Hello guys,
I just stumbled on this subreddit and wanted to have my idea roasted. I will try and keep it simple.
This idea is to create a marketplace platform for connecting people getting married as well as wedding vendors.
Pain points:
I thought of this idea while trying to get my own wedding planned. I found that it was a very...manual process. For example, let's say I need to find a photographer for my wedding day. I Google or Yelp "photographer in 12345" and beginning searching through results. After finding 10 photographers off the bat that have 4-5 stars, I go to their websites and look through their portfolios, which are showcased on their site, on Yelp, and on Facebook usually. Going through their ratings and style, I narrow it down to 5 and reach out to them via email. After making sure that they are available, I narrow it down to 3. Between these three, we discuss pricing and what they do and what makes them different. Finally, after crunching numbers and making sure I agree their terms are in our mutual favor (i.e. some photographers will not release the rights to all pictures unless you pay more), I book one. At any point in this process, if any of those photographers are not available, is out of my budget, or something else happens, I need to search and find more, starting the process for each individual photographer over again. Multiply this by all the other vendors that may be needed - venue, caterer, decorator, day-of coordinator, etc. - the process takes a long time and can be hard to organize (since most of the initial communication is done via email and phone).
The idea:
This site/service would focus on simplifying and organizing the process described above. I wanted to create a platform similar to Guru.com or Odesk/Upwork: you can create a profile for yourself and your spouse, search for vendors on this platform based on your criteria/requirements (e.g. respective descriptors and filters), and keep all your communication and research in one place. On the vendor side, you can create your company profile and link to your portfolio, social media, and describe why people should use your service. Vendors will also be able to manage their customers with this platform - payments, calendar, communication, and more. Another piece I wanted to include was a "RFP" tool for end-users, where they can tell vendors about their ideas and what they're looking for, and vendors (within that geographic location for example) can respond to with their services. I think this would be a good way to showcase and drive business for newer vendors and companies; it would also help end users who are struggling to pinpoint and describe what they want, especially if they don't have any ideas.
Monetizing:
I haven't thought about this a lot yet, since monetizing would be secondary to getting people to use the site. But similar to most of these type of services, I would charge the vendor a "service" fee for bookings made through the platform. To incentivize the end-users to book their vendors through this site, I would include some sort of insurance clause - i.e. we will cover you in case your vendor cancels or an emergency happens. The expansion of this idea to other items is possible, such as booking or managing a corporate or marketing event.
Well...there you have it, I tried to keep it short. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading, please roast my idea!
The product - wedding planning platform
The market - wedding market is $80B alone
Product analysis - there are other sites that do some portions of this idea, i.e. GigSalad, Wedding-Spot, smaller search aggregator sites you can find via Google (ex. "find local photographers").
What stage are you in? - Planning and idea stage.
Customer conversion strategy - Still working on how to find them - SEO, marketing, blog, etc. This would be free for end-users; there will be a service fee taken from booking vendors.
Why you? Why are YOU the best person for this job? - I just went through planning a wedding, and this was my biggest challenge and pain point.
I just stumbled on this subreddit and wanted to have my idea roasted. I will try and keep it simple.
This idea is to create a marketplace platform for connecting people getting married as well as wedding vendors.
Pain points:
I thought of this idea while trying to get my own wedding planned. I found that it was a very...manual process. For example, let's say I need to find a photographer for my wedding day. I Google or Yelp "photographer in 12345" and beginning searching through results. After finding 10 photographers off the bat that have 4-5 stars, I go to their websites and look through their portfolios, which are showcased on their site, on Yelp, and on Facebook usually. Going through their ratings and style, I narrow it down to 5 and reach out to them via email. After making sure that they are available, I narrow it down to 3. Between these three, we discuss pricing and what they do and what makes them different. Finally, after crunching numbers and making sure I agree their terms are in our mutual favor (i.e. some photographers will not release the rights to all pictures unless you pay more), I book one. At any point in this process, if any of those photographers are not available, is out of my budget, or something else happens, I need to search and find more, starting the process for each individual photographer over again. Multiply this by all the other vendors that may be needed - venue, caterer, decorator, day-of coordinator, etc. - the process takes a long time and can be hard to organize (since most of the initial communication is done via email and phone).
The idea:
This site/service would focus on simplifying and organizing the process described above. I wanted to create a platform similar to Guru.com or Odesk/Upwork: you can create a profile for yourself and your spouse, search for vendors on this platform based on your criteria/requirements (e.g. respective descriptors and filters), and keep all your communication and research in one place. On the vendor side, you can create your company profile and link to your portfolio, social media, and describe why people should use your service. Vendors will also be able to manage their customers with this platform - payments, calendar, communication, and more. Another piece I wanted to include was a "RFP" tool for end-users, where they can tell vendors about their ideas and what they're looking for, and vendors (within that geographic location for example) can respond to with their services. I think this would be a good way to showcase and drive business for newer vendors and companies; it would also help end users who are struggling to pinpoint and describe what they want, especially if they don't have any ideas.
Monetizing:
I haven't thought about this a lot yet, since monetizing would be secondary to getting people to use the site. But similar to most of these type of services, I would charge the vendor a "service" fee for bookings made through the platform. To incentivize the end-users to book their vendors through this site, I would include some sort of insurance clause - i.e. we will cover you in case your vendor cancels or an emergency happens. The expansion of this idea to other items is possible, such as booking or managing a corporate or marketing event.
Well...there you have it, I tried to keep it short. Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for reading, please roast my idea!
The product - wedding planning platform
The market - wedding market is $80B alone
Product analysis - there are other sites that do some portions of this idea, i.e. GigSalad, Wedding-Spot, smaller search aggregator sites you can find via Google (ex. "find local photographers").
What stage are you in? - Planning and idea stage.
Customer conversion strategy - Still working on how to find them - SEO, marketing, blog, etc. This would be free for end-users; there will be a service fee taken from booking vendors.
Why you? Why are YOU the best person for this job? - I just went through planning a wedding, and this was my biggest challenge and pain point.