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Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

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Re: Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#11

Post by mbesto »

http://sunshineny.com/

Copy+paste business model. My impression is that it's an extremely volatile model and market.

> A lot of us are freelance developers and working from home is not very effective,

Is it? How many people have you spoken to about this? Is enough of a problem that people are really willing to pay for it? Is it a big enough problem that freelancers are wanting to throw money at you to provide them this service? Isn't one competitive advantage of being a freelancer that your overhead is low (and thus a lower fee than agencies)?

Re: Ask HN: rate my idea - shared office finder

#12

Post by robfitz »

likewise wrote: post #7
robfitz wrote: post #4

I did customer development around a similar idea in London and discarded it. End users (desk seekers) want it, but it's a marketplace and the value proposition for desk sellers is more troubling. You get useful postings in 1 of 2 ways: * You keep the data fresh yourself * Office managers keep their own data fresh In the former case, you need to be making money to continue spending the time beyond its novelty period.…

Thanks for a great reply. You seem very systematic in your evaluation of the idea. Any tips of books i can read that teach me about this kind of process.

4 Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank did the trick for me, but a lot of people find it too detailed/boring.

There's an ebook at custdev.com that's meant to cover the same content in a more accessible way, but I don't think it's a good starting place since it assumes you have some knowledge about the concepts. Just googling around and digging into "customer development" is probably a safe starting point, and then grab Steve's book if it resonates w/ the way you think.

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