Apply HN: Wantobuy – Post items you want so sellers can sell them to you

Problem: Within online trading forums, including Facebook Groups, users post what they want in the hope that sellers will get in touch and make the sale. Yet, these 'want to buy' posts aren't standardised or searchable so it's impossible for sellers to see your post and for you to get the items you need.

This issue is bigger than just online communities too, there's currently no central hub for people to post what they want to buy which is viewable to sellers.

Wantobuy: We're standardising 'want to buy' posts so that if you're selling something you can see who wants to buy it, how much they're willing to pay and then sell for the highest price. We're taking this one step further and once users post something they want we'll search top retail platforms (Amazon, eBay etc.) to see if it's already available online and show the user 'wheretobuy' it.

About us: Jack (21) and Sam (22) who have known each other for 11+ yrs and built stuff together in the past (Check out Spaces, which we got to 30th on the App Store without spending any money - http://needa.space). We're big on sneaker and streetwear Facebook groups (yes, we have camped out for sneakers a few times..) and so will target these first before scaling to further product categories. We're applying because we're determined to learn from the YC network, plus we're about to graduate so the money would massively help us survive whilst we build Wantobuy.

So far: Over the past few months, we've interviewed Facebook Group admins, given them a demo of the app to play with and received extremely useful feedback.

Any feedback, questions or comments would be super useful too!

As we already had all the tools, we thought it would be easy. The idea was to bring together many people who wanted to buy something and then try to negotiate a better price with the dealer. Neither worked. Do something with big scale is very complicated.

I think only two people negotiating could work. As proven by facebook groups that are horrible =). If you do something with a better UX, than the Facebook, and guarantees for both, I think will work.

Yeah, we're both in so many Facebook groups our newsfeeds are purely streetwear posts! As you say, the challenge comes when we want to get people onboard. The great thing is that these WTB posts already exist within the groups so I'm sure we can find a way of getting these on our platform in the beginning so we at least have the supply side of things covered. Yeah you're right, raffling a pair of Yeezy's would get everyone and their mum to download the app - something we'll look at down the line for sure.

I hear what you're saying about the website and we are looking to get something decent up before too long, however from talking to members, a growing number of people are using the Facebook Groups app to get their 'fix' of streetwear throughout the day, so an app would seem like the natural progression there. I do understand what you're saying and we'll certainly look into the desktop presence asap.

Great stuff, thanks again - I'll ping you an invite to test the app so far if you're interested?

1. Items you cant find anywhere - they may be rare or in limited quantities such as a pair of Nike Air Mag sneakers. In this case you'll be better placed to find your ideal product.

2. When you don't know exactly what product you want - people create 'want to buys' for generic items e.g. 'a black trucker hat'. This way, wtb posts can actually aid product discovery and make the whole shopping experience easier and less effort since sellers are coming to you and not the other way round!

Thanks!