This will be like a couchsurfing for books or the catalog of hundreds of personal-libraries together, in places where there are no libraries or bookstores. This can later become what Amazon was at the beginning, a marketplace for books, that handles payments and shipping, but at the beginning, it will only be sharing.
Knowledge is key for development, and people know it. Thousands of people in developing countries are paying high amounts of money for private education. After Amazon and kindle, it may be weird for many of you to think about books, but they are still a reality, and will be for at least the next 10 years. They are particularly expensive in developing countries because they are printed somewhere else, so prices have extra shipping and import taxes on top.
Highly efficient database, just text (like Hacker News), will allow parents, college students, and professionals exchange books.
Business Model: Still working on it, but it will be for profit. (v1.0) Maybe subscriptions that will help the safety factor, plus selling advertisement. (v2.0)Online market place. Right now credit cards companies are being ridiculous in Guatemala so don´t know a way to work with them at the moment. We´d have to find another way to manage payments. A couple of Guatemalan payment startups are “starting” right now. Maybe we can work with them in the future
Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#2It may be weird for many of you to think about books, but they are still a reality, and will be for at least the next 10 years.
My hope (and my prediction) is that real (paper) books will prove to be far more resilient than people think at the moment, and will be with us far longer than that (albeit in somewhat limited volume compared to their current peak).
Either way, this sounds potentially awesome ways I don't quite have time to articulate right now. And the fact that you're starting out Guatemala, even more son.
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#3Cool idea, the importance of libraries can't be overstated. So it would be great to have an alternative to robust public library infrastructure in developing countries.
With that being say, you really need to hammer out how to create a sustainable business model. Just off the top of my head, the transaction cost is going to kill it before it get off the ground.
1. Who's going to pay for high shipping cost? (especially in developing countries where the infrastructure will cause you problems)
2. Who will pay for content cost? (cost of acquiring books not to mention later on acquiring users)
3. How will you build your margin on top of all that cost?
Until you "solve" these problems, I don't know if this is an investable idea.
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#4Cool idea, the importance of libraries can't be overstated. So it would be great to have an alternative to robust public library infrastructure in developing countries. With that being say, you really need to hammer out how to create a sustainable business model. Just off the top of my head, the transaction cost is going to kill it before it get off the ground. 1. Who's going to pay for high shipping cost? (especiall…
After thinking about it, it might be better to go with non-profit route. Get all books donated (ideally from first world where the donation can be apply to tax deduction). Network with church groups where they can pay for the initial shipping cost to your countries. This solves the cost of content acquisition.
Once you get hold of the books, add them to your market place and allow anyone to pick up the books for free. If someone else wants to read that book, they make a request on the market place then it's the responsibility of the current book holder to decide whoever is on that waitlist. Ideally someone close by and who has higher needs. This solves the problem of shipping cost since it's up to the users to share them amongst themselves. The market place keep track of the supply/demand and can make suggestions.
You can do more complicated interactions when the system has more users. Like if a remote village has need for a list of books and a user is scheduled to pass through that village. The marketplace can facilitate all nearby bookholders who have books on the waitlist for that village to give books to that person travelling.
By cutting out "all" of the transaction cost, you can focus on value added services where you can add margin (profit). For example, allow publishers to give out new books in circulation. Newspapers, political ads from politicians, ads flyers from local businesses etc. stuff that readers might want and don't mind sharing. If users don't want the ads/services, they can trash them. Otherwise, pass them on. Interesting way of measuring success of x campaign. Use the money you make from those services to buy more books and expand network or subsidize the network to reach more communities!
That would be a nonprofit that I won't mind donate to.
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#5slightly related: https://littlefreelibrary.org/
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#6How will you physically move the books? Many countries in your target market have unreliable and expensive postal systems, where packages are frequently "lost".
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#7How will you physically move the books? Many countries in your target market have unreliable and expensive postal systems, where packages are frequently "lost".
You are right, so we won´t ship them.
We´ll do regional groups, people will meet in used book stores (who will pay us to be centers), or their school/campus library.
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#8Cool idea, the importance of libraries can't be overstated. So it would be great to have an alternative to robust public library infrastructure in developing countries. With that being say, you really need to hammer out how to create a sustainable business model. Just off the top of my head, the transaction cost is going to kill it before it get off the ground. 1. Who's going to pay for high shipping cost? (especiall…
Really good, thank you.
Business model: monthly subscription to have access to database.
1. No shipping. Cities are often small, and highly dense. People´s cost of mobilizing (walking) to a meeting point is lower than the shipping cost.
2. I´ll never buy the books, they are owned by the users. They can exchange them, get them back later, or whatever their deal (Yeah, we know they will probably sell them for $ (I mean Q) but that´s not on us)
3. By having thousands of users pay $1 a month to get access to the info of the books of their neighbors, classmates, coworkers, etc who are actually just a few blocks from each other.
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#9So Johnny will find the book Harry Potter or certain math book he needs for school, which is owned by someone down the street. So he needs to contact the owner to meet him and get the book from him for free (or in exchange for another book). Johnny will have to pay us to get the owner´s contact info.
Re: Apply HN: Database of Used Books for Sharing (Developing Countries)
#10Cool idea, the importance of libraries can't be overstated. So it would be great to have an alternative to robust public library infrastructure in developing countries. With that being say, you really need to hammer out how to create a sustainable business model. Just off the top of my head, the transaction cost is going to kill it before it get off the ground. 1. Who's going to pay for high shipping cost? (especiall…
After thinking about it, it might be better to go with non-profit route. Get all books donated (ideally from first world where the donation can be apply to tax deduction). Network with church groups where they can pay for the initial shipping cost to your countries. This solves the cost of content acquisition. Once you get hold of the books, add them to your market place and allow anyone to pick up the books for free…
Couple of issues with that:
-Very few developed nations read in Spanish. Donation books in other languages are usually just trashed.
-Getting this huge amounts of books would be indeed crazy.
-So books will stay at owners homes. Because there are books in developing countries. We´re not necessarily looking into getting more. We just want to have them shared so they can all be read 10-20 times, instead of just 1 or 0 times.
Yes, I´ve been evaluating the non-profit way, especially because it could be easier to get donations, but I want it o be sustainable. Seems like everything that gets donation money becomes inefficient.