Apply HN: WedWell - Vendors bid for your wedding

Some thoughts on your comments: 1. I don't necessarily think that our solution is for everyone. We're looking to find our little niche in the market where a couple is ok with forgo-ing some of the work involved with the planning process in the hope to save time and potentially money. It's not for everyone, the same way airbnb wasn't for everyone when it first came out. If we can unlock a small market, we think we can grow it. Time will tell!

2. Very similar issue here with vendors as well. We're looking at a niche vendor group at first. Ideally it's top notch vendors who need help getting the word out. Also will help if they are tech savvy and willing to respond quickly electronically.

3. We really like honeybook.com, we may consider using them until payments are fully built out. In terms of lock in, we're looking to get the clients to really work on the iteration back and forth with the vendors (in many silos) at the same time. The goal will be that they see the technology/payment/insurance/etc all integral to the process. It's ideally similar to the feeling you feel when you book an apartment with airbnb, sure.. you could just message the host through airbnb and try to pay them directly, but with the services they offer, it wouldn't make sense. We're still at an early stage, so yea.. it's a danger in the beginning.

4. We're brainstorming the many different monetization points possible. We may just lower the barriers as much as possible initially to find customers, then look to monetize more heavily when we have actual data.

Thanks for the thoughts here. Would love for you to check out wedwell.co and give the wedding brief a try (even just as a test). It's evolving over the next few days with feedback we've received here, but please do give it a try!

Furthermore, what incentive does a couple about to get married have for joining the platform? It sounds like they are somewhat locked into the vendors that come to them. I think you mention that they can cancel but then there is then no incentive for the couple to take it seriously. It turns into quote shopping instead of an actual marketplace.

I like the idea because this space is ripe for change. There is a lot of money flowing around and people who get married are confused about where is the best/most affordable/most reputable place to put it. I think if you can align the incentives on both side properly, this could be a real winner.

This one's tough because weddings are close to the hearts, wallets, and our natural discretion on nepotism.

Finding new couples each and every day is the most expensive thing about this business.

ThumbTack attempts to do something like this. As a super ghetto immature growth tactic to let wedding DJ's know about the app I was marketing, I "requested bids" in 47 states for a wedding that was priced high for the app's founders. The requirement for the DJ's was they had to download the app and go through a quiz on how it works.

Lots of reasons why this is a tough space, but primarily anyone bidding on weddings probably is of low quality. Tough decision/motivation matrix here. I'd graph it out on a whiteboard and talk to all players.

DJs, caterers, etc... good thing is they're all reachable to have conversations with and many are struggling to find consistent gigs.

Client acquisition in the couple space is also not easy. Once you acquire the customer, the value has to come with that one wedding. We've considering creating this as a vendor solution that reduces friction between the vendor and clients. Then we can acquire vendors, and work on vendor retention. We're still really early here, so we're doing a bunch of trial an error as we launch.

Thanks again