Startups

HireThings Speaks Back: An Update

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The creative guys behind the recently reviewed ‘HireThings’ were kind enough to answer some of the questions that came up and give us a sneeky peek into how they will be moving their already exciting business foreward…Thanks HireThings!

“Nahum Wild | hirethings.com | IP: 131.203.101.14

Hi Andrew, great article.

You’ve obviously done your research and flicked around our website. To answer some of your dislikes/questions:

We are in the process of pushing out the charging functionality in the next week or so which includes a couple of changes to our documentation on the site. The main change being that success fees for bookings will only be created two days after the booking has been completed. This gives the supplier time to update the booking with what actually happened – if it differs from the original agreement. For longer bookings we’ll actually charge a success fee two weeks into the booking and with longer terms we are investigating either a fixed rate or staggered success fees over the booking’s duration. We’ll be watching for people that always cancel their bookings too )

The administrative side is going to be a challenge, but I believe that we’re up to that and have the right people for the job. Controlling what is and isn’t on the site will set the mood for the whole concept, it’s a delicate balance of professionalism / business and community. Do we allow hugs or not? We’re still pondering that one.

Yes, obviously repeat customers bypassing the system once they and a supplier have made the initial contact could be a problem for us. Same type of issues that auction sites undoubtedly have. We plan to learn from them and offer a service with awesome value and features that keeps people coming back to and using the site.

Recently a fantastic User Interaction expert joined the team which we are very excited about as this allows the experience to jump up a notch, including tidying up some of the obvious clutter etc…

We’ve got heaps of cool additions planned, so watch this space!

Regards,

Nahum Wild
Development Manager
www.hirethings.co.nz“

++

If you would like to have your say or ask any questions, come along to the “Have Your Say” forum above.

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Startups

HireThings: A $350K Virtual Investment

1 Comment

Continuing on with online P2P hire theme, here’s a new one from New Zealand.  HireThings is a P2P rental marketplace across multiple categories spanning products, places and services that offers hourly, 4-hour, daily, week, and month rates.  HireThings has a nice ’look and feel’, and easy to use and intuitive interface.  Nice design & UI guys!  

Business Model:
HireThings has a nice and simple business model…if the item you put up for rent is rented by someone, you pay HireThings either a percentage or a percentage plus cash combination depending on the value of the hire.

Value of booking*     Proposed success fee (incl. GST)
Up to $100               5% of hire/rental fee charged. Min charge $0.50.
$100 – $250              $5 + 4% of hire fee over $100
$250 – $500              $11 + 3% of hire fee over $250
$500 – $1500            $18.50 + 2% of hire fee over $500
$1500 +                   $38.5 + 1% of hire fee over $1500.

Max fee per booking = $100.

In my opinion, simple and transparent business models are always the best and this one is nice and clean given that people only pay when they have secured a hire and make money themselves.  No speculation investment required. This should help adoption…oh yeah, and they do not seem to be getting involved in the visually distracting adsense model. Thanks Guys!

Some Core Functionality:

• Members can created a ‘trusted network’ and can choose to only offer items within that network or the broader full site network
• Listing, photo upload, multiple categories including services and place hire…
• Customers can view listing’s details and submit a quote or booking request
• The Hire Things website calculate an estimated cost for the booking
• Renters are notified by email of the new customer request, and can confirm or respond with a firmer quote.

Likes:
A nice and simple concept, business model and execution -

• I like HireThings UI and the clean, fun graphics – it was a simple site to figure out and use
• The ‘Trusted Network’ is a nice angle that could help adoption and friend referral
• If a person rents an item, the renter has the fee deducted from their topped up account – simple

Dislikes:
Not so much dislikes as potential ‘watchouts’ or concerns:

• If the fee is deducted from the topped up account when the transaction is confirmed, what happens if there are challenges with the rental? i.e. item not received, received but not functioning, item not returned, item returned broken – you get the idea. 
• Are any of the above challenges on HireThings to resolve? If so, hope they have a big admin staff…
• The ‘Trusted Network’ is a nice idea but assuming you add your ‘friends’ and ‘contacts’ to this network – why wouldn’t they just contact each other outside of the system and offer to lend them the articles without incurring the commission?
• Keeping the quality of the listings is going to be a challenge as this grows…for example, there is already a listing for “Soft or Hard Hugs” in the services section – now I like hugs as much of the next guy but to hire a 3rd party? Hummm….see that blue flashing light yet? Shame there’s no photo…

One little suggestion for the HireThings guys…the front page of items is hard on the brain given the range and categories of products meshed together…you may want to create a categorization or perhaps quick read icons for the different categories.

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would ask them to ‘Let’ me virtually invest $350K. 

http://www.hirethings.co.nz/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Startups

ILetYou: A $1M Virtual Investment (The First!)

3 Comments

ILetYou hasn’t even launched yet but this site is going to be HUGE! HUGE I tell you!!!! Cackle…Cackle!

What’s the basic idea?  People with DVDs and games at home set up their own ‘online rental stores’ and rent their own DVDs and games to others. The more people who sign up the more variety and eclectic the catalog becomes – I wouldn’t be surprised if you will ultimately be able to find DVDs and games here that you can’t find anywhere else but Ebay…plus the rental prices are less than Netflix etc…does anyone see an industry shift over the horizon?

Business Model:
ILetYou will let users set up their own online rental store and list DVDs and games for FREE.  Their business model is to charge a small slice of the transaction fee for each rental so in the 40 cents range.  Not huge but multiply that by 100,000+ rentals and this business becomes a cash cow overnight.  Not too hard to imagine if they have the referral/viral elements right.

What do they provide?  The platform, the credit card processing engine and the marketing – WOW! What a business! Wish I had thought of it!  Damn!

Some Core Functionality:

• Members can create their own online rental ‘store fronts’
• ILetYou handles credit card transactions
• Orders are passed through to the store ‘owners’
• …will need to see the site live to comment on the viral elements… 

Likes:
Like, Like, Like…what’s not to like?

• DVDs & games at cheaper prices than the ‘high street’ rental stores & mail to rental companies
• The ability to rent my own DVDs and games without selling them once at an Ebay or similar – ongoing revenue stream…wow!
• All the hassle of finding renters dealt with by someone else…double wow!
• Will likely result in a range of DVDs and games that I probably cannot find elsewhere
• And I can choose what I rent rather than making a list of my top 10 and being suprised according to what the other online rental companies have in stock…triple wow!

Dislikes:
The only itsy bitsy potential dislike is when I rent via ILetYou I’m dealing with an unknown vendor – I’m not to concerned about the quality of the DVDs being sent (although some may be), but I am concerned about the scenario where you get a DVD, watch it, send it back and start getting angry emails or whatever from a ‘scammer’ who complains the DVD is broken, its my fault and I need to pay for it.  May not happen but when you are dealing with individuals – you just never know.  Does ILetYou have an answer for that kind of scenario? Perhaps a guarantee or something? Don’t know but if they did, it may make the reticent dive in!

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would mail the whole amount to ILetYou tomorrow if they would take it! And they wouldn’t need to return it after a week either…what a business! BTW, this is my first $1M virtual investment! Congrats ILetYou! As if you care…you soon to be VERY wealthy guys!

http://www.iletyou.com/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Startups

ILikeTotallyLoveIt: A $100K Virtual Investment

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ILikeTotallyLoveIt is a new website where people post objects that they ‘Totally Love’ and include links to where the items can be purchased.  As the objects get voted on by members using a ‘Digg’ similar approach, the more popular items get moved to the front page. So its a popularity site for products people adore… 

Business Model:
The business model seems nice and simple for this new site – Google Ads and vertical banners served up on the right margin which seem relatively targeted to the twenty somethings that are posting the items that they ‘Totally Love’.  There is currently no fee for posting an item and believe or not, there are a few hundred items already posted.

Example:

Totally Loved

http://www.zappos.com

Converse All Star Deluxe Mary Jane Ox
posted by bdavies 16 hours ago view profile

A cute, cute Converse! These are a blend of the classic Chuck Taylor shoe and a traditional Mary Jane silhouette. These have leather uppers and an arch support.

Some Core Functionality:

• Product Voting – popular products move to main page 
• Multiple categories and price ranges
• Tell a Friend
• Comments on items
• Tags
• Trackbacks
• RSS feeds 

Likes:
This site is cute in that it brings ’design’ into the product mix and combines it with product recommendations and voting.   

Dislikes:
A few little dislikes:

1. TotallyLoveIt is a little messy from a design perspective but it is new so hey they’ll get there or perhaps that’s part of the charm. You decide.
2. The construction and set up of the site seems a bit too much like all the other ‘voting’ websites out there and it probably leverages Pligg software so there’s little real innovation.  It’s literally just found a nice little niche of young users who want to recommend, vote and sell items to others.
3. My key concern for this site is one of long term sustainability – is it adding enough value to stay around for years 2, 3 and onwards?  I think that depends on the founders and where they decide to take this site – right now, its cute but I don’t see alot of long term incremental value and the members will likely get bored after a few months. 

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would invest $100K as I only just ‘TotallyLoveIt”.

http://www.iliketotallyloveit.com/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Startups

Farecast: A $500K Virtual Investment

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Farecast is a new way of approaching online travel purchasing that could change how we all shop for online travel. This could be a real winner if they can get the average consumer to buy into the concept. 

It’s about time that there was some real innovation in the online travel space.  My personal experience when jumping between Expedia, Travelocity, Opodo and others is the difference is often marginal (a few bucks) and often a few bucks more expensive than going to the airline directly.  My established habit is to find the best flight using these online services and then to go direct to the airlines and buy the flight. Am I the norm here?

Anyway, Farecast analyses fare changes of airlines over a significant period to ‘predict’ what will happen with ticket prices between 75 airports and makes a 75% accurate (?) recommendation regarding what is likely to happen with that ticket price.  i.e. wait, or all time low – buy etc.

There are a number of elements and value adds to this site that I wouldn’t do justice to here. I recommend you check it out. But a few key points, Farecast covers the top airlines, can save you money, you book directly so keep frequent flyer miles that other sites take and there is no booking fee.  I good deal no?

Business Model:
As there are no FAQs within the Farecast site, it’s a little challenging to determine the exact long term business model.  What’s noticeable is there is a shortage of ‘advertising’ and there is no margin added to the purchase of airlines tickets as consumers buy them directly from the airline.

They may have relationships with the airlines which give them some kind of monetary benefits for tickets purchased , such as through an affiliate program but that is unclear. 

One neat and obvious revenue stream is what Farecast is calling Fare Guard – with Fare Guard you basically lock in the lowest price of an airline ticket between two locations for a week.  This pricing ‘hedging’ costs you $9.95.  Book your ticket with any airline at any price within the week and if there is a price increase against your locked in lowest rate, Farecast will give you a refund of the difference between the lowest price and your ‘guarded’ price.

Given many could purchase this ‘option’ and not exercise and many could purchase and the price may not increase, this is money for peace of mind and involves no outlay that I can see from Farecast.  Great business model no?  They may decide to take out ‘insurance’ which will cost a fee but I would be surprised given the quantity of deals they will be involved with…my guess is they have just run the numbers and believe they can make a decent margin.  They may well be right.

Some Core Functionality:

• Fare Prediction
• Arrow: An indicator showing the price ‘trend’ for the flights you are interested in.
• Confidence: A percentage based on Farecasts accuracy of predictions for flights of the kind you are evaluating.
• Average Fare Change.
• Buying Tip: Farecast’s recommendation which is supposedly 75% accurate.
• Fare Guard: The ability to pay $9.95 to lock in the price of the lowest priced ticket for this flight against a guarded rate.  This hedge mechanism will give you a check refund. See below for more details. 

Likes:
Any site which can give me some indication that I can wait 24 hours and save money is worth using.  It’s annoying to purchase a ticket to find the price has halved two weeks later, this may be the answer to that consumer frustration.

Fare Guard is also a great idea and I would even use it, especially for personal travel.

It’s nice and simple which is especially good given how complex it could be. 

Dislikes:
A few little dislikes:

1. Will the average ‘Joe’ or ‘Joanne’ use this site?  Given the average is often a pretty low common denominator – I still wonder if its a little complex for the ‘average’. (Hopefully they don’t read this blog ‘cos I’m not sure I could cope with the hate mail)
2. Business travelers are often price insensitive – they would prefer to buy the darn ticket then focus on the key business issues and emergencies.  If this is the case, Farecast may have to rely upon the occasional personal travel of the business user that has suddenly become more price sensitive, or the Joe’s and Joanne’s outlined above.  But, if they are regular business travelers, they will likely have significant air miles and may not be in the market for waiting around for price shifts.
3. Farecast has something special here – I almost expected the site to look quite different to get the message home…but it looks similar to all the rest.  I guess there’s a fine line to be walked between being and looking too different.

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would use $500K to predict Farecast’s success.

http://www.farecast.com/

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com

Startups

Cherrypicka: A $100K Virtual Investment

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CherryPicka is a very early stage South African site that has an innovative business model.  CherryPicka is an online new product showcase which allows customers to purchase and try new and recently launched products at a significant discount to the recommended retail price and encourages them to write reviews.

Business Model:
CherryPickas encourages companies with new products to offer a certain number of these products to CherryPicka for free, CherryPicka then adds a small percentage and in turn offers them to their membership to try and review.

In addition, CherryPicka intends to leverage banners ads and other forms of advertising as this site picks up traction.

A smart and interesting element to this is CherryPicka does not take ownership of these items but rather agrees the quantity of new products or services to be donated and then passes on the customer contact details directly to the companies.  Smart because it reduces their costs and also because the companies gain:

1)  A series of customer reviews online (creating buzz and links)
2)  The contact details of customers interested in their products

…at no cost aside from ‘donating’ a certain number of trial products that they would likely need to offer to start the buzz rolling through more traditional, perhaps less impactful channels.

Some Core Functionality:

• Each product has a dedicated page which ’showcases’ its uniqueness, selling messages. user reviews and link backs to the launching companies homepage
• Send to Friend functionality for each product, alongside the capability to review and find out more information
• RSS Feeds of new items so customers can be updated. Necessary as items seem to sell out quickly

Likes:
By offering deep discounts on new and innovative products the customers are getting a great deal. This should encourage the early adopters and first movers to try the products with little risk.  As they are getting a great deal, they should feel encouraged to review the item.

The companies are getting their products out to interested consumers and this can help provide the data they may need about customer acceptance to help secure new distribution channels – particularly useful for young service and product companies that are struggling to penetrate new retailers, catalog companies and so on.

The reviews are not controlled so they can be positive and negative – better negative comments are instantly seen by the manufacturers and inventors than a grass root negative campaign takes hold without their ability to consider the feedback, respond or change. 

Dislikes:
A few little dislikes:

1)  Great concept but mostly limited to South Africa – Anyone want to tackle other countries?
2)  As its new this could explain it but a significant number of the items are sold out
3)  More items required. Stay tuned, this seems to be because its a new site

My Virtual Investment:
With my virtual $1M, I would use $100K to pick CherryPicka.

http://www.cherrypicka.com/index.php

Andrew
Founder
http://www.AdvisorGarage.com