you need money? Are you raising?
Pre-alpha. The skeleton of the site is made and it can 1) make a listing 2) allow applicants to apply 3) allow a brand to accept an applicant 4) allow both parties to approve that the job is complete 5) the brand pays and the money is transferred to the consultant after the platform takes it's cut.
To illustrate the fees, lets say company A creates a job for $1000. A consultant accepts and the job is completed. The company is charged a 15% listing fee (total billed $1,150) and then the consultant recieves the list price of the work less a 5% transaction fee (total sent $950).
Customer conversion strategy (where do you find them, and how do you make them buy shit from you)
Right now, I want to start seeding it on small communities of entrepreneurs and businesses like Indie Hackers and subreddits like startups, entrepreneur, shopify, etc. I might also build a scrapper to email companies who post jobs looking for heads of marketing or strategy and see if cold emails result in leads.
Why you? Whose your daddy and what does he do?!? err, wait. never mind. I mean, why are YOU the best person for this job? (experience? good team? rich daddy who can't bring himself to pull the plug? what?)
I've worked at 3 companies that all had good exists (Amazon being two of them). My network is now made up of exceptional marketers and business people, and I've been trying to find an idea that would solve problems for us.
I'm a self-taught programmer, and after building a few ideas I've realized that:
1. To get my friends to use a product, they need an incentive -> cash is a great incentive
2. To get the people in my network to use a product, it needs to cater to our collective strengths -> I know a lot of marketing and business people.
3. Aiming for a unicorn startup is admirable but not realistic. But, if you can get to profitability quickly, then fundraising is secondary to the value that you're bringing to your users. If EliteGigs can allow my friends and I to make a couple thousand bucks a month just doing consulting calls, it would unlock new wealth for us, and then I can choose to raise or just keep it as a profitable side project.
So that's my idea. I'd appreciate any feedback on the idea, problems I'm not seeing, the fee structure, and if you'd be interested in using it!