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Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#21

Post by stephenr »

nyclawyer wrote: post #20
stephenr wrote: post #18

Potential issues? What potential issues could there be with people running faux bars in their own home without a liquor license? Why not go all in. Run an app to let people invite strangers into their house and do major surgery/critical care on them. Call it AirAandE. After all the obvious evidence to the contrary, why do people think this "who needs laws what could go wrong" approach will work out?

The sassy tone is really not necessary. Also, airbnb's entire business is predicated on inviting strangers into your house. Do you have anything else?

(A) Airbnb is the poster child for "fuck the law I do what I want"; it's becoming increasingly obvious to people that it's a really good way to have a shitty time. If you want to emulate that business model, it says a lot about your priorities.

(B) Airbnb "hosts" don't invite people and then serve them alcohol. There's no way this brilliant idea doesn't run afoul of liquor laws.

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#22

Post by al_borland »

What would differentiate this from renting an AirBnB and inviting people over? Assuming I don’t want random strangers crashing my party.

I mentioned AirBnB, but a lot of them now explicitly state “no parties.” I’m sure this wasn’t without having some bad experiences. Don’t imagine people like you using the service, imagine the people who are trashing hotel rooms. What will the cleaning fees be like? If events are posted publicly, who is liable for damage when randoms show up? I’m picturing these places looking like college rentals after a short period of time. Too many rules to guard against this kind of thing and people will get too worried to have any fun.

When parties get out of hand, how would that be handled? Private security? The police?

I could see buildings, or cities banning this pretty quickly.

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#23

Post by nyclawyer »

stephenr wrote: post #21
nyclawyer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sassy tone is really not necessary. Also, airbnb's entire business is predicated on inviting strangers into your house. Do you have anything else?

(A) Airbnb is the poster child for "fuck the law I do what I want"; it's becoming increasingly obvious to people that it's a really good way to have a shitty time. If you want to emulate that business model, it says a lot about your priorities. (B) Airbnb "hosts" don't invite people and then serve them alcohol. There's no way this brilliant idea doesn't run afoul of liquor laws.

I think its clear you didn't read the entire post. But thank you for your contribution.

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#24

Post by nyclawyer »

al_borland wrote: post #22

What would differentiate this from renting an AirBnB and inviting people over? Assuming I don’t want random strangers crashing my party. I mentioned AirBnB, but a lot of them now explicitly state “no parties.” I’m sure this wasn’t without having some bad experiences. Don’t imagine people like you using the service, imagine the people who are trashing hotel rooms. What will the cleaning fees be like? If events are pos…

I think your right - hosting parties could present various issues i.e. building restrictions, HOA rules etc. But do think it could work if the event is not necessarily a party? Say for instance your a suburban mom and your looking for a play date for your kids for Friday afternoon. You hop on the app and you can see which families are hosting a play date on Friday. Think of it as an app that tells you in real time what events are happening in either your immediate vicinity or a specific area of interest.

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#25

Post by al_borland »

nyclawyer wrote: post #24
al_borland wrote: post #22

What would differentiate this from renting an AirBnB and inviting people over? Assuming I don’t want random strangers crashing my party. I mentioned AirBnB, but a lot of them now explicitly state “no parties.” I’m sure this wasn’t without having some bad experiences. Don’t imagine people like you using the service, imagine the people who are trashing hotel rooms. What will the cleaning fees be like? If events are pos…

I think your right - hosting parties could present various issues i.e. building restrictions, HOA rules etc. But do think it could work if the event is not necessarily a party? Say for instance your a suburban mom and your looking for a play date for your kids for Friday afternoon. You hop on the app and you can see which families are hosting a play date on Friday. Think of it as an app that tells you in real time wh…

I’m not a parent, so I can’t speak too much to that. Though my first reaction is that a lot of parents are too protective to want play dates posted online for anyone to show up to.

If you had nicer homes signed up, I could see MLM people renting them out to host their gatherings to sell whatever it is they are selling… if it would be financially viable. I think that community has a lot of fake it till you make it attitude.

I wonder if garages or workshops would be an option. Some cities have maker spaces, for people who need some tools or space, but don’t have access to a shop or the money to buy a bunch of tool. Being able to find a nearby neighbor who has some tools and some space to build a one off thing could be interesting.

If specifically looking for things where events are posted and public, I think it then starts crossing into the Meetup space. More recently when I browse that site it seems more and more meetups require membership and are limited in the number of people that can sign up. I think this is inevitable, as few places can handle an unlimited number of people, and they want to keep out the creeps and weirdos.

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#27

Post by sky2224 »

Addressing the bar kind of scene you're talking about: I just don't think it'd work for those that are of the legal age to drink (speaking from the US perspective). People go to bars/clubs for the intense environment of people getting drunk, dancing, etc. For the people that want something more chill, they just go to a more mellow dive bar.

But most of all, there's not much of a plan when going out for a lot of people. Friends will get together and say, "let's go to the bar" and the night goes from there. With your idea, there's a requirement of finding a location, scheduling a location, renting out that location. Oops, double booked? Night ruined.

I think overall this idea gets really dicey when there's a service other than renting out the space to a customer. And if all you're doing is renting the space, why wouldn't I just use airbnb?

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#28

Post by fragmede »

sky2224 wrote: post #27

Addressing the bar kind of scene you're talking about: I just don't think it'd work for those that are of the legal age to drink (speaking from the US perspective). People go to bars/clubs for the intense environment of people getting drunk, dancing, etc. For the people that want something more chill, they just go to a more mellow dive bar. But most of all, there's not much of a plan when going out for a lot of peopl…

YMMV but AirBnB explicitly doesn't want your business if you want to host a party/event type of gathering and will kick you (guest and/or host) off the platform for it.

https://news.airbnb.com/official-codification-of-party-ban/

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3345

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#29

Post by fragmede »

AirBnB kicked overnight parties off their platform because they disturbed neighbors, property damaged, items stolen, neighbors calling the cops. The problem with small groups is they can still do that on airbnb, so why would they use your platform other than cost - except you need to monetize somehow as well.

There's an established warehouse rave party scene. Connect with them and work those parties for long enough to gain experience with the with involved and the various failure modes that they deal with before jumping in.

The idea of profiles isn't enough because you can kick people off the platform once they misbehave, but by then the damage is done. And who knows who really stole the laptop that was in the locked closet, anyway?

That's not to say don't do it. it's totally a niche in the market since airbnb had to shutdown party hosting places on their platform, but you're gonna need insurance, experienced people from the underground party scene, and enough money to fund this without profit for longer than you think.

You'll want bouncers of it's open invite to randos, plus a team of cleaners who specialize in post-event cleanup on call.

Parents are a specific niche that this might work for, although finding a babysitter that the parents will trust could be a challenge.

Re: Is this an idea worth pursuing or not?

#30

Post by arch-ninja »

I love the idea! It combines social-network capabilities with in-person hangouts. Let me know if you need a C++/Rust/Zig developer for backend work. The required infrastructure sounds simple to build if you outsource payment processing. The most complex component will be a reputation system.
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