site:answers.google.com
After the first page, it's basically a list of old questions and answers -- so reading over the first hundred or so might give you a good idea of what the market is for this service.
YC: Please, criticize my startup!
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Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#12What do you plan to do differently from the likes of Google Answers that would allow you to deliver on the 60-minute timeframe more often than they did?
Mostly it's about delivering updates to people, who want to participate. Email notifications, IM, cell... Also it'd bring a spirit of a challenge, and so you'll have to hurry up and use your chance to answer the question and get some money. So this will motivate subscribers to check the site often (when they have spare time) or even have it a a home page or keep it sticky all the time.
Unless you're offering Jeopardy style prizes (or at least something worth paying attention to), I don't see how you'd get particularly well qualified answers in a short time period. Expertise isn't cheap, and expertise on call is downright expensive (when I was a consultant I charged an annual service fee just for the privilege of calling my cell phone number outside of business hours)...so if someone can make $100+/hour consulting with their expertise, or make $10 every few hours via your service, they're obviously going to spend more time consulting than sitting in front of their mailbox waiting for questions that match their expertise.
I'm not saying it can't be done effectively and profitably--it probably can. We used SitePoint for a logo contest recently and had a half dozen professional designers, and another couple dozen serious amateurs, who responded over the course of 10 days...the prize was $500, though, so not chump change. We were extremely happy with the resulting logo, and we all (designers included) had a lot of fun with the contest.
But you might consider focusing on a few niches to get started, and actually line up experts on retainer just to prove to people that you have a working system (we've seen Google, Yahoo, and a dozen also-rans come and go in this field...most people are not going to believe that a startup can make something work that all of the big names in internet tech have failed to deliver). I believe you're going to have to prove it, but I might be wrong...maybe you can just let it run and gather momentum slowly.
The other problem is that most of the high end questions and answers I've seen (the ones where you'll make your money) on similar services have been extremely vague and, in result, poorly answered. I got a strong feeling that the questioner probably wasn't going to be very satisfied with the answers. Quality is historically very low from these kinds of services, and it's hard for me to imagine how you'd solve that problem without a lot of (expensive) oversight.
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mostly it's about delivering updates to people, who want to participate. Email notifications, IM, cell... Also it'd bring a spirit of a challenge, and so you'll have to hurry up and use your chance to answer the question and get some money. So this will motivate subscribers to check the site often (when they have spare time) or even have it a a home page or keep it sticky all the time.
Unless you're offering Jeopardy style prizes (or at least something worth paying attention to), I don't see how you'd get particularly well qualified answers in a short time period. Expertise isn't cheap, and expertise on call is downright expensive (when I was a consultant I charged an annual service fee just for the privilege of calling my cell phone number outside of business hours)...so if someone can make $100+/…
I wasn't very clear with my point. We're not about professional services, but with something, which doesn't need a degree or special skills. Like choice between red or black shirt, one nightclub or another, how good is some idea, the best gift for the girlfriend, etc.
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#14site:answers.google.com After the first page, it's basically a list of old questions and answers -- so reading over the first hundred or so might give you a good idea of what the market is for this service.
That's not exactly what we're talking about. We're not questionary service, but instant and multiple answers. Instant, means, within very short period of time, like 60 minutes max. See my other comments. Thanks.
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#15Does your startup do anything that Amazon Mechanical Turk doesn't do? (may be yours does it better?)
That's the one which is really close. However, our main point to to provide multiple answers, but not a simple solutions. Besides, the Amazon's idea is not about instant answers, so there are not many chances to get your answer(s) within an hour after asking. And yes, I bet we can do it better. Just because we're more simple and easy and intuitive. More, speaking about Amazon's Turk, the price paid isn't relative to…
Wishing you all the best.
Just curious... which {language,framework,hosting}?
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#16My lack of knowledge of the market makes me feel that this is an idea in search of a market.
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the one which is really close. However, our main point to to provide multiple answers, but not a simple solutions. Besides, the Amazon's idea is not about instant answers, so there are not many chances to get your answer(s) within an hour after asking. And yes, I bet we can do it better. Just because we're more simple and easy and intuitive. More, speaking about Amazon's Turk, the price paid isn't relative to…
Wishing you all the best. Just curious... which {language,framework,hosting}?
We've got a dedicated server at ServerBeach, everything else is a typical LAMP. We've got enough skills with Java and Ruby, but PHP could be the best choice to bootstrap quickly.
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#18site:answers.google.com After the first page, it's basically a list of old questions and answers -- so reading over the first hundred or so might give you a good idea of what the market is for this service.
That's not exactly what we're talking about. We're not questionary service, but instant and multiple answers. Instant, means, within very short period of time, like 60 minutes max. See my other comments. Thanks.
Are questions that require quick answers different from Google Answers-style questions?
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not exactly what we're talking about. We're not questionary service, but instant and multiple answers. Instant, means, within very short period of time, like 60 minutes max. See my other comments. Thanks.
Are questions that require quick answers different from Google Answers-style questions?
Well, some of the will be different, some of them will be pretty similar to Google Answers' style.
Re: YC: Please, criticize my startup!
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are questions that require quick answers different from Google Answers-style questions?
Well, some of the will be different, some of them will be pretty similar to Google Answers' style.
You'll need to articulate your goals better if you're going to get funding or customers. So far, I know that it is like Google Answers, but not, because it is "Instant" (as in, it takes up to an hour) and has multiple answers (like other answer services).
It sounds like you're offering an answer service with a deadline, which is great, because now all you have to do is figure out what kind of questions people will ask, how to attract the people who can answer them, how to compensate everyone, and how to outcompete much larger rivals who can duplicate your entire product over their lunch break, while taking advantage of their existing network. Sounds pretty surefire!