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Ask HN: What do I do?

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Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#11

Post by stuckk »

paulsutter wrote: post #10

The most important decision a startup makes is to choose your customer definition. It looks to me like you have chosen "anyone who sells anything on ebay" as your customer. The problem is, even if you could personally meet with each one of them, they'd probably still choose to list items on ebay because there are more buyers on ebay and they are likely to get a higher price. There are lots of ways you can go. None of…

I think you are 100% correct on going against eBay.

We don't want to do that even though it may look like it.

Through some research and suggestion of others. We found out that there are lots of transactions taking place on the internet on no particular platform. They are done on forums, Facebook, twitter(as Status update)..ect. The reason why they don't sell on eBay is because eBay takes too much time and has too much hassle and it's expensive. I used to be an online seller. But never on eBay. I used to flip websites and offer my services on various SEO forums. There are hundreds if not thousands of communities that sell their stuff in their own forum section. They do this because it's free, simple and quick. I agree that pulling people away from eBay only based on the simplicity and being free is going to be hard.

That's why we are open to pivoting to the particular category that might use our site the most. For example if the bitcoin community starts using Classfy more than others, we will become a bitcoin marketplace. If people start selling car parts on classfy then we will pivot to that category.

However I love the idea of becoming a front-end tool for eBay and mixing the results with listings on Classfy.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#12

Post by michael_fine »

stuckk wrote: post #11
paulsutter wrote: post #10

The most important decision a startup makes is to choose your customer definition. It looks to me like you have chosen "anyone who sells anything on ebay" as your customer. The problem is, even if you could personally meet with each one of them, they'd probably still choose to list items on ebay because there are more buyers on ebay and they are likely to get a higher price. There are lots of ways you can go. None of…

I think you are 100% correct on going against eBay. We don't want to do that even though it may look like it. Through some research and suggestion of others. We found out that there are lots of transactions taking place on the internet on no particular platform. They are done on forums, Facebook, twitter(as Status update)..ect. The reason why they don't sell on eBay is because eBay takes too much time and has too muc…

Have you considered making the community thing your only niche? For example you would have a way to embed a sales process entirely inside the forum. That's something I would use and find really cool

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#13

Post by kaolinite »

stuckk wrote: post #9
kaolinite wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I ever sell anything on eBay, I always do it through the mobile app because I've found the mobile app - even with the slower text entry - is so much faster to use. The regular web interface is utterly terrible. Just a thought, btw (not sure if you're already doing this, haven't tried to sell anything with you) - have you considered using a webcam plugin so people can add pictures for items via webcam? Both eBay an…

Thank You. That's a fantastic idea. I always found that it was kind of a hassle to take pictures then upload to my pc. Thank You. :)

No probs. This library is pretty good if you're using jQuery: http://www.xarg.org/project/jquery-webcam-plugin/

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#14

Post by stuckk »

michael_fine wrote: post #12
stuckk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are 100% correct on going against eBay. We don't want to do that even though it may look like it. Through some research and suggestion of others. We found out that there are lots of transactions taking place on the internet on no particular platform. They are done on forums, Facebook, twitter(as Status update)..ect. The reason why they don't sell on eBay is because eBay takes too much time and has too muc…

Have you considered making the community thing your only niche? For example you would have a way to embed a sales process entirely inside the forum. That's something I would use and find really cool

Yeah some very big forums already have this. But it's not very well executed. Example: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2429403

On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users.

I have added a reddit authentication system too.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#15

Post by stuckk »

michael_fine wrote: post #12
stuckk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are 100% correct on going against eBay. We don't want to do that even though it may look like it. Through some research and suggestion of others. We found out that there are lots of transactions taking place on the internet on no particular platform. They are done on forums, Facebook, twitter(as Status update)..ect. The reason why they don't sell on eBay is because eBay takes too much time and has too muc…

Have you considered making the community thing your only niche? For example you would have a way to embed a sales process entirely inside the forum. That's something I would use and find really cool

Yeah some very big forums already have this. But it's not very well executed. Example: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2429403

On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users.

I have added a reddit authentication system too.

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#16

Post by michael_fine »

stuckk wrote: post #14
michael_fine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered making the community thing your only niche? For example you would have a way to embed a sales process entirely inside the forum. That's something I would use and find really cool

Yeah some very big forums already have this. But it's not very well executed. Example: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2429403 On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users. I have added…

That's cool. Best of luck!

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#17

Post by dvdhsu »

stuckk wrote: post #14
michael_fine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered making the community thing your only niche? For example you would have a way to embed a sales process entirely inside the forum. That's something I would use and find really cool

Yeah some very big forums already have this. But it's not very well executed. Example: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2429403 On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users. I have added…

> On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users.

Pretend that I'm arn, running MacRumors. Why should I switch to your service?

My own "Marketplace" forum is working well. People who sell a lot on there have a reputation for not ripping others off. For those that are new, it's either caveat emptor or going through PayPal when something bad happens.

There's also Heatware already. It allows you to leave feedback for forum transactions. Your account is linked to all your forum accounts, so if you're new to one forum, but established in another, you have references. Here's my feedback page, for example:

http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?show=to&id=69703&nu...

They have around 70K registered users right now. If you want to displace them, it's going to be difficult (especially because people have momentum on Heatware already: they don't want to lose all their feedback to move to another system).

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#18

Post by stuckk »

dvdhsu wrote: post #17
stuckk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah some very big forums already have this. But it's not very well executed. Example: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2429403 On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users. I have added…

> On Classfy right now you can add your forum username and the url to your profile. There is no way to authenticate the user but if many members from a forum join and list with classfy. We will arrange something with the owner of the forum to authenticate the users. Pretend that I'm arn, running MacRumors. Why should I switch to your service? My own "Marketplace" forum is working well. People who sell a lot on there…

The users on Macrumors can list on Classfy and then post their link on their forum posting. Think of it like a image hosting. Many forums have their own attachment feature however people prefer to use image hosts. Also another reason why to post on Classfy is that their listing is visible to everyone on Classfy and Macrumors.. Mac rumors will get lots of traffic from this as the users will see that many of these Macbook related posts are from people from Macrumors forum.

Heatware is pretty good for feedback, if they facilitated transaction it would have been even better. We are not really trying facilitate feedback of every forum transaction only those that occur on Classfy. However we respect people's previous feedbacks and so You can add your heatware profile to your Classfy profile.

The problem is that launching any marketplace you are faced with the chicken and egg problem. To try and get passed this problem we have released this as more of an MVP. Maybe forum users wont embrace our site but another niche might. So we will pivot towards them. There are MANY niches that need their own marketplace but currently don't. Take a look at http://www.coalmineclassifieds.com/ there is also another one for Oil and Gas and agricultural. Innovation is not evenly spread out in many areas of tech the reason is developers innovate because they want to solve their own problems. How many Techies are familiar with enough with the coal industry in order to disrupt it with a marketplace only dedicated to coal. Which probably will be very lucrative

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#19

Post by stuckk »

kaolinite wrote: post #13
stuckk wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank You. That's a fantastic idea. I always found that it was kind of a hassle to take pictures then upload to my pc. Thank You. :)

No probs. This library is pretty good if you're using jQuery: http://www.xarg.org/project/jquery-webcam-plugin/

I actually found the exact same thing :)

Re: Ask HN: What do I do?

#20

Post by paulsutter »

stuckk wrote: post #11
paulsutter wrote: post #10

The most important decision a startup makes is to choose your customer definition. It looks to me like you have chosen "anyone who sells anything on ebay" as your customer. The problem is, even if you could personally meet with each one of them, they'd probably still choose to list items on ebay because there are more buyers on ebay and they are likely to get a higher price. There are lots of ways you can go. None of…

I think you are 100% correct on going against eBay. We don't want to do that even though it may look like it. Through some research and suggestion of others. We found out that there are lots of transactions taking place on the internet on no particular platform. They are done on forums, Facebook, twitter(as Status update)..ect. The reason why they don't sell on eBay is because eBay takes too much time and has too muc…

Great thinking all around!

- aggregating listings from across other sources / syndicated auctions is a cool idea. You probably still want a category focus. In the 90s, at one point the other dozen auction sites shared/exchanged their listings into one combined, shared set of listings, and eBay still killed them. But if you can choose a category, you can beat eBay.

- bit coin or other payment community, cool direction

- mixing in results from eBay is a great idea. Airbnb used craigslist listings to gain critical mass. Again, should work best within something narrow not broad

Good luck, you're going in the right direction

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